Thanks for your willingness to share your knowledge and thoughts. I too wish there were more discussions like this. No pun intended, but I like to hear nuts and bolt stuff. Have a great weekend, hope it is warmer where you are. It's cold here. John.

PS you give me some new things to look at next time I am in the engine house. Can't remember if there is a reinforcing/backing plate under our waste sheet angle yet. The original part of the barrel has been replaced already and I don't know if they planned on putting it back in or not {waste sheet angle}. I here Steve is pretty busy right now, might not be on line much.

Yeah, crunch on to get 69 up and finished for delivery to Alaska in May. I am trying to get the Gainesville project last detail jobs done so I can send young Jason up to the frozen north to help them out, and to learn the Butler way of doing things. He is young enough to still have an open mind, and experienced enough to appreciate it.

More documentary on waist sheets:

From ICS study course - waist sheets are riveted at the top to the waist sheet angles on the boiler and at the bottom to the cross ties. Sometimes the boiler is not connected but there is a wearing plate that slides with the movement of the boiler.

Modern Locomotive Construction 1892: belly brace is flanged, or has an angle riveted to it to fit the boiler. this should not be fastened to the boiler as the purpose of the brace is to use the rigidity of the boiler to prevent lateral flexing of the frames and simply the impingement of the two surfaces will suffice for that purpose.

Baldwin: reinforce the boiler and bolt on the brace. ICS: don't reinforce the boiler but bolt on the brace unless you use a wear plate, in which case don't bolt it on. 1892: never attatch it and don't worry about wear plates or reinforcements.

Quite a variey of different opinions within the community of industry leaders when steam WAS railroading - no wonder we have no consensus now. Of course, 1892 and 1943 locomotives are very different.

Also, sort of ties in both the issues raised in this thread - waist braces help prevent the frame from flexing as much, thus reducing the stresses which lead to loose frames. Holistic mechanics.

Makes me sort of like the Baldwin recommendation of reinforcing the boiler and making a definite connection - everything gets stronger.

dave

Ideally the boiler should be as free as possible to expand longitudinally. Lateral expansion is usually not an issue because it is much less. I have seen a locomotive with the boiler slides clamped too tight. It was a very noisy first firing as the boiler expanded with successive jumps making a very loud bang each time.

I have heard of locomotives having seam problems on the top of the shell due to stuck boiler slides. I have seen a mudring that was cracked along the rear where the rear waist sheet was attached. This was due to a short waist sheet. Sloping mudrings typically have either waist sheets only or a combination with slides that are situated parallel to the longitudinal axis of the boiler.

Firebox slide mounts are too seldom thought about when doing running maintenence. I have often wondered if perhaps shaping the plate into an S curve (when viewed from the side) might make it a bit more longitudinally flexible if it is what is supporting the back end of longer boilers, assuming there is evidence of some problems encountered with a straight up and down arrangement.

Two locomotives at one place show some very interesting boiler mounting problems. Both have had new boilers made, a Porter 30 years ago, and a Vulcan perhaps a decade ago. The boiler on the Porter does not fit the saddle, and has a compromise plate between the two which appears to be held in with bolts in tapped holes from both sides which don't line up, rather than sandwiched in between with fitted tapered bolts as usual. The bolts are failing and loose. At the rear, a support like a waist sheet holds up the front of the mud ring, and it has failed as well, leaving the boiler with a list towards starboard.

The Vulcan boiler was installed by a notorious individual from a very small New England state (who thankfully didn't build the boiler) who provided the smokebox connection with slotted holes so the boiler could expand towards the front as well as the back. The back is attatched with sliding mounts. Riding on the front footboard to see how much slop there was in the frames, running gear, etc was made more exciting by watching the boiler move a bit as well as we went down the shaky track.

Sometimes it is the deceptively simple stuff like boiler mounts that can do the most damage if not thought through.

dave

There was an amusing incident were someone restoring a locomotive in the UK installed a new cab floor - without thinking why there had been a gap between the floor and the backhead when the boiler was cold - when the loco was lit up for the first time the cab floor took on an interesting shape as the boiler expanded backwards..........

Thie story has been related many times as an example of "what not to do".

G