The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society announces the beginning of a major fundraising effort to cover the cost of upgrading a significant component of vintage steam locomotive Nickel Plate Road no. 765, a fully restored and operating 1944-built steam locomotive that was once on display in Fort Wayne’s Lawton Park before being removed and restored between 1974 and 1979 in the first locomotive preservation movement of its kind in the world for public enjoyment.

In a move to prepare the locomotive for high speed mainline passenger excursion service around the midwest, the FWRHS is converting the journal or “friction” bearing trucks of the locomotive tender to modern roller bearing wheel sets. Roller bearing wheels are more reliable and efficient and are standard in the railroad industry today.

This upgrade, historically enacted by the Nickel Plate Railroad in the 1950s on a number of their steam locomotives, expedites ferry moves on host railroads, eases engine maintenance, and makes the 765 a formidable machine, capable of meeting and exceeding railroad regulations and aides the Society in pursuing a broad spectrum of operations for public operation and exhibition.

This upgrade will cost over $60,000 and funds must be raised to meet deadlines to propose and secure operating plans that could see the engine operate in Indiana, Michigan, or Illinois and other states. Donations are tax deductible and may be made by mail or online at http://www.fortwaynerailroad.org. As a non-profit, all volunteer organization, members of the public are encouraged to join in the process of railroad preservation as the Society moves to save, preserve and exhibit significant items from Fort Wayne’s industrious railroad history.

Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society
PO Box 11017
Fort Wayne, Indiana
46855

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For more information on the FWRHS or Nickel Plate Road no. 765, contact Secretary Kelly Lynch at kelly@765.org. The FWRHS is also on Twitter @ftwaynerailroad, @nickelplate765, and on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Fort-Wayne-Railroad-Historical-Society/191711112882

The entire press release can be downloaded here: http://www.765.org/News/Entries/2010/2/ ... unced.html

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Editorial side note, even if you're not tuned into one of these networking sites like Twitter or Facebook, you may have kids or family members who are plugged in and who can be encouraged to seek out your railroad specific interest of choice. What better way to pass the torch or make railroad/preservation relevant than to make sure it pops up in the younger generations' newsfeeds, on their cell phones, in their cereals, etc...

they were chatting about this on the NKP group, now they made it ofishial.

I have a Brass berk and it has roller bearings on its tender. They are going to keep the friction journal boxes intact and mod the trucks.

Not unless you want to swap trucks with 779, I doubt that will happen.

better to mod it with current up to date parts.

I can't help but wonder--and I know some others here wonder too--if a certain batch of roller bearings on a certain Milwaukee Road tender would work for this, IF said engine no longer finds itself employed in the manner that it once was.............

Similar possibilities were indeed explored, but it was ultimately deemed more acceptable to fortify the work with new parts and components by a reputable railroad wheel set manufacturer rather than by retrofitting or jerry-rigging comparable parts. In one case, the cost of transportation and modification of existing roller bearing Buckeye wheel sets was projected to cost very nearly the same amount, if not be somewhat more troublesome overall.

ORX out of Tipton, Pennsylvania will be charged with the new roller bearing upgrades, with necessary prep work and installation by the FWRHS.

http://www.orxrail.com/

KL

I've always wondered how one goes about converting friction bearings to roller bearings, this day in age. Are you going to be documenting the process as it happens?

Will the trailer axles be converted also?

Have to say I'm a bit puzzed about the conversion of the tender journals though. The whole concept of a steam locomotive operating over a modern Class One/Class Two railroad is outside the norm of UMLER interchange-acceptable equipment anyway-- if a railroad accepts the steam locomotive, why would they have a concern about plain bearings under (part) of said locomotive?

Historical note: the W&LE 2-8-4s were delivered with Timken RBs on the tender and trailer axles (Timken was a good on-line W&LE customer). As the W&LE engines were retired by NKP, some of the tender trucks were applied to NKP 700s. I think 763 was one of them.

Howard P.

Sort of related to the above post: is there a railroad or an operator that is requiring roller bearings on the tender trucks? Or is this repair being done to make operation more reliable, or to replace worn-out bearings?

Chris.

Some Class I railroads will not accept roller bearing that are "hidden" inside older journal boxes. The thinking is that a bearing heating up will be masked for a while by the mass of the surrounding journal box casting. Since those castings on a pair of Buckeye 6 wheel trucks are quite massive, I wonder how the 765 folks (and others so impacted) will deal with this issue. Rollers are a great thing, but when they do decide to go bad, they go from really good to really bad really quick.

Yes.



That's correct, 763 is one of the surviving examples. The press release in full makes note of the historical precedent. And no, the engine truck will be equipped with temperature monitors at this time. The work is further detailed on the website. Additionally, the rollers will be exposed and not masked.



Railroads may accept plain bearing motive power, but that doesn't mean they'll let it run at track speed.

For the benefit of our community, who are the railroads that require roller bearings to run at track speed? And if the trailing truck will still use friction bearings how does this help the situation? I ask as there are several old chestnuts people spend a lot of time chasing down, and there is a lot of misinformation out there about, in the excursion business. Issues related to friction vs. plain bearings is a big one (along with liability insurance, interchange, retention toilets, etc.) and any clarity that could be added would help.

Does this work need to be done before the engine operates in 2010?

Chris.

Simply put roller bearings have reduced friction, better time/life in operation.
It should extend 765's operationality. I sure don't want to see a wrecked overheated friction bearing, but I think the crews take a lot better care of the engine than your average run down old steamer.

They should look over doing the trailing trucks if funds allow.

Greatly reduced starting resistance. That may not hold true for running resistance. And of course and most importantly a far lower failure rate.

Steve

763 does have roller bearing tender trucks from a W&LE Berk.

BTW- were the trailing axles on 765 ever converted to roller bearings? I worked for the N&W in Bellevue, OH in 1982 (?) when the 765 was leased by the Southern Railway to fill in for the ailing 2716. Because the two railways had already officially merged, we were told to use N&W shop forces to assist in getting 765 ready to move. General foreman (and former NKP machinist) Clarence Williams went over the engine with a fine toothed comb and came up with a list of required repairs. Several things that Fort Wayne had been "getting by" with in excursion service on the N&W were deemed unfit for a ~1000 mile ferry move and full summer of excursion operations.

The rear axle journals were a little questionable as they'd picked up some light corrosion spots at some point and tended to run warm. I supervised dropping both rear axles so they could be trucked to a GE shop in Cleveland (we didn't have an axle lathe in Bellevue) to re-finish the journals. Clarence later told me that GE said they could have converted both axles to Timken roller bearings for considerably less than the cost of turning the journals and supplying new brasses!

Hello,

Per Kelly's last post, since there are plans to add temperature monitors to the trailing trucks, are they looking at putting monitors on the main axle bearings? Data monitoring and aquistion equipment is getting pretty reasonable in cost and would put modern technology to good use......married with old plain bearing journals.

Per David's comments, modern freight trucks have the entire lower half of the outer bearing race exposed for ready check by hot box detectors. I imagine these detectors would have a much harder time measuring through a heavy cast steel shell.

As for you main line excursion operators out there, do steam locomotives still set off hot box detectors from the firbox heat or is that issue a thing of the past? Just curious.

It would be good to see the 765 stretch her legs again and of course to hear that 6-chime whistle. When I was a kid I had recordings of the NKP's whistle...it ranks right up there, but the #1 for me still is the Reading 6-chime passenger whistle.......of course the best sound ......is at speed.

Regards,

Randy

Yes - monitors will also be wired to the mains. These will feed back to a digital readout in the cab.



Firebox heat and heat from the cylinders usually do the trick.

And as to your question, Chris -- it's not a necessity per se, especially if we only operate on another regional or short line, but we are looking ahead at streamlining the operation of the 765 on any Class 1 in an attempt to close the gap between modern railroading and vintage locomotive operation. One less thing for the railroads to worry about or question is one more bit of comfort.

It's my hope to detail the temperature monitor application and the conversion thoroughly as we progress.

KL