It has sat quitely for some time now...
A month ago, I was in Port Clinton for R&N's 25th Anniversary Party and I was on board the T-1 with my Father and my Wife. There was a man there whose name I shall keep a secret. When I asked him how much money it would take to restore the T-1 back to operating condition he replied "...roughly 2 million dollars."
When I asked how long it took from the time that they decided to run 425 again until the time it actually did he said "...about 2 years."
Then, I asked him "...then why can't they do that with 1361?!" quite forcefully and obviously upset which he noticed immediately.
His reply was, "...Politics. Strictly politics."
Draw your own conclusions Ladies and Gentlemen

That is a very simplistic answer to a complicated problem. 1361 as it exists today, and as it has always existed, cannot carry the pressure it was designed to operate under, according to calculations. The new regulations use a formula to determine a safe working pressure for the engine, and in 1361's case the numbers that they came up with do not match its original boiler working pressures. A complete redesign of the engine's outer wrapper sheet on the firebox, and new staybolt spacing would be required in order to meet those calculations effectively. The better question would have been, why were these calculations never done until the engine was effectively almost ready to be reassembled? The new Form 4 calculations came into effect I believe January 2000, at which time 1361 was completely torn down, and likely would have been the best time to replace the wrapper, without having to undo countless hours of work. Yet work continued until July 2007 before work was halted. Anyhow, hindsight is great, and it is very easy to be an armchair quarterback. Leadership on the project was changed many times during the course of her 10 year restoration, but the comprehensive plan seemed to have been lacking. I look at the folks restoring AT&SF 2926, and say to myself, there is a group who are doing things in an organized way, thoughtful, deliberate and well researched. Although their engine is enormous compared to 1361, their budget is tiny in comparison, yet their progress is steady. Enough of my pontification, give the engineering work on 1361 to Strasburg. They will figure it out, this engine has come too far to be returned to a static display now.

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety ... 9-230a.pdf

Your last two sentences sums it up ENTIRELY! That's what I have been saying all along! She HAS come too far to be some display model, rotting away elsewhere, cut up for parts or whatever! Again, what good is The State Designated Steam Locomotive of Pennsylvania (something to that effect) if she is not going to run at all?!
If she suffered a bearing problem during a ferry move, despite the boiler sheet being too thin, why did it take all this time, from 1987 (I believe) until now to rebuild her?
Why did they have to take this engine apart piece by piece and reconstruct, refurbish and remanufacture just about everything if the main two things that failed could have been fixed and had her back on the road in less than half that time?

YES!! You hit the proverbial spike square on the head! She SHOULD have went to Strasburg and all this bull surrounding her could have been avoided! I'm just glad that someone agrees with me on this. It's a shame no one here in the US shares my ideology on this subject and it came from a "northern cousin". Thank you Mr. Finderskeepers!! Thank You!
I do believe in what that man at Port Clinton said though about being all politics.
I got yelled at by a bunch of people on this forum for saying this in the past about their being something screwy going on with her being down for so long and it is just weird that a bearing problem caused this whole rebuild and in the process the boiler sheet was too thin. There's something missing here. To me, those two instances causing her to be idle for all this time just doesn't sit well. Its just too damned easy!
There is another picture here that we are missing.

Seems to me that we've exhausted this subject and nothings new worthy of kicking this poor dead horse again??

The incompetent player(s) are finally gone (fired) and now she sits forlornly in Scranton awaiting the new team in Altoona to get its act together and bring her "home".

Let's hope her future turns out better than her past??

Ross Rowland

Gentlemen,
As one of the moderators, I would offer a word of caution here. As Mr Rowland has pointed out, this is a well-hashed subject and little (if any) good can come from "stirring the pot". What has been done in the past is done and really there are only two options going forward, finish the project as originally intended, or scale it back to a simple static display. Everyone certainly can, and should want to, learn from any mistakes of the past, but rehashing them is more likely to lead to having this thread locked than to any constructive result. Let's move forward respectfully, both in terms of the subject matter, as well as the rules governing postings here.

As a personal side note, I direct everyone to the activities of the UK group that just recently completed their build of a new A1 locomotive. A great photo was posted here just the other day. Here is a group that EVERYONE can learn something from.
They didn't restore or rebuild something, they created a new one from scratch.
The who, how, what, why of that story I hope will be fully documented some day as clearly this is a great case study in what can be done, not what should be done.

Good points Mr. Cloos. I'm told by friends involved in the UK project that they are well down the road writing a full report on all aspects of thier project.

I'm confident that it will be valuable reading for all of us.

Ross Rowland

I have a question regarding the roof and wrapper sheets. It was stated that the design of the belpaire firebox does not meet current safety standards due to the shape of the firebox and the stress loads on the staybolts. I understand to a point why because it was explained to me by a worker at the Strasburg Railroad when he explained the whole Form 4 calculation work that was being done on the Long Island locomotive currently in their shop. My question is, when the Strasburg Railroad operated the Pennsylvania Railroad 7002 and 1223, how were these problems not encountered then? I know I'm comparing apples to oranges but if I'm not mistaken, all three boilers are of the same design (belpaire) but of different sizes.

Take a look at the dates that 7002 and 1223 were operated, I think they predate the form 4 calculations of the revised CFR 230 regulations.

I guess the better question now is why have we not heard anything for months ? There were statements made that 1361 would go to a "Steam Shop", but yet she still sits in pieces at Steamtown. Has Strasburg told them to keep her until the engineering work is completed on another belpaired boilered G-5 currently in the shop?
Or is she slated to go to another repair facility yet to be named?

http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/507531.html?nav=742

And something I've never seen discussed anywhere is how the chapter 11 bankruptcy of Larry Salone's management group has affected the museum. As illustrated by this story it seems the man has bigger debts than Altoona itself

http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/conte ... ml?nav=725

In every restoration project, interested parties break down into one of two camps.

In most, it's "People who turn the wrenches" and "people who donate their own money to the project".

When big external money rolls in, the two camps become "People who aren't going to turn a wrench for free when someone else is being paid" ... and "people who obsess about how project money has been spent" :b

Thank you for the kind words. Everyone, be sure to donate to your local steam group. We are proof that picking away at it makes enormous progress.

49CFR230 requires the same factors of safety as the old ICC steam locomotive inspection rules: 4:1 minimum for the boiler, plus more restrictive limitations on maximum stress on staybolts (7500 psi maximum, IIRC). So the basic requirements that the boiler must meet have not changed. But in the past, you usually did these calculations only on damaged (corroded, etc) areas to determine what if any repairs were needed. 49CFR230 imposed the additional requirement that every part of the boiler be measured, and the maximum stress in each component be calculated and compared to the material strength, to determine maximum allowable working pressure.

Since all American steam locomotives were built to the ICC code, it is normally safe to assume that the original design met the code. Pennsylvania RR boilers are a unique case of a designers-vs-builders misunderstanding resulting in a slightly under-designed firebox wrapper sheet.

- Doug Debs

I beg to differ but not all locomotives were built with the ICC codes in place. EP&SW #1 was retired before the Locomotive inspection act became law and most of the locomotive I worked on were built before the Locomotive Inspection became law.


Robby Peartree

Folks,
Most if not all of the answers to the questions posed in this topic have already been answered, please see this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23495&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=1361&start=15

What is to gain from stirring this old pot, it is akin to going to an empty well and expecting to get a drink!

The Strasburg Railroad and Historic Machinery Services were both on board as "partners" on the project when the flaw was discovered. The solution is known and when the monies are released to the museum I am sure they will let us know their plan of action.

Mike Tillger

So who was the first person to actually figure out the deficiencies in the design of the roof sheet? Just curious who caught it.