We have updated our web site. Take a look. The weather is getting a little nippy but we want to get it ready to take it over to the D&S come spring. We hope to run it Opening day. The address is <http://www.drhs315.org>

Yours is an excellent website, with quick loading photos, that explain quite well what your group is doing. You have acomplished a lot in a short time. Having actual steam-qualified people as volunteers and access to some facilities of the D&S sure helps a lot.

I note that you had to roll the engine a bit before you could get the rods off, and I wonder if this caused any scoring of the driver bearings from rust on the underside of the journals? Such narrow gauge engines are very difficult to get under to polish the journals. In your case, I note the D&S resurfaced the journals (by turning with a cutting tool in a lathe or just polishing with abrasives?) and also repaired the driver bearings (rebabbitted?), but I'm just wondering if the short move caused any scoring?

Also, I'm curious about lifting a locomotive with the sling around the smokebox. As some smokeboxes are pretty eroded/corroded and thus thin, is there a possibility of the smokebox separating from the saddle during such a lift? This is illustrated in the photo below:

http://www.drhs315.org/restoration/imag ... 119_08.jpg

Thank you re. the web site. It does give one a pretty good idea of the overall effort.
Re. the journals. The engine had to move to get two of the siderods off. It didn't want to either. We finally were able to get it to move with three BIG come-a-longs. Then as you may have noticed, it took two jaws of life to get one of the rods to pop off. Yes, 50 years in the weather was pretty hard on all bearing surfaces. All have been turned and new brasses installed.
I don't know what we would do without the D&S just about a half mile down the road. They turned the pins and redid the brass down in their shop. A number of the D&S employees have given us a lot of their days off too. There is also a lot of resources in the N.M. oilfields. Finally we are also blessed with an excellent Chief Mechanical Officer. He can't bring himself to use anything that isn't right at perfect.
The next thing we'll be doing is getting the cross heads on, the electrical conduit all in and, as soon as we get our blast tube and nozzle back from Denver ( it wasn't perfect), we will start on the mechanics front end. It was gone.