With costs so high for restoration does anyone know how many steamers not ran in the preservation age that are in sound mechanical condition? (Bearings, drive gear, etc) considering any that have been oos since the 50s will need work, but I'm referring to heavy repairs normally associated with backshoppings

There is no such thing as simply firing up a old locomotive. Not legally anyway. You will need the full boiler job. Beyond that, yes, there were some that were put on display or given to museums without too many miles since last shopping and so might need a minimum of mechanical work but 60 years of sitting, particularly if out in the weather, will still take a toll so you would still need to go through everything.

Keep in mind that some kinds of very expensive damage are not predictable from as-retired status -- fretting damage to roller bearings and pitting of the underside of journal surfaces being two we have fairly recently discussed here. In a word: storage can be just as important, if not far more significant, an influence on restoration cost or even restoration feasibility within an organization's sanely available capital.

Most of the physical systems on the locomotive will need to be dismantled, cleaned, and inspected, and much of the 'wear' on poorly-maintained examples would be remediated at a cost comparatively little to the overall labor and work involved in the teardown and rebuild.

Things were different back in the '70s, when there were still locomotives quite recently 'gone through' and some of the rules for their resuscitation were different from today's Part 230 (and the requirements of insurers for operating restored locomotives!)

Of course, if you're following a TQM top-down policy like that on UP, you'll be analyzing and documenting everything whether it was left 'good' or not.

This leaves completely aside Robbie Peartree's concern about preserving the 'work product' of a given shop; there, if you were looking to restore to operation, very good preserved condition would be necessary.

Frisco 4500 in Tulsa. We inspected her when 1522was down with an idea to buy, borrow, lease or whatever. Boiler shell was pristine and the running gear had low mileage from the last overhaul.
When Frisco donated an engine, it took the lagging off and spaced out the jacketing (except 4501 in Dallas). Engine was under cover for a good while at the Tulsa zoo.
We had a meeting with the Tulsa city government and made a great proposal to them. We were stonewalled and never made any progress. She was all apart at the time and scattered around the storage site and parts where Lord knows where.
Would have been a good engine for us.

I'm reminded of the Imperial Valley Irrigation 0-4-0 T&T that ran at Railfair 1991. I worked the event, but not that locomotive, but to the best of my recollection they just did a cleaning and hydro, lit the fire and got her up and running. I wish I had one of the business cards they were distributing then....... they had a very discriptive motto.

nkp 765 had been recently rebuilt when donated to ft wayne, it was in good shape. As for any steamers out there, 765 had a top down restoration, as any other steamer should. Costs are how much you can do vs pro help.

During the great age of steam revival, Ross Rowland's turnaround on NKP 759 was incredibly rapid, due to the final servicing of the locomotive prior to being put out to pasture. It is astounding, how many big railroads overhauled the steam fleets in the mid-1950's, then shuffled recently rebuilt locomotives off to scrapyards.

The AT&SF steam collection was stored in dry conditions, indoors, prior to being removed in a roundhouse demolition, and dumped on the California Railroad Museum. Though only a guess, it's quite possible any of those might have been steam worthy. Not today!

In 1970, Union Pacific 618 was lubricated and moved via compressed air from its 11-year home at the Salt Lake City Fair Grounds to the Salt Lake, Garfield & Western (just across the street). From there it was towed to Provo, and after having its safety valves calibrated, was steamed up and operated from Provo to Heber City to start the Wasatch Mountain Railway (a.k.a. Heber Creeper).

NC&St.L No. 576 was in decent condition at the time she was retired and was looked after routinely by certain NC retirees after being moved to Centennial Park. My understanding from what I've read from the Nashville Steam folks is that she's in overall good condition. The retirees pretty much kept the oil and lubrication systems topped off and did other minor things to arrest deterioration.

The premise of this question seems to be to seek out a candidate for an easy and cheap restoration.

Rest assured that NO museum holding such a locomotive in 2017 is going to be willing to let it go now. And any non-museum candidate in a park has probably been sized up and looked over several times already.

Is the purpose of this request to find engines that are in sound mechanical condition, and are also candidates for restoration? For the former, the Southern 1401 in Washington is a good example, but there is no way it will ever leave the museum for a restoration.

As for engines that were stored indoors for their entire museum career - some are the CNJ camelback in Baltimore, the C&O articulated in the Henry Ford museum, the CN 6400 in Ottawa, and the CN 5700/5703 in St. Thomas. Of these, the only realistic candidate to restore is the CN 5700/03. And even all these will need extensive work to restore to operation.

I think it's accepted that no steam locomoitve will ever run again without a full tear down and examination. Lots of intelligent, good reasons for this. There are a number of complete steamers which were retired in fine mechanical shape, and have been kept in pretty much that condition since the 50's. No matter how intact or well kept, the full tear down must and will happen if they're ever to run again.

I believe the CNN 592 is missing at a minimum the front tube sheet. Not sure if any of the firebox had been removed way back when.

Back in the early 90s when I was regularly driving back and forth from Geauga County to Cincinnati to UC, I would often stop in Washington Court House to check out C&O 2-8-4 No.2776. At the time, a small group was raising money with hopes of restoring her to operation. What I was told at the time was that the 2776 was a relatively low mileage engine since her last Class V overhaul and hadess than 5k or 10k miles on her when she was finally retired. The dates they found stamped on the crankpins brasses indicated like less than 2 years of service since the shopping. This gave the guys a high degree of optimism that she wasn't totally clapped out. I don't think they ever got into taking any UT readings of the boiler and don't recall anyone with any authority stating what kind of condition the boiler was in or if anyone ever took a long look at the boiler and firebox or not. This, of course, was still in the days before Gettysburg and the new 1,472 day criteria.

Interestingly, I've never heard why or how that effort in the 90s fizzled out with the 2776.


Rob Gardner

I know of an engine that's been in storage for 80 + years after being shopped. You can still see the cutting marks on its tires . You guys should be able to figure this one out .