Home of the Leviathan, Central Pacific #63, Kloke Locomotive Works is quickly becoming a major player in steam locomotive replicas. The 63 isn't original, it's a very good replica of the original leviathan, which like her famous sister Jupiter, was scrapped ages ago. Well, now the Kloke Locomotive Works crew is embarking on ANOTHER replica of a historic engine: the York #17. Aside from that York is under construction, there's pics of some of the work they've done. The head of this crew, David Kloke, should be proud of his accomplishments. Expect continuing excellence from the Kloke crew in the years ahead.

Not to rain on Mr. Kloke's excellent work, but it should be rememberd that both the Levithan and I think the York are built using the patterns borrowed from the National Park Service. These patterns were used in making the two locomotives at Golden Spike NHS in Utah.

O'Connor Engineering of California built the "original" replicas. While building a locomotive from scratch isn't easy, the process is a lot easier if you do not have to pay for, research, or make patterns and drawings.

One of the things that made the Tornado project so sucessful in the UK is that they had a nearly complete set of drawings for the A1 class, copied from those in the National Railway Museum's collection. Like having patterns on hand, when you have drawings, you have a lot firmer foundation to start from than if you had nothing.

I think it's important to recognize that replicas and re-boilered locomotives one day will be the only connection to real operating steam. It's not far fetched to think at some point there might be a line in the sand that says locomotive with boilers over 125 or 140 or 150 years old will no longer be allowed to operate.

All great points, those are all the reasons that I would protect the blueprints and information before the equipment, unless its rare equipment and no detailed drawings exist for it. The paper is, in the long term, the most valuable part of all our collections. One day that is all that will remain.

Chase blueprints to the far ends of the earth, and don't stop until everything that is in existence is safely scanned and ready for future generations to build their replicas from. Catalog them, Scan them and place copies in duplicate institutions.

Please donate your time to any institution that (is within your area) that has any RR blueprint collection and try to do what you can to help. All the collections need more time invested into them in order to get those collections more accessible and searchable.

Blueprints are a good research tool, but it still takes a skilled person to manufacture and assemble the parts made from the prints.

Mike Tillger

Even though the plans were already in existance, life is made that much easier. But as Mike said, it takes a skilled person to follow those plans. How would you expect a two year old to interpret those plans? On another note, can I guess that the York is a Union Pacific replica, or was York a CP engine?

The work being done by Mr. Kloke is simply amazing. He is a prime example of someone getting it done, not talking about it like the rest of us.

[quote="tomgears"]The work being done by Mr. Kloke is simply amazing. He is a prime example of someone getting it done, not talking about it like the rest of us.[/quote]

Or more accurately, a prime example of an individual with the resources to get such things done, unlike most of the rest of us. Talk is cheap, to be sure, but the ability to construct a 4-4-0 is greatly enhanced whenever one can actually afford to do so.

More power, however, to such individuals, and great credit in this case to Mr. Kloke.

I do not disagree that it takes talented people. I never said that a two year old could build a locomotive from a set of plans. It also takes money and a clear vision.

However, when you sit down and look at it, just think how much time and money you are saving when you have a full set of patterns and blueprints on hand. At the very least, it has to cut down the time it would take to build it by quite a bit.

I wonder how much of the A1 project in the UK was spent on patterns and pattern-making. It isn't cheap, and it certainly isn't quick. Frankly, thinking of all of the componet parts that make up a 19th century 4-4-0 or a 20th century 4-6-2 makes one realize the sheer number of parts you have to build.

I think the York is being built from the UP 119 patterns, but it's to represent a generic Civil War era 4-4-0. It is being built for a group in PA.

I looked at the site, the locos remind me of the work the 15" gauge livesteamers create when they are "Freelanceing".

Its not going to be worthy of preservation in a hundred years, thats for sure, but maybe that is not his goal.

You can all add to the production of great work if you want to, just apply yoursleves.

Do what you can to proetect the information in the mean time.

Having a set of plans definitely helps immensely, but since many new design projects are done in CAD and then use of CAD / CAM to make those parts those blueprints don't only need to be scanned they have to be 'converted' to a useable format for the CAM system.

My use of CAD is limited to roadway design projects, but many times we can spend weeks getting one set of blue print plans converted, legible, and updated to the point of being re-used. Sometimes it may be easier to re-draft the entire plan in CAD from the old drawing.

So having old plans available to reference helps, but it still takes many hours of work on plans to re-create and manufacture those parts. However, once you have it done, you can make as many exact copies as you want.

As opposed to what other players?

dave

Many dozens of others, too numerous to list.

All the builders specialize in one size or gauge or era or quality of reproduction.

There are probably only one or two builders that are a good fit for any single project.

Tell us what you want and I'll tell you a few companies that can build it.

Whatever the customer wants he can have, if he can pay for it.

It's funny... I see things going the opposite direction. I think boiler inspection is only going to get easier over time. We have ultrasound now that we didn't have before; add robots. http://www.google.com/search?q=robotic% ... 8&oe=utf-8

What happens to steam locomotive economics if you can cheaply ascertain the actual health of the boiler with extreme accuracy? What if you didn't even need to change a firetube until the scans said it was due?

What if you use better quality water, as water treatment gets cheaper and cheaper.

I see a lot of possibilities that are good for steam.

I do agree that you're likely to see more and more reproductions, as reproduction costs and timeline are a relatively establishable thing; whereas restoration costs and timeline are a wild weasel that can't be known until deep into the project; i.e. 1361.

The ASME has a standard (FFS-1) to provide guidance for conducting a fitness for service assessment for pressurized equipment. I went to an overview seminar on FFS-1 a year or so ago and I am sure that the methodologies contained in the standard can be used to determine the current condition of an old boiler.

There are amazing technologies now for evaluating materials and structures without having to get a human on the water side of a boiler. I am not an NDE expert so maybe someone on the forum has more specific information.