I recall reading that the Santa Fe installed a number of welded boilers during the early 1950s on locomotives receiving heavy repairs.

I looked in my copy of Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail and its chapters on engine maintenance, and the 4-8-4 and the 2-10-4 types. I did not find anything specific about welded boilers; but, there was specific notation of boilers being replaced:

Santa Fe's 3765-75 (4-8-4) built in 1938 with nickel steel boilers; eight of the eleven received new boilers 1950-52.

Santa Fe's 3776-85 (4-8-4) built in 1941 with nickel steel boilers; six of the ten received new boilers 1949-52.

Santa Fe's 5001-10 (2-10-4) built in 1938; six of the ten received new boilers 1949-53.

The Meiningen website says they built 202 fireless locomotives in 1984-1988. Anybody know anything about these? That is a lot of engines in the modern era, fired or unfired.

Interesting that only the 3768, from these three series of steam locomotives, was saved by the Santa Fe. Thanks for the info Brian.

That is correct; although I also did not realize it was that many. They were highly popular with industrial users of all kinds across eastern Europe; some may still be operational today.

I have 29 Meningen locomotives listed in my Surviving World Steam Locomotive database; all but one are these fireless locomotives, and 16 are listed as operational at least until recently. It wouldn't surprise me if there are still more out there that haven't been documented.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

[quote="Adam Mizer"]



ALCO was the first to provide welded boilers in the U.S., IIRC because they were the only company with a furnace large enough to anneal the entire boiler after welding.
quote]

Adam - After thinking about this for some time, I finally recalled seeing a photo (or perhaps old movie) of a boiler hanging vertically. I wonder if this was at ALCO and it was in that position because it had just come out of, or was being put into, that furnace for annealing. Do you know if, in fact, ALCO's furnace was of the vertical type? If so, does anyone have any photos that they could post here? Must have been a very interesting operation.

Les

Hey Les,
Its possible that it was a vertical furnace for annealing, but chances are what you saw was a bull riveting operation. To attach the various courses to each other, and the barrel to the firebox, a bull riveter was used. A bull riveter is basically a massive hydraulic press with jaws long enough to reach from the smokebox to the firebox of the largest boilers. The boiler is hung vertically from a crane, lined up with the course it is to be riveted to, then the bull riveter is used to rivet the courses together. Why it was done this way as opposed to the double gun method is beyond me. Perhaps someone can elaborate.
Chris Zahrt
HVRM

Chris -

Thanks for the clarification. I'd still like to see a picture of such an operation though.

Les

Probably to avoid the boiler being out of round as it's assembled. Dispite what you would expect, each course as it sits on it's side is slightly oval shaped because of gravity. By hanging the boiler vertically, the courses can be kept round.



There is a photo of a vertically hanging J boiler in Kenneth L. Miller's book "Norfolk and Western Class J," of 2000, on page 19. It isn't very clear but there are much better photos of the process in Eric Hirsimaki's "Lima, The History," of 1986 (my copy is second edition of 2004) which clearly show the hammer and the anvil of the rig on pages 286 and 287.

From the photos, it appears the boiler was assembled from the smoke box end to the fire box end in order. The anvil is only tall enough to reach past a single course.