New England Steam Corporation has purchased former Maine Central steam locomotive #470 from the city of Waterville, Maine.
The purchase was completed shortly before 11AM this morning, when members of the NESCO Board of Directors handed a check for the purchase price to the City Manager. Three television network affiliates and two radio stations gave coverage to the purchase at the locomotive, along with several supportive visitors.

The locomotive and tender will be separated next Thursday, and disassembly for the move will begin on that same day. The donation of cranes and trucks, based on their availability and ground conditions will determine when the "lift" will take place. The contract with the city gives NESCO until December 28th, 2016 to remove the locomotive.

The locomotive will be restored inside a semi-permanent shop building on the Downeast Scenic Railroad, in Washington Jct., Maine.

Please consider supporting New England Steam Corporation if you have not already done so, or become a member.

www.newenglandsteam.org

NESCO
P.O. Box 302
Winterport, Maine 04496

Very good news, Dick - and best wishes.

I will definitely send you all a donation as soon as possible. MEC 470 is a beautiful engine, and she deserves to return to steam - and stay in steam.

Has the boiler ever been surveyed?

Steamfinder, our boiler man sent me this response to your question.

"A preliminary survey has been done and has shown the boiler is viable for restoration. The formal FRA Form 4 survey has not begun."

May I add to this, we have not yet hit any majors issues with the work we've accomplished up till now. We fully expect to find some problems in the course of tear-down and restoration. The locomotive has been outdoors for 61 years, and it would be unreasonable to think otherwise. All things in time.

How do 470s vital statistics compare to the 425, the only other operable 4-6-2 in the northeast?

Well, if you go off the specifications listed on http://www.steamlocomotive.com, it looks like 470 comes out on top over 425. While R&N (GM&N) 425 is younger than MEC 470 (1928 compared to 1924) and has comparable tender capacities to 470 (18 tons/8,500 gallons compared to 13 tons/9,200 gallons) if you don't include 425's auxiliary water car, 470 appears to have the edge over 425 in the rest of their specifications.

(Order of specifications: 470; 425)

Weight on the drivers: 177,200 lbs.; 129,000 lbs.
Engine weight: 280,600 lbs.; 213,000 lbs.
Tractive effort: 36,619 lbs.; 35,058 lbs.
Booster engine: Yes; Unsure
Driver diameter: 73"; 69"
Factor of adhesion: 4.84; 3.68
Firebox area: 311.7 sq. ft.; 196 sq. ft.
Grate area: 56.5 sq. ft.; 54.2 sq. ft.
Evaporative heating surface: 3,033 sq. ft.; 2,697 sq. ft.
Superheating surface: 636 sq. ft.; 620 sq. ft.
Total heating surface: 3,669 sq. ft.; 3,317 sq. ft.

So, based off the specifications, I have a feeling that MEC 470 will be able to pull more than 425, and I think she might be able to pull her loads at higher speeds (for longer) than 425. If anyone has any additional information on either of these 2 locomotives, please feel free to share it.

Both 469 and 470 were specifically built to haul heavyweight trains from Boston's North Station to Portland, Augusta, Bangor, and stops in between. They were the largest Pacifics in the MEC fleet, and were superceded only by two Baldwin Hudsons, in 1930. They still maintained the high speed runs until Dieselization began in the late 1940's. 469 lasted until December of 1953, and was cut up. 470 lasted until 1954, when the Maine Central shops closed her down as a display item.

She remains the largest surviving steam locomotive in New England.

Link to story in this morning's Bangor Daily News.


http://bangordailynews.com/2015/11/08/n ... ocomotive/

Do you have a secure building to do the work?

David: We recently received two foundation awards to provide a shop facility. The Deupree Family Foundation has donated $10,000 and the Samuel Freeman Foundation has donated $51,400, to erect a semi-permanent shop structure on Track 7 of the Downeast Scenic Railroad. This structure is based on a plan developed by senior civil engineering students of the University of Maine as their Capstone project requirement for graduation.
The base of the building consists of re-purposed cargo containers, sitting on a bed of crushed stone. The cover is an arch-span structure designed by the Tarp-Rite company of New Brunswick, Canada, built to withstand wind and snow loads for the region. A drop pit is also included in the design. While the building is focused on housing 470, it will be shared cooperatively with the Downeast Scenic RR if/as required.

I would be interested in seeing the plans for that structure. It sounds rather innovative. Shipping containers allow you to have secured rooms along both sides while providing the support for the main roof, and reducing costs as containers are rather cheap to acquire.

There is a need in rail preservation circles for cheap indoor storage for rail equipment. If your concept works out it may be something that other entities could make use of.

Do the local permitting authorities consider this building to be a permanent structure?

Hot Metal - If you are interested in a storage-container based shop structure, you may want to consider reaching out to the United Railroad Historical Society of NJ (URHS). They built a shop building using containers several years ago at their Boonton, NJ facility and it has worked out very well for them. Their website and FB page have many pics which include interior and exterior views of their building.

http://urhs.org

Good luck.

I think it will work out fine, as we've seen similar structures in use. I am expecting a rough CAD drawing of the structure as it will appear. Our website has a reference to it in a past news brief.

The Hancock county building and land use people are fine with the structure as semi-permanent.

One of the advantages of the arched canvas topper set on shipping containers to gain additional height is the canvas structure weighs very little, therefore little is needed in the way of a foundation. There is a pipeline contractor that has one of these, on containers, in his yard in Elburn, IL, for use as a covered work space to fabricate complex junctions, offsets, etc. From my past experience, getting something through Elburn zoning is not a walk in the park, and indeed, it appeared that this structure was held up by zoning issues for a while, but it did get completed, and has survived several winters so far.