Is there any truth to a piece of news I got this evening stating that 1225 had dropped a flue and lost several? I ask becuase that would be aweful to hear for the 1225 crew and would suck that the world would miss out on the Berk double header.

Not to mention that it would be odd that 844 would do this in 1999 at Railfair and the next big gathering another big engine would do the same.

Jason Greene
Birmingham, AL

True! She done for the duration of Trainfest and longer.

Well, that pretty much stinks for folks at the SRI. Kind of explains why she was just sitting there cold though. Sorry to hear that.

The 1225 will be back in action for this fall. The guys are going to take some much needed time off. In a couple weeks they will swap the flue with the crack with a new one and have her ready for trips this fall.

Jason

Jason,

That's great news. Steve and I were discussing how they might arrive at the decision whether to replace the defective flues or not. I'm sure everyone will be excited to see 765 and 1225 double head this fall.

Jason, I want to take a minute to thank you personally for taking on this enormous project and pulling it off like you did. I know you had a lot of help and support from a lot of different people but the finished product was awesome. You really have something to be proud of. You are a true professional and have left a wonderfully indelible mark on steam railroad preservation.

Rob Gardner
www.americansteamrailroad.com

I always assumed that when a flue failed, it was because it began to leak at the interface with front or rear sheet. Do they break, collapse, fatigue also?

heat, fatigue ,cold air from firing practices, can cause flue cracks on the firebox side. generally these defects don't show at the smokebox end. These are just a couple of causes and there could be others. This also doesn't mean that all the flues are bad and a proper inspection will confirm one way or another.

Despite all the reasons or culprits of a flue crack, how noticable is it? I.E. is it something you would hear while running the loco, would you feel it or would it be something odd felt like a bang or otherwise. Without dropping her fire and cooling her down completely and opening it up to find it, how would one know there is a crack?

Steve,

I don't know exactly what the SRI crew saw or heard to tell them the flue(s) failed, but remember this. A boiler is a closed system. The water and steam are inside that closed system when a boiler functions properly. The inside of the flues represent an area outside that closed system where the drafting occurs and there should be no water or steam present; only gases and cinders drafting from the firebox to the petticoat and out the stack.

A leaky flue will allow steam, and in this, case, probably hot water, to escape into the flues. The fireman probably started having trouble maintaining water in the glass or realized he was starting to use more water than usual. Also, you would expect to have to fire harder to keep replacing the escaping water which continually gives you a larger steam space to fill with new steam.

Perhaps the SRI guys will chime in with more exact information.

Rob Gardner

I believe years ago UP 3985 lost a flue (suddenly) at Sacramento Railfair, and the cab filled with steam.

Like most steam related potential problems it can range from a fairly benign annoyance through a total failure of enough magnitude to cause some real damage. Nobody has posted any detailed descriptions of this failure - I hope it was fairly insignificant and they were simply responsible enough to defer to the safest possible course of action. No shortage of substitute motive power on hand.

Anybody else here ever plug a leaky tube and keep on going until the next boiler wash?

dave

Thanks for the description Rob. So, any number of things could have gone wrong is what I gather...
Just curious, if the fireman noticed these things and had to fire harder to maintain levels AND if they thought it was just a freak glitch of some sort and went overlooked for an even longer period of time, what would the probability have been that the boiler would have exploded? God forbid!

The boiler would not have exploded due to one or two (or 5 in this case) bad tubes. A boiler could explode only if such a number of tubes and flues failed so as to allow for a sudden and violent decrease in pressure thus causing the water in the boiler to flah to steam. The 1225 was NOWHERE close to that, in fact that type of failure is barely within the realm of plausibility. It's possible but not likely.
Of course the other alternative for failure due to failed tubes would be if the water level could not be maintained and the operation of the locomotive was continued. There is only one such occasion within the last MANY years where a locomotive was almost blown up because the crew continued to operate the engine after the water left the glass. Not Gettysburg, note I said the water actually left the glass.

Oh now we have to guess which low water urban legend is actually true! Did it have a Belpaire firebox?

I don't get it. You're talking about a Pennsy engine, right? Which one?