Re: Regauging a steam locomotive - How is is done?

Edaville #5/WW&F #10 was, as noted, regauged from 30" to 24" right around 1960.

Essesntially, 6 inches were removed from the frame cross pieces and welded back together, and regauged the wheels. The cylinders, of course, remained the old gauge. The way Edaville dealt with that was they took the main drive rods, cut them and welded on a 3 inch spacer. So the main rods had two right angles to them. That way the wheels could keep their old crank pins. The main frame intersection with the cylinders was interesting, as I recall, although I forget exactly what it looked like.

The WW&F rebuilt the engine 2002-2004. Total stripped down rebuild. We replaced the crank pins with longer ones and got rid of the old rods and machined new ones (a piece of cast flat rod that we turned in a lathe, which is why the main rods have rounded tops and bottoms). The main frame intersection with the cylinders we reworked, with tapered rods to hold everything in place (since the cylinders were working back and forth with each stroke previously).

The boiler is still off the engine, if anyone wants to come and take a look.