Former El Paso & South Western 4-4-0 No. 1 was reportedly moved to an undisclosed location from its display site at the University of Texas in El Paso yesterday, to undergo a 7-month restoration and display elsewhere. This 1857 ancient was built for the Milwaukee & Mississippi (later Milwaukee Road), moving west in the 1880s. Anyone have photos or more details?

ryarger@rypn.org

>Dear Bob:
EP&SW No. 1 was moved yesterday, today the tender was moved. Both are inside a secure building, in a fenced compound in El Paso.
I will be doing the conservation and restoration work on the locomotive and tender assisted by Orvil Burge, an experienced woodworker who was part of the team that restored the Santa Fe trainset for the Kansas State Historical Society and helpers from the prime contractor's staff.
I am hopeful that this project can be completed in about 4 months.
No. 1 is interesting in that it last ran in 1903 and has been on public display since 1906, outside until 1960, when it was placed in it's own building at the UTEP Centenial Museum. It has never been restored or backdated or generally fiddled with except for a few paint jobs and a brief appearance in a movie back in the 1930s'(not fired up, just pushed around). Except for gauges and a few minor parts, it is complete. I removed the builder's plates (four), bell, whistle and headlight (replica). The Centenial Museum was kind enough to place them in their collections storage area for safe keeping until it is time to reinstall them.
Since so much of the locomotive and tender appear to be "original", one of our goals is to conserve as much of what is left as possible. Rather than replicate an entire tender side sill that is rotted at the last 14" at one end, we will splice on a new end using "West Systems" epoxy with hidden steel reinforcment to attach "new" wood of the same species. I say "new" because since the original wood is so old and the relative humidity in El Paso is so low (30%) we will try to find replacement wood which is aged, or at least kiln dried so we won't have any problems with shrinkage. Other wood which is rotted, say, only on one side will be infused with (and filled with if necessary) "West Systems" products. I am hopeful that we will not have to replace too many full pieces of the wooden components.
The entire tender frame, cab and cow catcher are wood.
Preliminary investigation shows that at least some of the boiler jacket is "Russian Iron". We will do our best to save as much of that as possible as well.
As with most steam locomotives, No.1 has been modified over the years, but most of the modifications have been additions rather than any thing being removed.
Once the conservation and restoration has been completed, the locomotive will be placed in the lobby of a new parking garage being built in conjunction with a Transportation Center near the old Union Station.
J. David


jdconrad@snet.net

Please share some information about West Systems products. I have long used Abatron and if West is as good I would like to try it.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

I have used both systems on our restorations. The West system is sold (at least in California) by West Marine, a local chain of boat hardware stores.

The West system has a lot more choices, In it, you buy one of several epoxy sets, and then add from a variety of filler powders to get a material approprite for the application. The last time I used the system, (three years ago) they didn't have a conslidator of thier own, but sold "Get Rot" for that application. West system has some wonderful referance manterial on how to use the material.

The West system was marketed to owners of wooden and wooden framed fiberglass boats, and addresses some of the issues (material movement) which railroad restorations have better that other systems.

In reality, I found that the West System was almost too complicated, and offered too many choices. And I couldn't find as much differance between the various filler powders offered. On the other hand I could pick up the needed material on the way to the park, intead of having to order the material several weeks in advance.

Arbatron seems to be better accepted in the restoration community. West System had smaller quanities available. Cost was comprable.

I would be happy to use either material on a future project.

Randy Hees

> Please share some information about West
> Systems products. I have long used Abatron
> and if West is as good I would like to try
> it.

> Dave


http://www.spcrr.org
hees@ix.netcom.com