Personally I am wondering how that brown cardboard box is managing to hold up the back end of the boiler.

Were the K4s boilers made of lightweight steel alloy? ;-)

Seems to me that the only way this will ever end happily is if the ARRM ever gets a competent management team who will be able to properly manage and fund this so as to be able to overcome the stink created by the previous totally incompetent team.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Just out of couriosity, how much would it cost to design, build, test, and certify an all welded boiler for this admirable locomotive?

Not to start anything but, as information: (for trains newswire subscribers only, unfortunately)

http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20New ... 0soon.aspx

In short: the frame should be moved into the roundhouse upon completion of the roundhouse (which has been delayed by weather, but is expected to be finished in less than a month), and the drivers (awaiting bearing work) and boiler (currently off site) will be put on the frame within the next few months. They will install both the drivers and the boiler at the same time so as to avoid extra crane costs.

EDITED to reflect the change graciously made regarding Newswire access.

We might perhaps ask brother Laepple to comment directly. as he posts here.

Edited my post above to take your suggestion and note that it is from trains newswire.

Edited out thanks to Jeff Lisowsky -- see his new 'sticky' for detailed instructions if you need them...

Now: Can someone provide the current detailed understanding on what was wrong with the geometry and construction of 1361's boiler -- and what specific steps, in order, have been taken to fix the issues?

I remember something about the shape of the backhead not being correct, and that it was actually a PRR mistake, not a code change. But when I go back to research sources I find only a great morass of opinion, and rather than plow through it all I'd rather just ask the question 'new'.

Being April 1 only fitting to comment of 1361. As to the boiler issue(s) and having trolled though the great morass of 1361 - Belpaire posts, I's have to say the question is what tactic to use to address the under 4:1 strength of the roof sheet over the crown sheet. (LIRR 39 got a new roof sheet and then sleeves to strengthen the staybolt roof sheet union.)

Considering the fact that Doyle had succesfully restored SP 4449 years earlier, how did the K4s project fail so badly with him in the lead. Im not trying to ignite a heated debate, but what was truly done improperly during the infamous 1986-87 restoration?

Choosing PRR 1361 as a repair candidate?

(It sounds like a glib and sarcastic comment, but it is loaded with considerable truth.....)

ADM IV - can you go over what that truth involved, in as much detail as you care to provide? I know only a bunch of cross-purpose hearsay, and was 'otherwise involved' during the years the restoration was going so wrong...

Why, in this particular community, do we consistently seem to enjoy opening old wounds? Every few months, another 1361 topic pops up, another BL&E stuck in Pittsburgh topic, another T-1 in Washington topic, another GG1 at the B&O museum topic...why? There really should be an FAQ or Sticky dedicated to these dead-horse topics...

I thoroughly agree -- but I would gently argue it's not a 'dead horse' yet to those of us coming across it for the first time (even though, perhaps, once we know the story it probably will be.)

That's a perfect opportunity for either a FAQ or a Wiki on what we call 'timeless topics' over on steam_tech: things like compounding vs. simple expansion, or whether monster Garratts would have done well in an undieselized post-'40s North America.

Can we find a place... perhaps a sticky thread toat goes with the 'Rant" -- for summary explication and perhaps discussion of dead-horse topics that might be used to provide accurate background for people who weren't around for the first defunct-equine verberation?

1361 was chosen for restoration for political and popularity reasons, to garner publicity and dollars for Altoona and the Railroaders Memorial Museum, not because it was an ideal candidate in an ideal location..
1361, in common with many such locos, was "rode hard and put away wet," then parked in the open in a very inhospitable environment for twenty-eight years. (I have been physically ON the Curve, on foot, in a brutal snowstorm--I know what I'm referring to.) The locomotive has demonstrated that it had physical issues--not insurmountable ones, but expensive ones.
Casting those condition issues aside, 1361 is too big and fuel-hungry for most excursion lines, and too small for what we in the 21st century regard as a "proper" mainline excursion loco, SR 630 and 4501 notwithstanding. One of the few excursion lines where this loco would have been perfect, the Blue Mountain & Reading, is now defunct.

Since when is the Reading and Northern (ex. Reading, Blue Mountain, and Northern, exx. Blue Mountain and Reading) defunct?