3801 is an Australian Icon of similar national and global stature to the N&W 611 or the British "Flying Scotsman".

The story of the German replacement boiler for 3801 is now well known. That boiler has now been set aside.

The purpose of posting this article is to show the current path to get the locomotive back into operating condition.

This article details the repairs to the actual boiler removed from the locomotive.

https://media.wix.com/ugd/367ea5_269ca5 ... 811b60.pdf

It should be noted that Dampflokwerk Meiningen who buily the replacement 3801 boiler has built dozens of new boilers in the past 25 years and today remains the go to facility for the entire European continent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiningen ... tive_Works.

That concludes entire amount of MY time I'm willing to use in order to present this article to you the reader.....an article I hesitated in posting in the first place.

Thank you,

Trevor Heath
Casa Grande, Arizona USA

I guess the 3801 is so well known that it is not necessary to state where it is from or where it is. Please don't assume that everybody knows.

If you just glance at the first page of the article, it's obvious that it is in NSW. If you read further, Goulburn and Chullora, Victoria and Australia (if you still haven't got it) are mentioned in the text. 3801 is the down under version of NS 611 running out of Spencer, NC, USA.

I will admit that I did not read the article word for word. But NSW, Goulburn and Chullora ment nothing to me. Many people who post here assume that everybody knows their acrinems but many do not. Please take a second or two and spell it out at least once. I try not to fall into the same bad habbit but don't always succeed.

The title of this thread should tell you where it is (New South Wales): viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40094&hilit=3801. A cautionary tale about new-build boilers. Interesting, I was just thinking about the 3801 when I looked at the thread just above this one, on building a new boiler for 1385, and in a thread a week or so ago about staybolts and non-US practices, etc. Looks like the MCM group is keeping these sorts of difficulties in mind.

The title of this thread looks to be "3801 repairing the other boiler". Nothing about New South Wales.

Five minutes or less with Google or a similar search engine, which most people reading the Interchange would have access to, would tell you enough about the saga of C.38 Pacific locomotive 3801 of the New South Wales Government Railways to understand what the post is about, even if you were not inclined to read the actual linked article.

There were fairly exhaustive (often exhausting as well) discussions on RyPN at various times about the restoration of this locomotive, the trouble with the welded new-build replacement construction and dimensions, and the people in charge of the effort. This thread is involved with something different: the inspection and remediation of the 'historic fabric' which was originally deemed less cost-effective to repair than to replace.

I would greatly prefer that any further discussion in this thread concentrate on the actual work to repair boiler 3819, and not on the ability or inability of anyone here to read or understand thread titles.

It has been pointed out here and on other boards that proper identity of the subject and initials etc. are a COURTESY that everyone should adhere to. Plain and simple. It is a PIA to have to figure out what would take the poster SECONDS to state in the first place.

Afraid I have to agree that the original posting should have identified the location. Some of us are on dial-up and can't open the attachments, especially those sites that are graphic oriented. I was in the dark until I read the rest of the thread--and I was aware of a welded boiler problem overseas.

Back to the original subject. It appears that a boiler was built in Germany for this project and that boiler had a problem and so the organization has gone back to the original boiler and repair it. Is this correct?

What was the problem with the German boiler?

I seem to recall that a few years ago a boiler for a locomotive in England was built in Germany and there were problems with that one.

That's correct Brian, a new boiler was built at DB Meiningen in Germany. Unfortunately when the boiler was delivered the Australian boiler inspectors discovered several dimensional and construction errors. Subsequently the boiler was returned to Germany for rectification and I think some work was done before the decision was made to rebuild the original boiler instead - in Australia. The duff boiler was returned to Australia. As the NSW Gov't owns 3801 I doubt we'll ever hear the full story and what the financial arrangements were.
Meiningen actually has a very good reputation for overhauling locos and building boilers so why things went so wrong is a bit of a mystery. The new-build loco Tornado's boiler was built there, as you say, but the problems with it were relatively minor and some may have been attributable to the design originally being for a copper firebox and rivetted construction. It has also been said that the repeated heating/cooling cycles that the boiler was subjected to may have contributed to the cracking discovered. Since it's repair at Meiningen the boiler seems to have been trouble free.
There was at least one previous thread on here, see "Australia's 3801".
Cheers,
Ray.

Thanks for posting Trevor, doing new boilers should always be a hands on/information -on- sharing between the 2 parties to make sure everything goes right, you can't just hand it off and hope its right. Having helped with NKP 765 everything comes down to thousandths of an inch accuracy in many ways. These engines are huge and clockwork.

Party on whatever you do and hope the replacement boiler is squared up whatever needs to happen.

Not wishing to labour the point, but now you know how some of us foreigners feel when you describe an American railroad by a series of letters only. (lol).
Cheers, Bob
(From Australia)

So instead of the thread covering the repair of 3801's boiler, most of it was eaten up by people bitching about "wherezit".
I come here to read about preservation, not pet peeves and whining.

there's no -ignore- button on here, I tend to read past such posts to stick to the nitty gritty,

back to your regularly scheduled thread....