Steamtown #2 0-6-0t

front smokebox plate is on tweaked one bolt distance off...

I am totally amazed that's even possible!

Not that somebody could install it wrong, that's certainly believable.

What has me boggled is that the bolt holes were all so perfectly and evenly spaced that you could rotate it one "notch" and still have them all fit. How likely is that?

Very likely. When replacing the smokebox front on a similar locomotive, the bolt pattern was laid out precisely on the new plate. You could rotate it in any orientation you wanted to. The inside of the smokebox has a ring with holes drilled through it, the holes spaced equally. The measurements were uniform around the circumfernce for the holes.

This has happend before on crooked track......and careless people.
Rob

A FAR more probable scenario in this specific case:

The plate was re-done with spray paint, and someone applied the stencil crookedly.

This is NOT a cast plate, from the appearance in the photo. Indeed, I would not be surprised, given Steamtown in that era, to find that this was a round plywood disc substituting for the "real thing."

Hi
The locomotive is ex Simons Steel # 2 now located at the Essex Steam train and Riverboat in Essex, CT.

Here's an August 2014 photo of the same engine. She's in much better shape now, and her smokebox door is in the proper position. (If anything, it's the numberplate that appears to be crooked.)

They also painted the smoke box door hinges so they lined up with that crooked number plate!

it was all CGI... (runs away fast....)

Look again. While he's admitted it's a photoshop phake, far more than just the number plate it out of position. All of the hardware, hinges and everything are off. Had it been real, the only explanation would be the bolt pattern error.

That is correct, but are they uniform enough that you can rotate it and still have all of the bolts fit? That's a pretty tight tolerance if the work is done by hand. Both the distance from the center point and the distance between each bolt must be exact and the same to within the clearance of the bolts in the hole. (Maybe 1/16th? 1/32?). If they are, then it's just like putting a rim on your car, any orientation would work. However, if the work is done by hand and there are small errors due to that, then rotating it would mean some of the holes don't line up.

Exactly. Are you sure he said it was fake? It's fooling a simple forensics site.
http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?i ... 8&show=ela

Well, he said this:



CGI means "Computer Generated Imagery". It's usually used in conjunction with movies rather than still photos, especially when objects are rendered into a scene, say a star ship attacking a planet.

However, in this case, it would appear he simply selected the smokebox, a nice round object, and rotated it a bit.

Does anyone have another photo of the engine at Steamtown that we could compare the first image with?

This quick version fools that site about 1/3 of the way around. Had I started with a larger image, not been editing it a second time, and spent more time on it, I suspect it may have worked.

http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?i ... fe5.221848

I'm seeing now that Richard Glueck posted an update on the status of this engine back in 2006, and his photos show the smokebox door really was askew even then.



http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21465

-Philip Marshall