Greetings everybody. The following highlights some of the work with which we’ve been busy through the first half of 2022 in the Strasburg Rail Road mechanical shop:

Five brand new wheelsets have been manufactured for an extensive overhaul – two lead truck wheelsets, and three driving wheelsets, as shown lined up in this photo. All material in these wheelsets is brand new, with most machine work and all assembly work performed in our shop:


Firebox work continues to further the progress of the manufacture a complete locomotive boiler. Here, staybolts are shown as initially installed, and are also shown being trimmed to length to complete the latter part of their installation:



We watched with excitement as the Reading & Northern Railroad resurrected their ex-Reading Company 4-8-4 T-1 #2102 from a 31 year slumber, making the first test runs with the engine in April, and the first public excursions with the engine in May and July. We are proud to have played a small part in the latter portion of the overhaul of the engine, having made and installed new piston valve rings. Here the valves are shown assembled with new rings on our shop floor:


We made and installed a new crankpin, and made a brand new right front side rod for a customer. Shown here is the new rod being machined and as finished, and a driving wheel tire is shown being reinstalled as part of the crankpin work:




The annual inspection (of the 5 year kind) has continued on the Virginia Museum of Transportation’s #611 during the first half of this year. As part of this inspection, our shop has been working with Steam Operations Corporation to replace all 2,537 A-type flexible staybolt caps….but then again, who’s counting??.... All brand new caps were machined from bar stock here in our shop:



Also machined in our shop for another customer were 150 WZ-type flexible staybolt caps:


We supplied parts for a set of Type A superheater units including ball ends, ball end washers, bands, and return bends:


We have been working on the overhaul of driving wheelsets from a 2-8-0. This work includes new axles and crankpins, and repair work to the wheel centers. Here, 4 out of the 8 wheel centers are seen on the shop floor after having their axle bores, crankpin bores, and hub plate seats trued up:

Next steps for the wheel centers will be installation of hub plates, and then installation onto their new axles.

Adding to the wheel work in our shop are 8 brand new driving wheelsets in process for the East Broad Top Railroad. As the railroad looks ahead to future equipment restorations, one set is being manufactured for locomotive #14, and the other set for locomotive #15. Here, all 8 axles are shown having been turned to length, and now await further machining:


A brand new Spear-type car heater was supplied assembled and painted for a customer:


Some injector-related work has been completed over the past few months:

A complete, brand new Sellers-type 8.5 Class N lifting injector was made, along with four union halves to match:


A brand new non-lifting injector starting valve was supplied with an outside-the-cab pull handle arrangement:


A set of 9.0 nozzles, complete with stainless steel delivery nozzle, was made to fit in a Sellers-type 10.5 KNL body:


Many have long known that we are off our rocker, but our work occasionally takes us off the rails as well:

New piston rings, and a new main valve and associated snap rings were made for a reciprocating feedwater pump. This pump provides water to the boilers of Project Liberty Ship, the WWII-era steam powered transport ship John W. Brown, based out of Baltimore, MD:


We performed repair work on a large hydraulic cylinder for a local hydraulic repair shop. The weld attaching the flange to the end of the cylinder had a large crack. The flange was removed, rewelded, and here it is shown in our horizontal boring mill after having the portion of the bore affected by the weld skim cut, and the sealing face of the flange about to be trued up. I understand the cylinder is part of a car crusher, and operates at about 3,000psi:


Of course, work has proceeded on some of our own equipment as well. After many years of discussion, the time had finally come to perform some heavy overhaul work on the cylinders of our #475. Though serviceable, it is my understanding that her cylinders were somewhere less than factory fresh upon completion of the 1993 overhaul. Compounding matters, we experienced a high rate of cylinder wear until switching steam oils around the year 2000. After having made that change, we experienced significantly reduced wear year over year, but much of the “damage” was already done, and of course no quantity or type of oil will eliminate wear entirely. That said, things were getting to the point within the last couple of years to where we started experiencing a noticeable increase in coal and water consumption during her operation.

The engine was taken out of service in early February of this year and brought into our backshop for this work. With some help from our friends at Oaks Welding & Line Boring LLC, #475’s cylinders and valve chambers were bored true to accept new bushings and valve cages. New cages and bushings were made in our shop, and the new components were installed by our personnel with the help of Oaks by way of freezing with liquid nitrogen.

As a testament to the efforts of all involved, all machine work and installation work of the new bushings was accomplished over the period of only five months, with the engine out of service for only three and a half months.

Two of the new valve cages are shown having the majority of their machine work finished. Much of the machine work on these cages was performed in our new Hyundai CNC lathe with live tooling, as shown in our last shop update. The ability to utilize the lathe-mounted live tooling to machine the port openings allowed fewer set ups and significantly reduced the amount of time to make these components:


Here the right side cylinder bushing is shown having just been removed from the tank of liquid nitrogen, and is about to be installed in the cylinder:


The right side cylinder bushing and valve cages are shown installed:


And here the engine is shown back in service at the end of May:


With Halloween rapidly approaching and always trying our best to offer new and exciting experiences for our guests, we have decided to rename some of our cars in keeping with the theme of our seasonal offerings around this spooky holiday….or maybe I just caught Mark mid-stream in his stenciling efforts….:

In reality, our Hello Dolly car was brought into the shop for a repaint and was completed a few months ago, prior to the start of warm weather and our open cars entering regular service.

That’s all for now. Until our next update, I hope everyone is staying cool this hot summer and is experiencing a busy and successful summer season.

Erich Armpriester
Strasburg Rail Road Mechanical Services

Nice railroad Dad joke?!

Great work all around.

Wesley

I have to admit that I like the contrast between the heating of the tire and the liquid nitrogen process. :D

Why did all 2300+ of 611's flexible caps need to be replaced, only 7 or so years after her major work in 2014-15? And the 5-year flexible cap removal work was not very long ago.

Howard P.

Amazing, extremely impressive work. Thanks for sharing! Has much been done on 31 this year?

Thanks
John

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Please post more boring photos.

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I was VERY pleased to see the components are being made for the EBT!! The plans are in the works for the restoration of #15 and #14 after #16! It seems to be continued good news on the EBT front with the arrival of new passenger cars!! I cannot wait to get back out there!!

You have a recliner in your home machine shop?

That is one of the other benefits of narrow gauge. You can restore two NG steamers for the cost of one standard gauge behemoth!

As foretold by Robbie Robertson and the Band.

Thank you for the update.

I too like the juxtaposition of new technology such as the CNC machine and liquid nitrogen being used on older, historic equipment.

You folks perform amazing work.

I always look forward to the "Latest" posts and am superimpressed by the variety and the quality of your work I'm glad to see these continue after Kelly's retirement.
I'm sending this from my recliner.

As always, "the gold standard" by which other measure their own quality.
Love the Strasburg.