I know 2020 is a few years away and 765 will need its annual overhaul. I wonder what will FWRHS do to in those three years. Will FWRHS keep doing excursions with another Locomotive or will they just stop and work on the 765 for those years. If they do operate another locomotive I thinking they would use PM 1225 for those three years and give 1225 more mainline work that she was built for. It's just a thought.

its last overhaul was a biggee, 13 years, but maybe all that major work is done and perhaps it only needs flues and a good checkover for anything else.

If it does mean anything else, FWRHS has been doing some maintenance during 765's down time. Last year they did the chimney and top of the smokebox around it (if I remember correctly), and this year they're replacing some of the older sidesheets on the firebox.

The FWRHS has been eyeballing 2019/2020 for a while now and in concert with our local FRA inspector have actually started on the 1472-day inspection early. Early as in, a month ago. We're actually pulling superheater tubes about twenty feet away as I write this.



Tubes to follow. Additional work to follow next year. This way the downtime is absolutely minimal and we draw on the $250,000 in escrow for the inspection over two years. The running gear and the locomotive overall are still in very good shape compared to 2001.

Some firebox work last weekend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tw3qnhsR3k

The engine will be back online in June.

I'm certainly no expert but by doing the tubes now doesn't that restart 1472 clock? I'd think you'd want to wait as long as possible before pulling the tubes.

Yes, but we don't think anything will compare to waiting from 2005-2009, when the engine sat with boiler time ticking away. We lost a lot of tube time that way.

The 765 experienced a leaking flue and cracked tube last season and we're not content to wait for others to do the same. We detailed this in our last member newsletter and I'll be posting the story and some additional details in a few weeks.

At the same time, we're also laying a new concrete floor in our shop this last week and next: https://twitter.com/FortWayneRails/stat ... 7731547138

In response to the Twitter video of pouring the floor, it is sad to see that even in 2016 concrete contractors are still using welded wire mesh in their pours. Welded wire mesh provides no structural strength to concrete, very little in the way of crack control and only serves to make eventual concrete removal more problematic.

Note how the concrete truck drives over it, forcing it down to the bottom. Then one worker haphazardly pulls it up only to have the finishers step on it and force it back down again. Reinforcing is best when it is placed withing the bottom third of the slab so as to spread out concentrated floor loads. Put it in the middle of the slab or higher and there is no benefit from it. Put it at the bottom or varying in distance from the bottom to 1/3 back to bottom also is of no benefit.

If you are going to have a concrete floor poured, insist on using fabricated rebar mats instead of welded wire. These mats are made from deformed rebar in sizes 3, 4 or 5 and are welded together on various spacings. Very easy to place, they support the weight of workers (but not the concrete truck) and allow for the concrete to achieve its maximum strength and weigh supporting ability. You can also manually lay rebar and tie it up, but that is fairly time consuming.

I support a 260 ton stationary steam engine on a 7" thick slab. I used No. 4 rebar 12" On centers throughout. I can show you where that slab actually flexes under the weight, but I have nothing larger than a few hairline cracks because it was engineered correctly in the first place and the rebar is exactly where it needs to be and is doing the job it was designed to do.

Best of luck to FWRHS!
Rick, IMHO - proper base and compaction are the most important factors in concrete work - second, keep slab size deep but small when possible. While rebar certainly adds significant strength, good wire mesh with proper standoff like you described will help protect many failure types. For pure load strength, very high base compaction and use proper pour depth for your load; ie, mass is mass - you need the concrete to 'push back' when you put something heavy on it.