Another idea that presents itself, one so painfully obvious I'm smacking an imprint of my palm onto my forehead:

What we are seeing/dealing with here is not just a locomotive under restoration, but a locomotive under REPAIR. And where is it being repaired? In a roundhouse? (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Now, this locomotive work is going to take quite a while--not a weekend or two.

IS IT POSSIBLE to set up this repair as a "living history" display while in progress? Or in whatever shop it's in? Let this be something that can be shown to visitors in between actual work, with modern tools discretely hidden but the jacks, springs, other parts, etc. left in appropriate places beside the loco. Have docents/rangers show folks "this is what happened in roundhouses/shops--locos were fixed as they were needed. This is an actual Lackawanna RR locomotive shown under repair, just as it would have been in the old days..." Close off the area while actual sparks/paintdrops are flying, of course, but.........

Come on, folks. Big museums work hard to set up exhibits like this, and don't usually have the luxury of having a loco with parts already taken off of it! With this plan, it doesn't matter if it takes two months or two decades to actually effect the repairs on 565! Let's not give someone the opportunity to say "that's not how we do things here...."

Hi all,
Steamtown is an active railroad museum, they have the public viewing the railroad repairs at all times, giving shop tours and the vistors can view the repair work of 565 from an over head view. The Rangers are telling them this is an Cosmedic Restore and the history of the locomotive, and I have been too, I answered quite a few questions yesterday when I was working on 565.
Here's the video I took. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZSSXZdrCKw Sorry I have a long time on me. I just set the camcorder on my lunch box and went to work.

Take care and God Bless,
Len.

Wow Len, nice work! I think it's a good plan to work the tender first! Don't forget that the toe boards need to be made for the rear of the tender. I'm not sure if it had them when it was with DL&W may need to check pics. Take a look at 304 she has boards too and you may be able to duplicate them for 565.

EDM, believe it or not the money isn't a problem for Steamtown with in reason of course. So they should be able to make the rest in the shop. We really need to find the blueprints to the engine so we can at least make what we know we need. If anybody can work with metal really good the shop is great for making stuff. I think if we can find a set of prints we can start working on getting parts made by vendors.

Alex, like Len said. The catwalk is open to everyone who is in the park. So folks get to see us working on the engine and it's fun to answer questions. Just have to remember to watch your tongue while working cause some folks don't like some language. I was working in the shop during the tour and had folks taking pics of me and one of my guys pressing the bushings out of the front pilot. The tour guide told the crowd that we were volunteers working on 565.

Steve.