Greetings everybody. I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. The following are some of the highlights as we’ve continued to stay busy through the last few months of 2021:

A pair of new Stephenson valve gear rocker boxes and rocker arms have been fabricated for a locomotive undergoing heavy overhaul in our shop. Here, the right side rocker box and rocker arm assembly is shown permanently mounted to the frame. The rocker arms were machined out of a solid piece of flame cut steel plate:


Progress on a new locomotive boiler continues, with work currently concentrated on the firebox. Here crown bars and their stays and pins are being fit to the crown sheet:


As of a couple months ago, work was completed on three brand new thermic syphons for ex-Boston & Maine #3713 undergoing restoration at Steamtown National Historic Site. These components were quite the fabrication project to design and assemble, as they required multiple processes including cold flanging on our pneumatic McCabe flanging machine, hot flanging over dies, and even repurposing our wheel press to be used as a forming press, not to mention many hours of machining to create the required dies for all this work. Despite the size and complexity, we feel the finished product turned out quite well, and these syphons can be added to a very short list of these components that have been fabricated all new in the preservation era:


We performed overhaul work on a number of running gear components for the Valley Railroad’s 2-8-0 #97, including the driving wheelsets, lead truck wheelset, and driving boxes. This overhaul work involved more replacement than it did repair, and in fact almost all components shown in this photo are brand new, including driving axles, tires, crankpins, driving boxes and crown brasses, and lead truck axle and wheels:

The manufacture of new driving boxes and crown brasses required an especially quick turnaround after receipt of order, so that the Valley could reassemble this locomotive in time to handle the large crowds for their very popular Christmas trains. The eight driving boxes and crown brasses, and associated repair and fit up work went from start to finish in about two and a half months.

We fabricated a complete set of new Type A superheater units for the New York, Susquehanna, & Western (dba Delaware River Railroad Excursions) 2-8-2 #142. Though we have a complete supply of individual superheater unit components on hand, for this job the customer elected to ship us the majority of the components that they had already purchased, and we performed all the pipe bending and final assembly work in our shop:


We fabricated four brand new narrow gauge car wheelsets for Silver Dollar City Theme Park. Shown here is our machinist Ron assembling one of the wheelsets in our wheel press:


We also made two new driving axles for one of Silver Dollar City’s locomotives. Here, a tire is being heated to reinstall on one of the driving wheel centers as part of that work:


Some smaller appliance and component jobs have also been completed:

We supplied two complete, brand new Sellers 10.5KNL non-lifting injectors, and two brand new Sellers 2” VC-style starting valves to the Nevada Northern Railroad. Shown here is one of the injectors, and two starting valves, partially assembled:



We filled an order of 275 button head rivets for the Niles Canyon Railway. These were made from code material, and the heads were forged using tooling we made in our shop:


Over the past few months we have supplied about 80 of these flip-type window latches for various customers. Here two of them are shown as an example of the finished product:


We performed a cosmetic restoration on and made a wooden base for a locomotive bell for a customer:


As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention (or at least reverse engineering), and overhaul work on the trucks of our Lounge Car #118 and Caboose #12 over the past year prompted us to manufacture new 4-1/4” X 8” steeple back journal bearing wedges:

Made to as-new AAR specifications, replacing worn out wedges with brand new will help minimize lateral and longitudinal play between axle and journal box, which will help the trucks track better and will minimize the potential for overheating of and accelerated wear on journal bearings. These wedges are available for purchase if anyone in the industry has a need.

As of about a month ago, we welcomed a new addition to our shop in the form of a brand new CNC slant bed lathe. A Hyundai Wai model HD3500LM with Fanuc controls, it has 35HP, 16.5” max. swing, 50” max. distance between centers, a 4” hole through spindle, and a 12 position turret – 4 positions of which feature live tooling:

With more capacity than any CNC lathe we’ve had before, and with the addition of automatic tool changes and live tooling, this machine should make short work of a range of small to medium sized jobs, and allow many components that have radially located holes, slots, keyways, ect. to be completed in one set up.

Maintenance work has continued on our own equipment, and a famous visitor as well:

After wrapping up operations on our railroad in early October, Norfolk & Western #611 is spending the winter at our facility. As such, we are happy to give our friends at the Virginia Museum of Transportation a helping hand with #611’s annual inspection. This inspection marks the 5th year interval where all non-drilled flexible staybolts must have their caps removed so that the bolts may be inspected. The locomotive is pictured here in our yard having the insulation removed from the firebox and combustion chamber area of the barrel in preparation for the flexible staybolt inspection:


#475 made a quick trip to the backshop for some work on her valves and pistons. Her valve cages and valves, and cylinders and pistons have been approaching worn out condition for a number of years. Though she had performed well enough for quite some time with her engines in this state, the wear in these components was recently becoming enough to where she was showing a noticeable increase in water consumption. We were fortunate to have a full set of new rings in stock for the pistons and valves that only required minor fitting to properly mate them with the existing components and bores. Over a two-week period these rings were fitted and installed:

Upon testing and revenue service after this repair, it was found that – though this work made a marginal improvement in performance and water consumption – it would be prudent to install new valve cages and cylinder bushings (as has been the grand plan for many years) to effect a full and complete repair. #475 will likely make another trip to the shop at some point during the first quarter of 2022 to have this work performed.

Despite appearances as presented by this picture, no, we have no plans to turn #1235 into a tender engine. However, this photo does illustrate accurately that we continue to work on both our SW-1200 #1235 and ex-CN 0-6-0 #31. #1235’s car body and #31’s tender frame were sandblasted a few months ago to prep them for any needed metal work, and ultimately paint and finishing work:

I understand #1235 will likely make her first moves under her own power at some point during the first couple months of 2022. #31…..is going to be a little while yet, but we do continue to make as much of a concerted effort on her as we can outside of manpower requirements elsewhere.

As often occurs during the winter, we are again taking advantage of the downtime our open air cars see during the colder months of the year. Here, Car #68 Hello Dolly is in the shop for an overhaul of her seats and exterior:


Our dedicated and talented team hopes you had a Merry Christmas (or other applicable holiday) and a Happy New Year! We look forward to serving you as we move into 2022!


Erich Armpriester
Director of Mechanical Services
Strasburg Rail Road Mechanical Services

Always such a pleasure to witness the quality work you guys do and how valuable you are to this industry as a place that can handle just about anything and do it in a first class manner.

Here's wishing you a very busy and prosperous 2022.

Ross Rowland

Wow, looks like you guys have had quite the year. Wishing you a great 2022.

Thank you for the update. I always look forward to these to admire your work.
Have a great 2022.

Erich - Thanks for showing off your (collectively) work. These are my favorite kinds of posts (though they make me a bit envious). What a jewel of an operation and inspiration in a niche market.

Strasburg is still the gold standard. Thanks for everything you guys and gals do!

Indeed, Strasburg is, without a doubt, the gold standard! I too love these posts and was concerned that maybe they would die when Kelly retired. I am delighted that not only did they not, but they retained their quality!
Thanks for posting and have a safe and fruitful New Year.
Ned

Erich, Thank you for continuing to provide these updates - much appreciated!

Outside of the shop, do you know of any plans for Strasburg this upcoming year?

With trains now operating in Jan. and early Feb., President's Day Weekend is becoming less of the spectacle that it used to be. Would Strasburg entertain the idea of having a steam powered mixed-freight this weekend to kick off what used to be Strasburg's traditional season? While I know the RR has moved away from any type of announced Steam powered freight in the past few years, this would certainly be a way to engage the railfan community on that particular weekend.

Folks:

Have you considered that if you keep declaring everything these guys do "the gold standard," none of us will be able to afford their work once they price it accordingly????

> none of us will be able to afford their work once they price it accordingly????

I think that ship has sailed. I know they do good work, and you get what you pay for, but twice now I have been forced to go a different route. Not just over budget, but an order of magnitude over a planned budget where money was in hand.

If anything, Strasburg's pricing, and the amount of good work they do, has given rise to other contractors who do similar work, although perhaps more quietly, in the background, and perhaps at a lower price. There seems to be no shortage of funded work underway if you look at reports from the various shops around the country.

J.R. May

PRR8063:


My understanding is that the reliability (or lack thereof) of NS's deliveries continues to be such as to make scheduling an interchange mixed freight difficult at best. However, our Guest Experience team always has something new and creative in the works, so keep a regular eye on our Facebook page and website for the very latest.

JR:


As I'm sure many on this forum can appreciate, finding that balance between offering potential customers an affordable product, and being able to pay your employees a living wage with decent benefits while also covering other company expenses, is something that is tremendously challenging when operating a private, for-profit business, and is only becoming ever more challenging in today's economic, regulatory, and social climate. That said, we continually strive to find that balance the best we can. We have always maintained that our prices are likely not ideal for the independent hobbyist, or a small organization with an extremely tight budget. (However, there is the occasional job that we have, in fact, completed for an independent hobbyist....one just a few weeks ago. Additionally, on a recent public bid, our prices came in significantly lower than others - as low as half the price of another comparable bidder.)

Also as many here are well aware, costs and scope can change over time. Historic railroad equipment can be full of surprises once disassembled and thoroughly inspected. Labor and material costs go up as time goes on - a trip to the grocery store today doesn't cost the same as it did 5 years ago.

Having said all this, we do our utmost to under-promise at the outset of a job, and over-deliver in the end. We feel that putting safety and quality first, while offering customer service that is second-to-none - all the while keeping in mind that costs must be reasonably controlled - will create the best outcome for us, and provide the best product and best service for our customers.

Erich Armpriester
Strasburg Rail Road Mechanical Services

What is a thermic syphon and what does it do?

It inproves water flow through the boiler. 3713 has a Nicholson syphon.

Flip the syphon in the picture upside down, attach the pipe to the bottom of the front sheet of the firebox. Then attach the wide part to the roof of the firebox, letting the fire heat the water in the syphon.

As the water in the syphon heats, it becomes less dense and wants to flow upward. When it does, cold water is siphoned from the bottom of the boiler into the pipe at the bottom of the front sheet and the water from the syphon that wanted to go up has someplace to go, flowing forward into the boiler. Round and round we go.

Just don't have an upwelling at the mouth of the dry pipe.

Actually in retrospect the heating system in our old house was a syphon. The furnace was in the cellar, next to the coal bin. The fire heated water making it less dense and it rose into pipes leading up to radiators in the rooms upstairs. Radiators are heat exchangers and heat the room air, cooling the water, making it more dense and it then flowed down a different set of pipes back to the furnace. No water pump neeeded.

You need a steady coal fire, not an intermittent oil or gas fire.

Phil Mulligan

Same basic concept as used by the Baker heater once used on passenger cars. The company also made systems for buiildings (residences and commercial).

Hello Erich,

Very interesting report, thank you for posting it.

As for the B&M loco syphons, were cross stays added in a grid pattern in the triangular flat areas or are those side plates thick enough to hold the internal pressure? Maybe that was done after the photo was taken?

The syphon plate forming is very impressive!

Thanks again!

Randy