I was talking with an individual awhile back who knew of my searching on the internet for railroad related things. He asked me if it would be possible to track down a saddle for a steam locomotive. I told him I thought this would be difficult given the size of the part. It's one thing to find a supplier of air compressors, or water glasses, but a saddle? At any rate I did some limited searching and came up (as I predicted) empty handed. My only suggestion thus far to the individual was to contact an outfit like Strasburg, Diversified Rail Services, etc. to see if one could be manufactured. Do any of you have any thoughts, suggestions, otherwise?

Wilmington & Western RR
sethajackson@hotmail.com

There are 3 options to making any metal part: casting it, fabricating it, or taking a hunk of metal and removing whatever isn't the part. Saddles were traditionally cast, but towards the end of steam and in most replication projects they have been weld fabricated with very good results. The 3800 class fast passegner express locomotives in New South Wales use fabricated saddles and cylinders / valves and two are currently in service. The development costs in the pattern and core work to cast saddles and cylinders / valves integrally makes that choice generally the less cost effective, unless several copies are desired.

dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

Check out this site for some work that was done in Australia.

http://www.prr.org.au/nmrebuild/nmrebuild08.php

Get in touch with the folks of the Hill Country Flyer (www:austinsteamtrain.org). They have pretty close to the same problem on their engine. Last I heard the sum is over $300k but that also includes other than saddle fix.

retsquid@tvec.net