Tired of getting your fingers crushed while trying to wrestle with a cumbersome drawbar pin? Well those days are over! We came up with a nifty solution to the problem of fighting with draw bar pins:

http://www.trainweb.org/j.dimech/journal/101007.html

Neat idea Joe, something that should have been thought of when they were in service..

I like it too.

Its'; simple, clean, does no harm, and has great benifit too.

I have a nagging suspicion that there's a reason it wasn't done in service. To wit: does the attachment of that eyebolt (drilling or welding) compromise in any way the integrity of the pin? Will the pin still function were your locomotive returned to service?

Of course, if this little performance was brought to you via a sponsorship deal with Krazy Glue, feel free to ignore me. <:-)

I can think of two reasons why this wasn't done in the steam era:

1. The railroad mentality of "We've always done it that way."

2. The OTHER railroad mentality of "Go get a bigger hammer."

As for harm to the "original fabric" I've long held that while authenticity is nice, sometimes it's better to do a little thinking and especially to employ modern materials and practices when that provides an increase in safety, longevity, or practicality AND is "Not visually obvious." (My favorite expression for the occasion.)

Will some purist at a time in the future throw a fit over that nut welded to the end of the pin? Perhaps, but in the meantime I'll laude the guys in Guelph for their thinking "outside the (railroad) box." Neat idea, guys.

;-)

We welded a 3/4" nut to the pin, then screwed the eye bolt on. No drilling was required.

I wouldn't think that that little bit of welding would have a major impact on the pin, and if it did, the pin likely has other problems anyway, including the effects of 43 years of being outdoors and submerged in wet coal dust, plus for all we know the pin(s) and drawbars could have been in need of attention when the engine was retired.

Besides, technically we borrowed this idea from the people who look after 6060. There is a photo on their website of them lifting the tender drawbar pin out using an eye bolt attached to the pin.

And this is definately much safer. Two years ago while handling 6213's drawbar pin, it slipped out of iney and my comrades hands and fell on his finger. It took the nail clean off.

Would there be a safety or weakness issue if new pins were made with threaded holes, or a lifting ring, as part of the manufacturing process?

A small threaded hole through the end of one of these pins shouldn't cause enough weakening to even approach the point of safety concerns, but if one was worried about it, a new pin, extra long, could be turned with either a shallow threaded hole or an "ear" with a through hole machined beyond the original pin's length.

The welded nut would create some localized heating but it shouldn't affect the pin's strength.

If in doubt discuss with a mechanical engineer and get stamped drawings...sarcasm intended...

Steve Hunter
RMEO

Now lets remember everyone that we are discussing a drawbar pin on a display locomotive that has just been moved to ANOTHER piece of disconnected track. By the time anyone even looks at that pin again the forces of nature will have rusted that nut clean off of this locomotive.

Also, any true mechanic who has actually gotten his hands dirty working on machinery for any length of time knows enough to not even second guess the welding of a nut or tapping of a hole in a drawbar pin. If you need an engineer to tell you if that is OK to do well then don't get out from behind that desk, you don't belong anywhere near machinery. If you have been working with machinery for any length of time and still don't know if this is OK, then I have to ask, were you paying attention?

[quote=Also, any true mechanic who has actually gotten his hands dirty working on machinery for any length of time knows enough to not even second guess the welding of a nut or tapping of a hole in a drawbar pin. If you need an engineer to tell you if that is OK to do well then don't get out from behind that desk, you don't belong anywhere near machinery. If you have been working with machinery for any length of time and still don't know if this is OK, then I have to ask, were you paying attention?[/quote]
I think the point is that a good many of the people working to preserve these locomotives today may not be "true mechanics". At least there are people out there who are forward-thinking enough to make preventative maintenance to equipment. So, I think this is a valid question. Otherwise, I don't think the question would have been posed in the first place.
IMHO, I think a tap would be a good idea. Wwhen fabricating a new drawbar, making an allowance for a tapped hole would be smart. The issue would be the hole filling with dust, garbage, and rust while the engine was in service. So install a threaded plug in the tap after the pin is installed to prevent it from filling with said garbage.

OK, now I'm lost. A tap is a tool used to cut threads inside a hole. Assuming you dod something like that, you wouldn't leave it in place after the job was done.

Let's assume a threaded hole was installed in the top of the drawbar pin by a legitimate mechanic. To protect it, all you need do is liberally coat a bolt the same size with antisieze and run in into the hole. To add suspenders to the belt, glop a wad of grease over the top of the whole bolt head.

To remove the pin in the future - and, BTW, before installing the pin cover it with antisieze as well - chip off the by now hard grease, remove the bolt, screw in an eyebolt and haul up on it with a jack of some sort. If the tender has moved and bound the pin, it may need a bit of jiggling.

Not rocket science, as Rick mentions above. Let's not overthink this.

BTW, if you examine the top head of cross compound air pumps, you will find a threaded hole made for a lifting eye new from the factory.

dave

Sorry Dave,
I substituted the term "tap" for threaded hole in my rush to finish the post before leaving the house this afternoon. Yes, using a tap would result in a threaded hole. The ideas you developed in your post were the same that I was thinking about.

Thanks for clarifying,
Stephen

Neat Idea, simple, it makes life simpler and safer and practically nobody can see it.

I do think people are over thinking this a bit regarding the effects on the strength of the pin. We need to remember that when these machines were designed the modern computer analysis tools used today did not exist. A simple calculation of the maximum expected force multiplied by a safety factor (actual strength/needed strength) of about 10 or 20 was probably done. I call this the “Panzer School of Design”, if you think you need 1 inch of steel, better use 6 inches just to be sure. Modern Aircraft designs use safety factors of about 2-3, spacecraft (where reducing weight is paramount to a successful mission) sometimes run at 1.5, or less.

So go forth with no sleepless nights about the strength of your drawbar pin, assuming the lack of other flaws you will be fine.

On one I restoration I did the original placement of the gasoline tank was about two feet in front of the operator’s face. Not unexpected on a circa 1920’s locomotive which used gravity feed since reliable inexpensive gasoline pumps did not exist yet. Our solution; paint and install the original gas tank as a faux fuel source, and “hide” a modern gasoline tank with a fuel pump where you could not see it. Did we “violate” the “original fabric”? hell yes! Do we feel safer operating the loco ? hell yes !

Cheers, Kevin.