A month ago I described the history of steam locomotive arrivals, departures, and fates at Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin, which is owned and operated by Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society. I will now describe what I know about the steam locomotive repair activities. The delay is because I wanted to be sure the information I am communicating in this submission is accurate.

As I mentioned in the last submission, MCRM had four locomotives that were their primary operating steam locomotives in the early days. First to be put into operation was C&NW No. 1385, which operated from May 27, 1963 (see MC Railway Gazette, Vol. 26 (3), June, 1993, pp. 8-9) onward through the early 1990s. This was followed by D&R No. 9, W&OV No. 1, and WC&C No. 1. I was fortunate enough to have served as fireman on all four locomotives during the middle 1970s. A fifth operating steam locomotive, Polson Lumber (Saginaw Timber) No. 2, joined the fleet, starting operation in 1992. I was not present during the steam decline that occurred in the 1980s through to the last steam train operation in February, 2000 because my occupation and career took me far away from Wisconsin after 1977. Therefore, much of the information I will present here was obtained second hand.

Of these five steam locomotives, only C&NW No. 1385 and D&R No. 9 are owned by MCRHS. Privately owned locomotives were leased by MCRHS for use on museum property in return for maintaining each locomotive in operating condition. I do not know any details of any of the leases.

Following the Gettysburg Railroad boiler explosion on June 16, 1995, the U.S. government decided that all operating steam locomotives and all tourist railroads were required to meet FRA standards instead of state boiler standards. A regional meeting was held in Minnesota in 2000 to introduce the new steam locomotive standards to those interested. Only one member from Mid-Continent attended this meeting. A motion was approved by MCRHS board in 2003 or 2004 to require an “R” stamp in order to do welding in the museum engine shop. I have been told FRA regulations do not require this and the approval of this motion was only a petty act to exclude one person from the engine shop, the one person who knew the FRA regulations. I also have been told the document that matters most to the FRA is the Form 4 and its calculations, which not only determine the maximum operating pressure of a locomotive boiler but also help to identify engineering weaknesses in the boiler. From 2005, when I first learned about Form 4 calculations, until I was expelled in 2007, I kept asking about these numbers at members meetings and received either wrong answers or no answers. ASME policies and procedures and “R” stamps are not required for FRA approval because steam locomotives are not diesel locomotives. A case in point is the recently restored and operating Sierra Railroad No. 3.

It is my impression that D&R No. 9 was first to end up out of service because of a rotted wooden tender frame. An attempt was made to shorten a steel tender frame for use with the locomotive but this effort was never completed. I wonder if the corner castings and other hardware from the wooden tender were saved or discarded. As I have learned here at rypn.org, this locomotive may have the newest boiler.

C&NW No. 1385 left the museum property for refitting and operation as a C&NW ambassador over its rails from the late 1980s until the mid-1990s after a major overhaul in the C&NW shops. W&OV was principle service engine and alternated with WC&C during the 1980s when the latter engine was made serviceable and when the 1385 was off site. C&NW No. 1385 was stripped of its appliances and jacketing around 1995. For some reason it was decided the mud ring and inner firebox liner needed replacing and were cut out without doing the Form 4 calculations. A new mud ring was cast and I was told it did not fit. MCRHS obtained a TEA21 grant (federal money given to Wisconsin Department of Transportation and other states for projects) for $150,000 to restore No. 1385. An attempt to send the boiler to Fransen’s Steam Services of America facility in Arizona for repair at a cost of about $950,000 was barely defeated by the board in 2003. Approval of this contract would have been a disaster because there was no additional money to fund the contract, which was way over-priced in the first place. I have been told that for some reason other than engineering reasons the decision was made that the TEA21 money would be used to fund the manufacture of a welded boiler with fake rivets by Deltak in Minnesota. It is my impression the Form 4 calculations were never done on the original boiler. I have been told by a reliable source that Deltak makes heat exchangers and not boilers. I have also been told the member in charge of the steam program at Mid-Continent has a good friend at Deltak and no competitive bids were obtained. About $40,000 of the TEA21 money was spent on engineering plans for the welded boiler (learned from information provided board members). As far as I know, members of Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society have not been told the total cost of this Deltak project and I do not know if a contract has even been signed. I understand that the remaining TEA21 money was spent on boiler steel in Minnesota rather than loose the money because of inactivity. My guess is that Mid-Continent will never get any more Wisconsin Department of Transportation grants because of how this project was handled. I have been told by a reliable source he had contacted Milwaukee Boiler for a verbal estimate as to how much it would cost to fabricate a new boiler for C&NW No. 1385 and was told last year it would be less than $250,000 with flues installed.

Polson Lumber last operated during Snow Train® 2000 then was shopped to bring the locomotive up to FRA standards. I have been told from several sources there were actions taken, either intentional or otherwise, to render repair of this locomotive too costly. Complaints by the owner about how his locomotive was being treated in the shop resulted in PL No. 2 being removed from the shop and work started on Western Coal & Coke No. 1. The owner considered this a breach of contract and filed a lawsuit. The county court found in favor of the owner in 2004 and held MCRHS liable to a maximum of $180,000 in costs for repair of this locomotive. One stipulation of this court settlement was the requirement that the owner was to submit a repair plan to MCRHS and the other stipulation was that Bill Parker from England would review and approve the plans. The owner submitted the completed Form 4 and conducted the work at Milwaukee Boiler with professional help and advice. The FRA has approved this boiler work and it was returned to museum property. Recently, MCRHS commissioned Scott Lindsay of Steam Operations Corporation to evaluate the running gear and tender of PL No. 2. The full report appears in the Mid-Continent’s Railway Gazette (Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 4-22, August, 2010). Isn’t this something that should have been done for each locomotive over the past ten years?

The repair of Western Coal & Coke No. 1 has been nothing short of a tragic comedy of errors. From ultrasound measurements, it was determined that the bottoms of all three boiler barrel courses were too thin and had to be replaced. The smokebox also needed replacing. The bottoms were cut out of the boiler courses, new patches were prepared by members, welded into place by Becker Boiler of Milwaukee, and the welds were heated to relieve stresses by Team Industrial Services over a four-year period (see Railway Gazette Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 10-13, 2006). I have been told new boiler courses could have been fabricated for much less than the costs of installing the patches. Rivets were installed a month later (Railway Gazette Vol. 39, No. 1 [erroneously numbered on the cover and correctly labeled as No. 2 on the inside cover], pp. 11-15, June, 2006). The drive wheels were trucked to Chattanooga, TN in 2007 for refurbishing and new tires. The drive wheels are still down there. A new member with experience in the steam shops of the Southern Railroad in Atlanta started working in the museum shop about that time. He helped install new stay bolts until he noticed something wrong with the inner sheet thicknesses chalked on the sheets. He also noticed that the first course had become warped by the heat treatment process. All told, approximately 200 newly installed staybolts and the inner firebox sheets had to be cut out because someone failed to properly calibrate the ultrasound instrument. I do not know where this action puts the new rear tube sheet (Railway Gazette Vol. 39, No. 2, p. 4, June, 2006). I have been told a welded boiler would have cost only about $125,000 and would be delivered within a year. Then the flood came and this project is currently dead. It is too depressing to mention any more. Any reader who is interested may wish to ask Scott Lindsey his opinion about the planning and workmanship of this project.

The big lesson from all this is the need for the professional assessment of each locomotive, a well thought out plan of attack, and realistic determination as to whether your shop can handle the job or if the job should be out-shopped. Once these decisions are made, total costs determined, and timelines established, then fundraising can begin. Otherwise, you risk the waste of time and funds experienced by Mid-Continent.

My next submission (#10) will be on Mid-Continent operations and schemes.

Perhaps their biggest mistake was in jumping from locomotive to locomotive, instead of focusing their efforts upon the completion of at least one. Might I be correct in surmising that none of these locomotives were ever fully reassembled, and now exist in a partially dismantled state?

As per my last visit to MC, you are correct: these engines all remain stripped and/or piles of parts. MC has appeared to have made no progress at all at restoring any of these engines for several years now.

It continues to amaze me that one of the first and best steam operators from the 1960s to the 1990s has performed so poorly in this area in recent years, especially given the high quality of several other restorations it has completed.

Chris.

No dog in this fight and no idea about the veracity of any comment in the posting, but:

"I have been told...." is credited as the source for many of the comments. There's a broad latitude of potential qualification or prejudice or political activism or competence inherent in such a non-source. I can't, as a reader, take such a source as gospel and it makes me question the credibility of the entire thesis as a result.

If the story you are telling is verifiably true by rational disinterested standards, too bad. If you can't provide real information to prove your point, also too bad. Please do not expect a popular uprising to occur based on this kind of evidence - and, BTW, what is your purpose and ultimate goal?

I'd like to be sympathetic but you haven't shown me why I should believe you.

dave

Well for what it is worth Byrons little jaunt in the failed steam program at MC is pretty accurate. I will vouch for some of it.

Only one person {the owner of the Polson #2} attended the FRA meeting. He was awakened that we "were not in Kansas anymore" as far as running steam. He knew he didn't know enough and the rules had changed drastically. NO ONE would listen to his warnings that things had changed. At the time of the lawsuit to save his boiler from further destruction, no one was listening yet four years later.

I am not against building new boilers, but it is true the museum has decided to move forward with a new boiler for the CN&W #1385 without doing any serious homework on where they are with the original boiler. It probably is, in my opinion a better choice, but nobody really knows as there was not a Form 4 done, no ultra sound testing by someone who you could count on to do it properly. It is only a guess on my part that the original boiler is not worth repairing. But this is the point, "MY guess", or we presume, or so and so thinks. The decision to go forward with a new boiler was made without doing the homework on the old one. There is argument that Franzen saw enough wrong to warrant the decision without going further? No documentation that I know of in the form of a Form 4. It has not been made known to any members or many members exactly what was found. I think everybody saw these astronomical numbers in cost and just agreed that a new boiler was the way to go. This not knowing exactly where we were and going forward not being sure of where we are going now, has people concerned of another catastrophic boondoggle. Having some outfit not having experience in locomotive boiler work design a boiler and not having this design triple checked by a company or qualified person is another worry some of us have. The same people who have said "don't worry we got that covered", "we do understand FRA", "Yes we have a Form 4 on the Montreal boiler" are the same people that say they know what they are doing orchestrating the new boiler for the #1385. Am not trying to say the contractor can't read a print and build a locomotive boiler or even design one. But the slippery slope is there and makes many of us nervous. In a case like this I think I would of gone to a professional with experience in FRA boiler design and building. All of this probably makes me not a team player. Oh well to bad so sad.

The work done on the Montreal boiler is typical of other failed attempts of organizations to repair a boiler. The total refusal to accept what was mentioned early on about FRA regulations v/s ASME. The powers that be said they understood, but continued to go on their merry way talking like ASME, R and S stamps ect were equal to FRA. Some of the repair methods used I questioned then and was told they were acceptable. No body wanted to listen and I was not involved with the boiler project. The boiler barrel sections were not stress relieved before welding in place. I questioned that. The center barrel section was a tough piece to form as it was a partial cyclone formed course. The repair course was formed on a brake, it was not rolled. It too was not stress relieved before welding in place. The guys were warned about the post welding stress relieving breaking the newly replaced rivets when the heating and cooling took place. No one listened and when the heat/stress relieving took place all the rivets broke. I mention the center barrel course being formed on a brake, as I was told that it had to be rolled. I had got 3 quotes, one to have it rolled in a city 100 miles away with free shipping at a cost of $400 and a 7 day turn around. Instead the half sheet of boiler plate got shipped to MI where it was bungled into a horse shoe instead of a cyclone, then shipped back to MI, then shipped back to WI with the forming taking place on a brake rather than being rolled. The initial cost was something like $1300 to have the place in MI do the work. Don't know who paid the shipping back and forth or if we paid for the rework or got reimbursed for the wasted boiler plate. Members might of hauled the part to MI originally. The failures go on and on. The guys in the shop put there heart and soul into trying to what they thought was right. There was no leadership present most of the time {as in project manager} and obviously misunderstandings of how to go about all of this. Byron is not making this up. Until Jason showed up and started forcing the issue nobody wanted to listen that there might be trouble in River City. As stated then came the flood. We as a museum did not need that.

As to the cost of having one shop build a boiler versus another I do not know. I also was told the cost estimates that Byron mentioned, which proves nothing as it was here-say not written fact. They were probably ball park figures not a contract price as no contract was made that I am aware of. But it is food for thought on how to spend money and get the most bang for your buck. If a boiler costs you $500,000 to repair, one might consider an alternative. Of course you can put the parts back on it and use it for display too. The argument of saving the "original fabric" doesn't apply to boilers if you plan on heating them up, what applies is FRA regs and acceptance in the end.

The one person that was demonized as evil and bad for the museum was the one person who had a plan, hired professionals to guide him and his decisions. Hired a professional to do most of the dicey work and with help from friends did what he could do to help offset the costs. Did a pretty good job of staying out of the drama and showed how you go about getting a boiler up to FRA standards. Time will tell if the management and their appointee's have learned anything or not. Let us pray. Cheers, John.