The extension of our rather diminutive mainline northward has commenced. The last 150 feet of right of way has been cleared of topsoil and large sized steel slag put down as a roadbed. We laid track over our rear driveway and are to the point where we will switch from 100 RB rail to 115 RE for the remainder of the mainline. About 60 feet from the north end of track will be a trailing point switch leading to the first leg of a switchback that will allow us to climb the hill to the rear of the property.

We should be getting a few more pieces of equipment in soon to help expedite construction of the track. Components for a 115 turnout and a 90 RA turnout are on site and additional rail and ties will be coming in fairly soon. So very soon we will have answered the age old question posed by most of railfandom to anyone who dares restore a steam locomotive: "But where will you run it at?"

Just in case you were wondering what we have planned for the track layout, here it is. With our entire site being only a 1.2 acre L shape, putting in a loop was not possible. So we looked at this from the standpoint of what the steel mills would have done, and determined that they would have connected various parts of the plant together with a switchback. The goal is to reach the shipping containers at the top of the hill, potentially running tracks into a couple of them for equipment storage. To get there are involves climbing about eight feet of elevation from the grade of the enginehouse.

The mainline from the first curve over the grade crossing is at a little over 2% then it levels out. Coming back the first leg of the switchback the track is pretty much level. The second leg of the switchback will climb very quickly, probably on the order of 4% (now all of a sudden having a heavy locomotive with plenty of traction starts to make sense). The top of the hill track back to the containers will also be pretty much level.

The mainline will also extend through the enginehouse out into the front of the property, where a trestle may be built so as to unload bottom dump hoppers. A potential demonstration may be to load hoppers at the rear of the property with coal then haul them down to the trestle to dump out into a small dump truck which would then haul the coal back to the original loadout. The idea here is to actually make the railroad do some sort of work instead of just running trains around in a circle or aimlessly shifting back and forth.

There are additional tracks that will be added including a runaround track and a turntable, but those will come later on.

Finally, the red rectangle represents where a 40' wooden boxcar will reside. We will be hosting a loaned 40' Pere Marquette double sheathed boxcar, and it will be put to use as the J&L NG yard office.

I declare, that sort of talk--including the "animated" hopper unloading scheme--sounds like the sort of thing operations-oriented model railroaders do!

Of course, you have the same problems they do as well, such as needing a bigger "basement!"

Hey, who owns that building (house?) in the angle of the L? Any chance of going there?

Hey, I say, it's a joke, son!

Seriously, this is great progress; now that I've retired, I'm going to have to get some travelling in, and this is one place I'm going to have to get to!

That's definitely an innovative plan, I like it. A very industrial look. I see J&L 58 is narrow gauge, but what gauge is it?

Also, with all the news on J&L 58, have not seen any reports on the Todd Engine. Any progress on that lately?

It is 24" gauge. Built to 23" but we moved the driver tires out so that we can build to the "standard" 24" gauge.

The Tod Engine is sitting securely in the main building, jealous of all the attention that the 58 has been getting. A running steam locomotive is the hook to get people in the door, which will generate more revenue and interest so that we can complete the Tod Engine's restoration.

For those who don't know what the Tod Engine is, it is a 260 ton stationary steam engine that drove a rolling mill in one of Youngstown's steel mills. We saved it in the mid 1990s and have built the museum literally around it.

Rick, just for curiosity's sake - is the Boxcar Pere Marquette metioned above the same one owned by the Mahoning Railroad Heritage Assosciation? Will you all be undertaking its restoration?

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37681

Thanks,
-Andrew

A group of Pere Marquette fans from Michigan purchased the car, PM 86690 from the MVRHA a couple of years ago. Really having no place to take the car to, I offered to provide space at YSH for it and to assist in repairing the car.

I had been looking for some sort of a space to use as a volunteer gathering area, with lockers, changing area and an open space for eating lunch, telling tall tales etc. Originally I was looking to find a caboose but they really are too small for what I need. I then thought about the boxcar, and after looking at it and seeing how simply it is built, I felt that it would not be a big investment in time to repair it and convert the car into our yard office.

The boxcar pretty much needs one entire side replaced and some repairs done to the other side. The steel roof is in good shape as are the Hutchins ends.

Come this spring we will shore up the roof of the car and make temporary repairs so that it can safely travel via semi to the museum. Once here the one side will be stripped off and rebuilt. We may paint one side in the scheme of a local road while painting the opposite side in its PM scheme. I need to find out which of the local roads (Erie, B&O, PRR, NYC, P&LE) had cars similar in configuration to this one so that it does not look too out of place while it is masquerading as another railroad's car.

Finally with a couple of warm days reassembly of the locomotive has started. The refurbished drivers are back and ready to go back into the frame, which will happen after some machine work is done to the rear pedestal binders.

Meanwhile I have bolted the reverse link brackets back on, installed the reverse gear cross shaft and painted the frame. I removed the cylinder heads and pulled out all of the studs for replacement, and cleaned the cosmoline off of the cylinder bores and valve bores. The left side cylinder bore looks very good, but the right side has some pitting along the bottom. I'm not going to worry about it though at this time.

There is also some pitting in the bores of the piston valves and I do plan to eventually bore them out and fit thicker rings. For now I'm just cleaning them up and reusing the existing rings. My goal is to get the locomotive running within the amount of money I have available and then will go back in the off season to take care of a list of "fine tuning" items that will improve performance.

The next step is to finish up on the rear pedestal binders, install the pedestal shoes, jack the frame up and lower it onto the drivers. Install spring rigging, pistons and cylinder heads. Then install side rods and valve motion. Once all that is on I will make a couple of adapters so that I can put compressed air into the steam chests to see if I can run the engine in place on air. After all of that is done I'll turn my attention back to completing the cab, refurbishing the saddle tank and hopefully by then the boiler will be ready to come back and be fitted back on the frame.

The drivers are back. The driving boxes no longer have an assortment of dirt, grit and gunk inside of them. Clean as a whistle.


One of the valve rods showing the incredible amount of wear.


Left side cylinder after the first round of cleaning.


Right side cylinder bore.

Don't sweat the relatively small amount of pitting in the bores. Hone them out with clean oil, let the rings run back in and they will do everything you need them to do. Rings can be expanded by peening them around the OD if you think they are a bit loose. The valve rod - make a new one in the lathe.

I wore my Porter T shirt for the first time today, and a stranger (other former Pittsburgher) approached me and complimented me on it - send in your donations, people and get more attractive and popular. Who knew it was so easy?

Those Porter shirts have been quite popular. I was actually rather surprised at how well they were received.

Do you have any ideas as to how I can hone the 15" cylinder bore without spending a fortune on purchasing a hone that size?

Get the McMaster expandable hone set, stone and wipers, and make long pins for the spiders to suit. What you want to do is smooth the bores, not remove much material apart from high peaks and dirt. The same set can be used for the valve bores with shorter pins. It's an investment as you can use them for just about anything steam and cylindrical...... or air and cylindrical. I can't see you giving up on rusty iron after so many years as a serial preservationist.

It has been three years since the last post to this thread and in that time the 58 has of course been fully restored and has one year of operation under her belt. We are now looking at making a few improvements at the J&L Narrow Gauge to give us more operating room as well as streamline operations.

This year we are getting ready to begin construction on an 800 foot long branch that will extend eastward from our site and to that end a new turnout has been built off the main track. We have also acquired an 8,000 gallon tankcar tank from CSX for water storage and a pair of boxcars that will be used as enginehouses (two foot gauge equipment fits nicely inside standard gauge equipment!) For coal handling a farmers gravity wagon will be modified as a coaling tower with the capacity of holding about 10 tons of coal.

58 itself is receiving a few improvements including new crosshead slippers, a clerestory for the cab and finally rigging up the cord for the front whistle.

Due to the Coronavirus and a slowdown at the shortline that I work at, I have been able to spend much more time on the J&LNG lately and some of these projects are moving forward quickly. I am just waiting for the weather to warm up and the rain to stop to ramp up even more.


The boxcars when they arrived on the interchange


Our new coaling tower. Some modification required


8,000 gallon GATX tank built in 1920. Formerly a fuel oil storage tank at the P&LE Gateway Yard. Will be flushed out, interior coated and converted into our water tower.

those are some great pieces Rick. But you know Ohio this time of year....warm weather = rain. I'd almost rather have 30s and snow