Southern Railway Steam Locomotive 630 left Chattanooga this morning to begin its initial six-week tour in support of Norfolk Southern's 21st Century Steam Program. 630 and train arrived in Atlanta's Inman Yard at 3:30 this afternoon. In tow was a road slug set, several coaches, tool car, commissary car, and a gondola full of coal.

As noted on other websites, this initial tour cover Atlanta, Salisbury, Roanoke, and Knoxville.

Prior to leaving Chattanooga, 630 spent three weeks in the shop having the #1 and #3 driver bearings converted to the oil lubricated spring pad lubricator design. This only leaves #2 remaining on grease. A water line was added to supply water to the #2 bearings should additional cooling be needed.

Despite what is being reported on another website, there were no hot bearings today. The locomotive ran just fine. After completion of this intial tour, the #2 wheelset will be converted to oil. This will prepare her for a Fall schedule that includes some short hops from Chattanooga to Cleveland, TN; another NS adventure to Birmingham; and TVRM's slate of Georgia trips.

Mark,
What type of pad arrangement are you using with your spring journal?
Have you considered using these lubricators?
http://www.armstrongoilers.co.uk/
Last I heard they were about $100 per journal box.

Mike Tillger

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v= ... =2&theater

Video by Andrew Durden

Gary,
The armstrong oilers are what we are using.
The cost for each was about 55 British Pounds which translates into around $80 plus shipping.

Can you post the consist of this train? Thanks.

Mark,
Congrats on getting 630 out, and thank you for keeping everyone in the loop. Could you please contact me off line sometime? I have some questions about #610.

May all the trips run safely and bring good credit to all involved.

Hearty thanks to CEO Wick Moorman for his appreciation of the industry's heritage.

God's speed.

Ross Rowland

Not to sound condescending, but isn't that like the team trainer pumping the football Players knees full of pain killers and sending him back out of the field to play?

Your only fixing the symptoms, and not the problem. You convert to oil lubricated so you can keep it cool by pouring more oil to it. And if that does not work you douse it with water to calm the symptom. And I don't think that was a standard practice.

Would it just not be better to fix the actual problem and keep the original designed lubricant rather than let the problem persist and cause more damage?

You can mask the symptoms of cancer, but in the end it still does damage.

Ummm no. The way I read it is that the bearing have been set up for oil pad lubrication EXCEPT the #2 bearing, which is still running grease cellars. Because it is near impossible to get stick grease suitable for railroad operation, the grease being used may not be sufficient which is WHY they have the water line leading to that cellar only.

That grease cellar will be replaced with an oil cellar after this trip cycle.

No faking it seen. Leastwise that's how I read the original post.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

That's what I got out of it. Seems the #2 is the only one being "pumped full of painkillers." At least until the end of the season.

"keep the original designed lubricant"

Therein lies the problem. The original designed lubricant is no longer available.

Yeah sure, there are block greases on the market but none of them are equal to the block greases sold back in the days of steam. Our previous road testing showed that none of the greases sold today (we tried them ALL) could lubricate adequately above 25 mph.

Thus the decision was made to move to a tried and proven system of oil lubrication developed by the Southern Pacific. That system plus the fact that the original OIL lubricant is available today (thanks to Lubrication Specialties) so the decision was no brainer.

Unfortunately we did not have enough time to convert all 8 cellars from grease to oil prior to the departure date for Atlanta. We did get 6 of 8 done and all performed well at speeds above 25 mph. The two remaining grease journals ran slightly over 150F. Obviously, we will feel better when all eight of the journals are being lubricated by PB&J 460 (Plain Bearing and Journal Oil) as formulated by Dr. Petitjean.

By the way, the kudos are much appreciated. We owe this moment in time to Norfolk Southern and CEO Wick Moorman.

I'll get a 4501 update posted soon.

Consist of NS 955 on 5/31 -

Southern Railway 630 Ks-1 Class Consolidation
WT 51, Water Car
NS 716 RP-E4C
NS 3052 Operation Life Saver GP40-2
N&W 1407, Tool Car
TVRM 907, Coach
TVRM 857, Coach
TVRM 50 "Emporium", Commissary Car
WATX 539, Coach
RPCX 1827 "The Pocahontas", Coach
WATX 500 "Clinchfield", Coach
NS Gondola carrying solid fuel

If you watch any of the videos on YouTube, remember that this is a hand fired locomotive...

First of all I would like to apologize for my earlier post sounding a bit harsh. I was dealing with some aggravating people at that moment and it showed in my post. I do enjoy playing the devils advocate sometimes.

You make a valid point about the current grease selections not being the equivalent of the old Texaco brand. Their soap contents are different and overall are a harder grease. That being said I make the point that the Grand Canyon locomotives operated at the same speeds in the Arizona heat without any issues with the current offered Grease.

Not saying anyone's methods are wrong, but you have to ask the question what caused the over heating in the first place.

[quote="beacon_joe"]That being said I make the point that the Grand Canyon locomotives operated at the same speeds in the Arizona heat without any issues with the current offered Grease.

quote]

Actually, the 4960 was converted to oil lubrication on her main drivers in 2008, using the bio-degradable version of Lubrication Specialties PB&J.

29 is still set up on hard grease, and we had been using the Opti-lube brand of grease in her cellars, starting sometime during the 2008 season. She has not run since September 2008. The Opti-lube grease seemed to work reasonably well for cellars, but when we try to press it into sticks for use on the pins, it gets too soft and is hard to work with.

Eric

Actually, if you pay attention to the exact wording of Joe's post he said "operated". As in past tense, as in his statement was correct.


Everyone sit tight regarding "good" hard grease, I am very close to having a product produced virtually identical to the old "Hytex". Details as to availability to come within the next couple of months.

Cheers, Jason