.

Unless the main pin is screwed up, looks like the hardest would be the eccentric crank. Heat n beat n check. Should be OK, just extra work. My biggest concerned would be what the valve area of the cylinder and the valve look like.
Git er done.

To the comments on straightening motion work:

So is that why so many of the engines I have worked on have numerous hammer marks all over the motion work?

That's also how they are taken off and put back on.

Walschaert gear also sets the valves by altering the length of the rod. Generally this is done by heating and beating to either draw it out or upset it.

Looking at the photo, I theorize that the engine was traveling in reverse when it happened. It does not look like the return crank would clear the rod, and thus the stopped position must be at the end of a reverse rotation. Also, I could see the valve motion freezing at mid stroke and then the return crank bending back as the return crank made its loop around towards the front again. It must have been caught and stopped really fast, because I can not imagine any of this still attached if it made multiple rotations.

Do you think it made a lot of noise?

I’ve been sitting here looking at the bent parts wondering about getting things apart. I guess they’ll start by removing that bolt/pin where the eccentric rod connects to the expansion link. Odds seem high that the parts are still under tremendous load, so it should be a pretty exciting job to get the first part off.

In 1959 CB&Q 6315 "threw a rod"-presumedly the eccentric rod, bending the eccentric crank as shown. Fortunately, 5632 was up to the task of taking lame loccomotive plus train to Galesburg where the photo was taken.

Ex GTW #4070 threw an excentric rod on an excursion with ex Reading 2102 on Horseshoe Curve back in the latter 1970’s. Funny, people in the preservation community didn’t completely lose their minds back then. Complex antique machinery can and will break down.

Kelly,

I agree. Now, I know this is impossible to surmise without being there in person, but what do you think the likelihood is that the crankpin is bent/distorted?

Best,
DC

In the 1970s, you also had mainline railroad management that didn't act paranoid about passengers, that didn't act paranoid about steam, and didn't act paranoid about railfans in general.

For better or worse, we have become intolerant of failures, even when they are relatively minor in nature. And one of the unfortunate effects of this is to increase the fragility of our business.

It's part of something larger we have to deal with, though not in this thread.

Oh, but the consequences of the Steam Tours failures with the early Conrail trips in the mid-1970's poisoned the waters for steam excursions on Conrail for the better part of the next decade. The Midwest Railway Historical Foundation #4070 crew was able to find a large machine shop in the Pittsburgh area in the week between the Horseshoe Curve trips and get the engineer's side eccentric rod straightened out and reinstalled. My memory of the incident was that a cotter key holding the rod on broke and allowed the rod to fall off. There is a dramatic photo of the incident happening taken by John B. Corns that appeared in Trains in, I believe, the August 1977 issue. John was riding the running board of one of the helper Diesels and got incredibly lucky in snapping a frame at just the right second. That particular trip lost hours getting going again and got back at something like 3 am the next morning. The train broke knuckles in two places and left potentially dangerous gaps between vestibules. I remember talking to someone who was on the trip and standing at an open vestibule door when the train went into emergency and grabbed a woman just about to cross between cars that parted and pulled her back to safety.

Not only is Brother Woodring's account exactly accurate, there was even an audio crew recording in stereo on the back tender of 2102, with one mike pointed forward and one back at 4070. The recording is still perhaps one of the most dramatic recordings, albeit in a gory way, made in the pre-omnipresent video camera era. (Just imagine a RR allowing such a crew to ride on a tender today, or allowing the van that paced 2101 on railroad access roads up Sand Patch and Seventeen-Mile Grade........)

Further, between that incident, the removal of one of the four tracks on the Curve, and increased freight traffic, the odds of now seeing steam unassisted by diesels on the Curve remain virtually nil. Those of us who talked with Conrail officials in the 1980s and 1990s still consider it nothing short of an absolute miracle that corporate heirs NS let 765 on the Curve at all, let alone as their own idea and not some slobbering foamers begging them......

.

Sandy;

2102 was on Horseshoe Curve and 2101 was on Sandpatch. The late 70's was truly the era of the Reading T-Hogs. Also, 2102 always had 2 CR SD-somethings behind the steam locomotive(s) when moving on Conrail in the early trips.

Still curious about this locomotive... is there any type of plan for her that is public knowledge?

I know she is returning to California but to do what? Run regularly? Run once a year?

It still seems odd to me that she couldn't run a few public trips in Oregon before her return to California. The Trains Charter is tempting... but I'm not sure how well organized it will be. I've been spoiled by the Lerro charters.