My company Railyard Productions has been organizing some work sessions on CN 7456. Our first work session involved installing the Drive Rods and Eccentric Rods. We got then installed on the crank pin but still need to hook them up to the Cross Heads/Pistons. That will be a major job since the locomotive has been sitting for about 50 years.
Our second work session took place Saturday July 23rd 2016. Myself, David Reed his son Parker and Dale White of Heritage Village started around 9:00AM. We has stopped in Sheridan Michigan to pick up a Sky Trak from Bush Hardware that I rented.
After driving it to the Heritage Village we got straight to work. We used the Sky Trak to lift the Steam/Sand Domes up and placed them on the locomotive.
They were tight fits but we managed to get them installed within a couple of hours.
Here is a shot of the locomotive with the Rods and Domes installed.
We will have a night photo shoot of this locomotive on August 5th 2016 in Sidney Mi.
It is a NON-OPERATIONAL static display.

This sounds like a productive way to start a restoration, whether it'll be limited to cosmetic or go further.

How complete is she over all? I see some parts missing, have they been stored or have things been lost over the years?

Is this engine on private property or viewable for visitors? I'm actually heading to Michigans Adventure in Muskegon in 2 weeks, and I'm looking at any railway things along the route. This one seems pretty close to my route. I'll have to dig through some of our negatives and see if we have a shot of her. We had the smaller 0-6-0's in Niagara for a while.

The parts are there to pretty much put her back together. When I set up the next work session we will attempt to hook up the rods.

It is accessible. It is in Sidney Michigan.

I had the Railyard Productions CN 7456 Night Photo Shoot set for August 5th. Last Friday. I had showed my friend David Reed a photo of Canada and Dominion Sugar 7456. Well he took it upon himself to make up a decal for the tender. Even though he would not be attending the photo shoot it was an awesome thing for him to do. Myself, John Ruiz and Maxwell Crosby were able to apply the decal about an hour after the photo shoot started. We were delayed by three bees nest that were in the railroad ties right below the area of the lettering. Lucky for us no one got stung.
A little smoke and mirrors provided for an interesting night photo shoot.
If your interested in joining us for a 7456 work session check out my website. We also have planned a railfan tour in Cuba. [url]railyardproductions.com[/url]

robteed -

Nicely done!!!

Pretty sweet. Love the C&D Decal, that's certainly unique among preserved CNR steam power.

As for bees (bees seem to love steam locomotives for some reason... I guess they are all reincarnated railfans??) WD-40 works wonders on them. Stops them dead in their tracks! Probably safer (for us) than actual wasp killer, and of course everyone probably has a supply of WD-40 on them most of the time anyways.

Oven cleaner works great, too!

Probably yellow jackets, not bees. Yellow jackets (bad) ; bees (good)!

Nice cosmetic picture, for certain.

Yeah, it's always yellow jackets (wasps). never seen an actual bee, they have actual useful things to do, yet sadly they always get slandered in these situations...

But they (wasps) are a legitimate danger to us. I've had many close calls with them over the years (but never got stung). Standing on top of the boiler of a wasp infested park engine can get real unnerving when they start strafing you and the only place for you to go is DOWN 15 or so feet to the ground... And god forbid visitors to these park engines get stung.

Joe -

For the record, wasps (or yellow jackets) don't just favor steam locomotives. This past Saturday, I was up on the walkway of our 44-ton Whitcomb (see photo) doing some cosmetic work. Member Tom Travis came along and stood leaning against a corner of the locomotive. Next thing he knew, he had been stung twice! The culprits had built a nest with access through one of the holes seen in the end beam. Later in the day, member John DeGan took care of them with some wasp spray, but my guess is that there are others at different spots on the unit. And of course, in many other places on museum property. A never ending summertime problem!


Les

The best wasp killer I ever used is Napa brand starting fluid. They drop right out of the air.

Hi
Here's a shot of CNR # 7456 , in Montreal, Que 1952, I found this shot on the internet. Pat