With recent discussions remarking on how disassembled locos get parts going "missing" off of them, I thought this photo which turned up on RailPictures.net was a doozie, illustrating just how far a loco can be disassembled:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 602&nseq=4

The "before" photo:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=63412

This is just another example of how railroaders are some of the most determined people around. Nothing is impossible. Scale this effort up and you've rebuilt the EBT.

Yes the engine was pretty stripped, it actually left Ellamore, WV in basically the same condition in the 60's. Who walked off with the stuff? I have no idea. You may ask why we would even consider restoring such a decrepit engine? Well only three, yes I said three class C climax's remain in the world. Only one is in operation (Mt. Rainier Scenic). With the completion of this locomotive the Cass Scenic Railroad will have the three major types of logging engines in its collection.

I have put together a gallery with photo from the restoration dating all the way back to 2001, linked below

[url]http://scriptunasimages.smugmug.com/Galleries/Trains/Cass-Climax-Restoration
/[/url]

The Climax restoration page can be found here! http://msrlha.org/climax/index.html

Just put a little red grease on the smoke box and good as new!

You can also visit the Mountain State Railroad and Logging Historical Association's website at: http://www.msrlha.org/ to see photos of some of the MSR&LHA's other project's they've completed in support of the Cass Scenic Railroad. The website has many historic photos of Cass as well.

Enjoy!

"class C climax's"

What is a "class C' Climax?

What is the Climax at the Durbin and Greenbriar?

Ok, so now I don't feel so bad about restoring DL&W 565. :)

I'm assuming the original trucks are somewhere else in the shop?

A Class C Climax has three trucks.

Richard

Yes, the ones under it now are old Army surplus trucks we put under her so that we could roll her out side to be sand blasted.

As Richard said, a class C Climax has three trucks. The Durbin Climax has two. The Durbin Climax ran on the same line as the one we have at Cass, Moore and Keppel Lumber Co. which turned into the Middle Fork Railroad. All three Climax's from this operation survive, one is at the Railroad Museum of Pa, the before mentioned Durbin which is 20 miles from Cass and of course the one we are restoring. The Middle Fork Railroads Heisler also survives in Durbin and hopes are that it can be restored to operation one day.

The problem is that it's a Climax...

Parts are always falling off of Climaxes, usually for no apparent reason other than they beat themselves to death heading down the track.

I will grant you that this one is a bit worse than usual, but it's nothing to see one missing pieces. :)

By the way, you can find a very detailed source of information on Climax Locomotives here: http://climaxlocomotives.com/

Details on the classes can be found on this page: http://climaxlocomotives.com/history/

Short version:

Original Climax - 2 trucks, vertical boiler, looked a lot like a cross between a flatcar, a steam donkey boiler, and a marine engine. Then again, that's essentially what they were.

Class A - 2 trucks, typcially vertical or tee boiler though some had tapered boilers, looked a bit like a boxcar. There were a lot of variations on this theme. The key identifying feature is the location of the cylinders, which were on the centerline of the locomotive, sort of like a variation on a Shay.

Class B - 2 trucks, conventional boiler, looked more like a traditional locomotive. They also have the cylinders on the outside, most of them in the angled position traditional to a Climax locomotive.

Class C - 3 trucks, with the 3rd truck under the water tank/tender. Later Class B and C locomotives looked a lot alike, except for the added water tender.

I've seen many a climax, and many where they shuddered and shook and made lots of loud noises, but I don't ever recall seeing parts falling off of.............

Okay, okay. I'll go stand in the corner now.

We have found all kinds of mismatched parts, we have also found that the Durbin Climax has certain pieces which probably came off of ours.

This engine suffered a pretty decent collision which bent up the water tank frame fairly bad. It continued to run like this for several years. You have no idea how worn out this engine was, they got every last bit out of it. A restoration of the engine was well under way in the 70's at the Cass shop but a massive fire took out the shop and put a end to the restoration attempt until we took it over in 2001. This included a new restoration shop and equipping that shop.

This is how the engine looked shortly after arrival in Cass.

http://msrlha.org/p-operations-1/slides/CS19710500-07bs.html