Mr. Rowland:

NKP 759 has been a steam engine I've long been entranced with ever since reading of her in Don Ball Jr.'s book Railroads: An American Journey when I was a kid.

What inspired you to choose NKP 759 for use with your High Iron Company?

Basicly it was our desire to have an engine capable of hauling a large ( 18-20 cars) train at mainline speeds reliably.

Nelson Blount was strongly in favor of seeing her return to service and we struck handshake deal.

When Nelson died the new director wanted to substantially change the deal so we returned her to Steamtown. Unfortunately she was soon thereafter allowed to freeze up and thus ended her active life.

Sad but true.

Ross Rowland

On a positive note, while engaged in the remediation project at steamtown we had the opportunity to look over the locomotive for "freeze damage". We found nothing in damage to the cylinders/passages nor to the boiler. It would seem the damage occurred to the feed water appliances which were later swapped out with those from the 773(IIRC). The locomotive number of the donor locomotive is written in paint pen on the joint rings for the hot water pump.

Was there damage? Yes! Have corrective measures already been taken to fix said damage? OH YES!

Cheers, Jason

Indeed, as I have read several posts (here and elsewhere) stating that the aforementioned freeze damage was corrected, and the locomotive was successfully fired up after said work was done.

FNB died in late summer (August?) 1967. 759 rolled out of Bellows Falls in early 1968, and operated for HICo from Sept 68 until Aug 71. Which SF director changed the deal ?

I seem to recall that there was some freeze damage to some of the superheater units.

759 and her time with HICo was simply amazing and extraordinary.... it occured in another time and place, and those of us lucky enough to see it were most fortunate!!

Howard P.

So, assuming somebody wanted to see her fired again, perhaps to get 759, 763, & 765, together again for chastened CSX's rail heritage steam event*, what would be required to breath life into her? Seems like a well conditioned locomotive at the waiting.

*Complete fabrication, ain't happening, don't sweat it, I made it up.

CSX? I thought NKP was absorbed into NS.

I've heard all she needs is new tubes and flues and a major overall. I don't believe they found any major issues when they inspected her during the asbestos abatement.

super heaters are simply tubes running into the flues, its all replaceable, 765 pretty much on original restoration had them repaired where necessary replaced where necessary. Other issues would be feedwater pumps, anything that might be waterfilled.
If no metal stress on the boiler, it should be ok. These boilers have to hold large pressures, you would think a water freeze it could stand up to. Theres would be no standing water filling the cylinders, residue, maybe. Sounds all fixable to me, even if the boiler was stressed, you can find those and fixable, especially with todays technology.

If anything you would want to run it thru a full overhaul like 765 did on its 2nd restoration. 13 years, but yeah, better engine than when it came out from Lima.

The 59 needs SUBSTANTIALLY less than the 65 did.

Cheers, Jason

More on the freeze history and current status of NKP 759 is posted here:

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30001&p=146336&hilit=759#p146336

Wesley

Norfolk and Western was doing big arse boiler patches on the 4-8-0s keeping them running, so for those who note off on boiler freezes altho wrong, isn't impossible.

But today its tougher to deal with...thats obvious, but not impossible

cheers all.

In the course of all this discussion, it should be pointed out that if a locomotive is not to be operated within about two weeks (or less depending upon boiler treatment) of fire being dropped then out needs to be"blown out" hot. Not fully rubberized perhaps but definitely dried out. In the case of the 759 it should have been fully winterized even if being stored in a heated shop. A lack of freezing conditions do not prevent corrosion to the boiler, appliance bores, piping and piston/valve rods.

Cheers, Jason

When we laid 1522 up for the winter, we would blow her down hot until she was completely dry, then cap the stack and close the dampers to maintain heat. I was always concerned with water in the flexi staybolt sleeves, but this cooked them out too.
The next weekend we would charge the boiler on air, operate everything that operated by steam and run her back and forth on air until no water is seen coming from anything. After that we would pull some washout plugs and put screen wire caps over the openings, disconnect low piping such as cylinder cock piping, booster throttle and such.
In the years we operated her, we only had one mishap, a water valve to the aux water car on the back of the tender froze and split, but the engine was always just fine.
We drained the tender, propped the hatch open a little for air, drained the water off the bottom of the oil, peed on the fire, called the dogs and went home for the winter.

Thanks for the reminder that 759 is actually in pretty good shape and could be restored to operation with just the usual tube job and miscellaneous mechanical work but nothing really major.

Steve