In an ealier post about some stranded folks in Colorado this pic/address was shown of the #484 derailed. I watched with great anticipation when the Cumbres went through and rebuilt there operating fleet a few years back. This kind of work facinates me and I wish I were more involved.

My question to the guys who are professional mainiacs is just how bad does the frame get twisted in a derailment such as this. I know when a locomotive is complete that the frame becomes very rigid. In a case like this I cringe thinking of all the stresses that might now be permanent do to the twisting effect. I don't recall {very bad memory} if the Cumbres had to deal with a lot of fallout from this or not. As I recall the running gear and firebox got the majority of attention, so maybe this was addressed at the time? How does one deal with a twisted side frame or other frame member? I know it does not take much for a locomotive to have undo stresses transferred to the running gear do to unequal twists and bends no matter where it originates from.

I also remember reading how few parts are original on the K-27 that operates at Huckleberry in Flint, Mi. Any thoughts on repairs do to this type of derailment would be appreciated. My thoughts are you would have to disassemble down to the frame and start from scratch. After seeing the effects of "out of aligienment" locomotives that have broken or bent frame parts, sagging boilers, loose and working frame/cyl and the damage that progresses from these defects, I would agree "ouch".

Thanks for any thoughts on this. Cheers, John.





http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=205304

There's damage and then there's damage. Steam locomotives are thankfully highly tolerant, and massively overbuilt. Frames can be heated and straightened if they are badly bent, welded if broken - but a lot of slow sloggers get by with silghtly tweaked frames just fine. Shimming and fitting in shoes and wedges, levelling the spring rigging, and custom rod fitting can counter a lot of misalignment issues well enough for the average tourist or museum operation.

I wouldnt be surprised to find out that ALL the K-hogs everywhere are a bit off and compensated for in operation just fine.

I like to think of such things as a part of the history of the locomotive, making it different than others of the same class, and therefore such "patina" ought to be retained if possible.

dave

The incident in the picture brought to light a number of issues that before were just below the public view with the C&TS. This and other issues caused a change of operators on the C&TS. I would not call the locomotive power rehab on the C&TS complete because they have not returned to the number of operating locomotives or even the ridership numbers since the one locomotive season although they do appear to be a lot closer to recovery.

The Firebox work was largely driven by the years of service and the new 49 CFR Part 230 requirements. It appears that running gear is a more routine repair for the C&TS than many operations due to the number of miles the locomotives rack up in a given year. During the time of the derailment there were several locomotive condition issues that were just starting to be openly known about.

I do not remember any particular frame work done on the 484 but I do know it was checked. The ice the 484 climbed was from a crossing that had ice built up on it from a winter of rancher and snow mobilier travel. Some people had tried to get the operator to clear the particular crossing before the special but they were unsuccessful.
I hope this helps.

Robby

Thanks for the input and history. John.