Hi, all -
Three weeks ago, returning from a visit to Jackelopette and the Strasburg RR on the east coast,
* I was privileged to stop by the Tennessee Valley RR Museum – home of ex-Southern Ry #630 – and to spend a day with my friend Al Phillips. (Contrary to my earlier post, Al is not just a volunteer at TVRM, but a full-time employee who, at the tender age of 73, regularly puts in a fifty-hour week helping to maintain and restore the TVRM's fine collection of steam locomotives.)
After he picked me up at the Chattanooga airport on the evening of 02/26, we headed back to the TVRM shops - where a team of consultants was using modern radioactive-based methods to check recent welds on the boiler of ex-Southern #4501. The big 2-8-2 is undergoing not just routine maintenance but a major overhaul - including the addition of a Worthington feedwater heater that will significantly improve her performance in the years to come
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The next day was mostly spent "running errands" around Chattanooga - an industrial paradise, IMHO - picking up supplies and dropping off & picking up major components of steam locomotives. Here's "Uncle" Al loading the core of the feedwater heater for delivery to a shop for sandblasting
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One of our journeys took us past the TVRM's depot, which overlooks an extensive yard and large collection of locomotives and cars
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After dropping off the heater core, we stopped by a foundry to pick up the rough casting for a new smokebox front
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(To be continued.)
-
Rüsso
* See [
ngdiscussion.net] and [
ngdiscussion.net].
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2018 06:27PM by Russo Loco.