The pipe nipple is not part of the stud. It is slipped over the stud. Though it would not matter if it was a part of the stud. Thus, when the lagging is applied, and the jacket is applied over that, a washer and nut are applied to the stud. The nipple prevents compressing the lagging too much, as the nut can't be tightened past the nipple.

And I agree, the studs will probably be replaced with NASA-compatible material that will be chrome or stainless, threaded through both sheets, riveted over, welded, nd highly polished.

Stainless eh?? Wonder if they'll do that, not realizing that water under pressure & heat pulls some of the alloy metal out of the stainless leading to a porous material (I forget what exactly happens, but it's well-documented). Of course this takes time. . . . .

If you like that, you'll love the use of SAE 660 bronze for new washout plugs, rather than SB62.

Same thing. The heat will sweat the lead out of the 660, which will then fuse to the sleeve, making it almost impossible to remove the plug without damaging or destroying it.

WHAT??? You would reuse a washout plug?? We don't know where it's been, or how much it may be work hardened, MUST PUT IN NEW!
(Tongue firmly in cheek, just in case someone doesn't realize it!)
But yes, you make an excellent point about substitute materials. I think there were some boiler tubes a while back that had this issue????
I'm "into" Model Ts, and bearing bronze for the transmission triple gears is a real issue, many of the modern replacement bronze bushings are thought to be not of the right alloy, and premature wear occurs. Other claim it's poor clearance issues by the installer.

I'm sure there's a clinical name for his sort of madness, but don't know if there's a cure. Perhaps a different line of work away from the industry. Should happen sooner than later before more stuff is rendered crap.

Well, you never know.

They are also talking about replacing the 4-year old crankpins on 844.

It appears they have a bunch of dubious "solutions" for nonexistant "problems."
The less they find, the further they tear it apart in search of something to fix.
This, of course, leads to fixing things that were not broken.

Did anyone notice the "news" from a brand-new Trainorders poster about a break-in run for 844 in December or January because Omaha wants her back out?

This has gone from strange to sickening.

I suspect that a lot of the success of the restoration of Norfolk and Western 611 has been noted elsewhere. It is certainly possible that the home office in Omaha would like 844 back on the road and may well have issued such an order.

Or it could be a plain old TO troll. I'd place my money on the latter.

Whatever the case, a more practical question would be: If they chose not to continue the total system assessment (Kanzen, ISO 9001, whatall), could the UP facility in Cheyenne get 844 back on the road? On this, I think they could, though it would involve some serious comittment of resources on UP's part.

I would garner that the answer will be apparent either very shortly, or not at all.

The trials and tribulations of the UP steam program at this point should be considered instructive for the rest of us. It is only too bad that there likely will never be an objective account of what happened.

This board may well be the only opportunity for that to happen. Post wisely.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Mike, there hasn't been any "total system assessment" and it's unlikely there will be except in name only. UP is not about to devote resources like that to antique locomotives.

What's happening now is curiosity and paranoia run wild, along with a dose of blame-throwing. Someone has to explain why there were two running locomotives including one that had a huge amount of money put into it less than a decade before, then suddenly there were no operable locomotives. By all accounts and by what has been said publicly by the manager, the entire locomotive is being basically stripped down to nothing and everything being measured, tested, etc.

Exactly what any of that has to do with the boiler becoming full of scale and mud in
a couple of years after excellent performance until then is anyone's guess, though it looks more and more like a witch hunt than anything to do with actually cleaning out the locomotive and getting it back to work.

That could have been done long before now. "Mission creep" is alive and well.

This is another reasdon that I'd like to see some kind of documented "here are things we know work" that any future restoration project could show to a Class I. If there are established ways to go about restoration and maintenance, it'll be far harder to justify unusual actions.

Becky, a lot of what you seek exists already. It's a matter of getting it all together in one spot and going through conflicting advice.

Between the Railway Mechanical Engineer, the minutes of the Master Boilermakers Association annual conferences, the Standard Practices books issued by all of the builders, the AAR, each railroad, even the US Army, some of of the above which have already been digitized, it's there.

The bigger issue is that those who know what they are doing will have no issue with it.
Those who don't want to know, or who think they are smarter than the builders, the regulators and the current operators, will just ignore it. They already do, to a large extent.

You can't fix stupid.

And there will always be a couple who will dig endlessly through a mountain of diamonds in search of a lump of coal.

Ain't that the truth. I get tired of the tear-down mentality that looks for the worst in everything.

Still accumulating links and sorting here. I have another project that needs done by mid-month, then this one gets more attention. As you say, it's not that the knowledge isn't out there; it's a matter of getting it organized and presented in such a way that those who really want to use it can.

Photos from last Thursday 6/4/15 of the UP Steam Shop and Roundhouse
http://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/up-r ... our-6-4-15

I see it that way:

UP may be overdoing things as some commentators believe, but other RR companies probably would have used the setting of a new process as six sigma as a cheap pretext for cutting down the whole steam program - instead UP takes money in its hands to continue it.

Mike

There is nothing approaching six sigma going on there.