I thought a few viewers of this board would be interested in the wheel turning project the PRPA's machinist Tom Weisner is doing on the drivers of the SP&S 700. We don't know if this has ever been done this way before.
Here is a link to our website:

http://www.sps700.org/whatsnew.html

Jim Vanderbeck
President
Pacific Railroad Preservation Association

The last (or bottom) photo is most fascinating as it is a graphic demonstration of the size comparison between men and the beasts we love. As always I appreciate the restoration/repair/maintenance photos submitted. I plan to always be within a reasonable driving distance from Portland and hope to be helping with some of these projects someday.

Thanks for the photos.

Scott

awesome - thank you for sharing.

I always knew there was another use for Spicer drives.

This is a superb example of the machinst's rule: there is always another way. I presume there is no reason why a steam locomotive's drivers could not be turned on one of the underfloor grinding machines that are used for Diesel locomotives, but I have never heard of that being done. And I have not heard of anyone attaching a tool holder to the rail in this fashion. I presume you'll use a tape to establish that the treads are all the same circumference.

I wish it were this easy to do the same thing with a solid-bearing engine like PM 1225. A rolling support for the axle or wheels would be needed. And I don't want to think about how big the counter-counterweight would need to be for the main driver. We recently used the old trick of attaching a tool holder to the brake heads to cut down high flanges on this engine's drivers, while dragging the locomotive back and forth, but decided this will not do for turning the tread.

This operation is very similar to the one we used to turn the driver tires on the PRR 0-6-0 at Williams Grove in the late seventies. We first jacked up the drivers and lowered them into freight car brasses resting on the binders to make a bearing surface for the axles to run in. To rotate the wheels we used a large electric motor belted to an old manure spreader mechanism. Two rollers in contact with the tire powered the driver and two more rollers were under the opposite unpowered driver. The tool head was a metal lathe head attached to a wood lathe guide. We then clamped the guide to the frame making sure it was square with the wheels.

I know all of this sounds rediculous but it worked very well. When we started the largest tire was one inch bigger in diameter than the smallest. To make matters worse they were the number 1 and 2 tires on the engineers side. You can imagine what the rod brasses looked like. These tires were also as close to double flanged as I have seen. After the tires were turned the biggest difference in diameter was measured in a few thousands of an inch.

In order to make new rod brasses we had to turn all of the pins. This was also accomplished with a home made tool.

John Bohon

Aarne,

If you check the American Freedom Train Yahoo Group you will find photos and a brief description of the 4449 driver tires being turned on a German built forty inch diesel machine in 1976. At the time the truing machine was new. The job was completed in a day and it took them about four hours to hang the rods using a forklift at a road crossing while the engine was on display. It is interesting reading.

John Bohon