WMSR 734 & Timing

jasonsobczynski · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 8:57 am

Matt,

I raise my hand in compliance with the conditions you specified, though I don't prefer the term "underlings" in referring to the 6 working under me as it seems a bit demeaning. The President of the railroad I worked for would rather the engine be out of service than to have it damaging itself. The locomotive missed most of the 2010 season as a result of this.
I, incidentally, am not attempting to make a case of operating a locomotive with issues of inefficiencies. After all, they are all inefficient by nature (comparatively)......just to different degrees.
I take this thread as a chance to share standard practices which result in operating steam at minimized maintenance costs....

To quote L.D. Porta, "There is no economy in cheaping it out".

Cheers, Jason

Kelly Anderson · **Joined:** Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am **Posts:** 2477

jasonsobczynski · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 6:38 pm

Kelly Anderson wrote:

They may have learned it, but that doesn’t mean that they practiced it. When returning #7002 to service, its having been overhauled in 1939 and never run, we were impressed to find lots of brand new parts, perfectly clean and with machining marks still on all surfaces that were made nowhere near the tolerances called out in the old RR technical manuals. More often, mating parts were machined to about halfway between the recognized “tight tolerance” and the condemnable limit (i.e with only ½ of their potential life left), giving us the impression that despite what the engineering department decreed, the men in the shop were operating on the “it’s better to hear it rather than smell it” mind set. And in the tradition of HO scale steam locomotives worldwide, she ran better in reverse, being out of time in forward motion right out of the Altoona shops.

Kelly, keep in mind that was something the Pennsy did on 1 locomotive. And, afterall, the Pennsy was "the standard railroad of the world" while all others were deluxe..... Anywho, they may have done that on 1 locomotive but all railroads did not.
I am curious what you mean about "being out in forward", I have heard far more locomotives out (or out more) in reverse.... In fact, all that I have been around.

Kelly Anderson wrote:

When we restored #475, we intentionally left the Baker valve gear undisturbed until the rest of the engine was finished in order to try to set it in its “as is” condition (as an economy move). After a few initial readings, it became obvious that the valve gear (fresh from being maintained by the N&W) was so worn out as to be unset-able. So much for “overall good condition”. Due to the excessive complication inherent in Baker valve gear, we spent about two months reconditioning all of the wearing points. It isn’t a weekend project when Baker goes bad.

It would make sense that a locomotive which was run late would be a little sloppy, they were after all running them into the ground at the end. Where is it stated that the N&W had actually been "maintaining" the locomotive up to the point it came out of service, and on a branch at that?
To which specific complication in baker gear are you referring? It has been my experience that it is by far the most simplistic to maintain....all pivot points. And, if it is not allowed to hammer around then it's a matter of replacing bushings, renewing lateral liners and polishing or taking a skin cut on pins.

Kelly Anderson wrote:

A philosophy like that could easily be enlarged to park all steam locomotives permanently, since by their nature they damage themselves every day that they operate. Also, it is safe to say that there isn’t a steam locomotive operating in the world that isn’t suffering from accelerated wear of some part or other due to less than optimal conditions, it’s the nature of the beast, however in most cases, the defect isn’t as readily noticed by the foaming public at large as it is in an engine badly out of square. As the saying goes, “a steam locomotive is like a lady’s watch, always in need of repair”.

The bottom line is that the locomotive is in good enough condition to satisfy the FRA and do what its owners require it to do (as shown by its continuing appearances in Frostburg) which is the level that railroads have required steam locomotives to be maintained to since 1830.

Of course locomotives are machines of perpetual destruction, your statement is made by taking mine entirely out of context and was written for the purpose trying to demean me by speaking as though I was unaware of this. There is a difference between normal wear due to usage and DAMAGE, there is a difference between accelerated wear and DAMAGE.

Not speaking specifically towards the 734 but the bottom line is that the FRA laws are minimum standards based on concerns of safety and potential for mechanical failures, when it comes to machinery there are no parallels to be drawn between the FRA standards and those of railroad mechanical department standards.
The fact that railroads developed standards requiring locomotives to be maintained within tight margins would reflect that at some point between 1830 and 19XX they determined it was better to keep them above a certain percentage of wear rather than just run'em till they won't as long as they are legal assuming they can still move freight down the line as your statement implies. Did I misunderstand?
Sure, early on and on short lines when a locomotive runs just 5-10 miles at 15ishmph one could get away with a bit more. However, what would today be class one railroads had very specific guidelines by which bearings and related components would be replaced. They had "go" "no go" limits for different classes of shopings as well as roundhouse inspections. If dimension "X" exceeds "Y" then it gets replaced (as in rod or valve gear bushings) or remachined (such as in the case of out of stroke or quarter). Especially on superpower....
There are even standards from some roads that required the replacement of valve rings on a monthly and turning of pilot truck wheels every three.

Cheers, Jason

Frisco1522 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 7:20 pm

Sigh............

kelvindex1 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:09 pm

Thank you for having an operating steam engine.

Lincoln Penn · **Joined:** Wed Feb 02, 2011 9:40 pm **Posts:** 841

Phooey. Railroads were notorious for not adhering to their own, in-house mechanical department rules and instructions. If they had, there would have been no need for ICC or FRA regs.

What they did or didn't do was determined by a huge number of factors ranging from policy through budgets to power shortages (get her out of the shop QUICK) to skilled labor shortages (the vlve setter laid off sick today) to parts unavailability (that bushing will make it to the next shop; we don't have any in the store room) individual personal whim and/or judgement of master mechanics, roundhouse foremen, gang foremen and even individual workers.

It has gone on forever, and still goes on with diesels today. It always will go on as long as people make have to make judgement calls or are feeling pressure to make them.

Get over it.

G. W. Laepple · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 5:10 pm **Posts:** 1182

I'll make two observations here. First, I poked around on YouTube a bit, and I heard several steam locomotives, most operating in fairly arduous present day service, that sounded more out of square than WMSR 734. Draw your own conclusions.

Second, an old friend whow as a boilermaker helper at Enola Yard on the PRR in the early 1950's related the following tale to me. At some point, the PRR leased four Western Maryland H-8 or H-9 2-8-0's for coal train service between Enola and Hagerstown. When the first of these mighty beast arrived at the Enola roundhouse, a number of hostlers and machnists wondered whether it was a new locomotive, because it was clean and didn't have any leaks. Again, draw your own conclusions.