Something is coming to the EBT...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C6PvNjKJXw
(or if you wish to skip the video http://www.febt.org/tour/ )

The grammarian in me insists on lecturing you about the fact that it's been there the whole time and never left, so how can it be "coming"?

[dives for the foxhole] >;-)

Oh Sandy, don't be so corporeal. Life had left, and now it returns.

Please, Sandy is probably doing as well as the rest of us corporeally, and I'd much rather keep him that way for as long as he likes. Besides, I'm not sure one can enjoy good beer from the other side, which is probably as good a reason as any to doubt the validity of "heaven".

But if there is one, surely operating steam engines driving lineshafts powering machinery used to keep other steam running must be a part of it.

So, confusion from the romantically deluded headline set asiide, is this an announcement that the EBT stationary steam plant is going back online and will be available when I might next need to turn an axle?

dave

The "stationary steam plant" (one engine) has been operational since 2009 on compressed air (boilers have not been operationally repaired.) It will operate as part of the Deluxe tours this year (again on air) and has been reconnected to the main line shaft and that shaft to a jackshaft powering the Sellers locomotive wheel lathe. The belts and bearings on the shafts have been repaired and adjusted to bring them back into service. Two other machines will operate from overhead line shafts powered by electric motors and two more directly from a motors (using flat belts). Yes, this is only a fraction of the system, but it is a start, and the first time a machine has been powered by the engine since the common carrier days. This is predominantly for demonstration purposes.

As far as actual machining, two of these machines have actually been used to fabricate parts for the Combine #14 restoration and structural elements for repairs to the buildings.