Matt,
Thanks for your interest.
The rebuild was undertaken in two segments. About 4 years ago the locomotive suffered a crosshead key failure. The result was shattered cylinder head and a cracked cylinder casting. At that time we removed the engine set disassembled it and had the crack furnace brazed. We could have just made new pistons and rings to fit the oversize bores. However if we had done so when those bores got out of round again from wear the cylinders would have been too thin to take liners. Therefore we bored all three cylinders and installed liners in them. New pistons were made to fit the liners and new rings were made. The piston rods were trued up at that time. Since the engine was disassembled we also re-machined the valves and lapped them into the valve seats. New valve stems were made and new piston and valve stem packings were machined.
It was clear at the time that the gears and tires only about one more years worth of life left in them. Because we operate year round and we had not yet located a manufacturer for the gears we re-assembled the locomotive and ran it for another year and a half.
In November of 2006 we took the engine back out of service to install new tires on all 12 drivers. The pinions were very worn out by that time and needed to be replaced. We found a company on Vancouver Island that could make the new gears. We elected to put new ring gears on all 6 axles at the same time because running new gears mated to old gears results in undesirable wear on both the new and old gears.
The big challenge came from the fact that the owner required that the locomotive not be left outside the engine house (due to potential vandalism issues) and that due to the fact that the engine house is made of wood I required that it always be moveable (in case of a fire it could be pulled out of the house to safety). The problem was we only had one suitable shop truck. We separated the tender and put it on the shop truck. Then we took the wheel sets out of the tender truck replaced them with junk wheels and put the tender truck under the rear of the locomotive. We replaced the wheel sets in the #2 truck with junk and put it under the front of the locomotive. The result was everything could be moved but we had all 6 axles out so we could get the tires off. It turned out that no 2 axles were the same length, or had the same wheel center back to back spacing, or had the same wheel center O.D. We trued up and standardized the wheel centers and counter bores so that any tire could fit on any wheel seat. We also trued up the journals at the same time.
After we received the new tires we shrank them on the wheel centers. I posted some pictures of this a while back in a thread about railroaders at work. When the gears finally arrived (about 6 months later than expected) we made new step keys and re-drilled and reamed the holes for bolting them to the wheel centers. When that work was complete we did the musical truck dance in reverse until all the trucks were back in their proper place with the new wheels and gears.
When the locomotive was at last back on its own wheels we machined the new line shaft bearing castings to fit the pedestals and then line bored them. That completed the running gear work.
Other issues that we addressed were a leaky turret dry pipe, a persistent throttle leak and a new clamp set for the joint where the engine dry pipe attaches to the boiler. A new (to us) dynamo, paint, and lettering completed the project.
Credit is due to all the men who worked on this project the list includes:
Tom Shreve
Stathi Pappas
Nathan Goodman
Chris Butler
Kent Jefferys
Tak Mesaba
Doug Diemer
Chris Holombo
Gene Drake
Darren Drake
Ian Applegate
Steven Mello
Peter Koronakos
Gary Guttebo
Some of these men were with the project at the start but moved on to other jobs before completion, they are missed. Some joined near the end, some are part time, and some were contractors. They all gave valuable input and assistance.
The fact that this railroad operates year round added to the time it took to complete this project. The men listed above were also responsible for operating both the narrow gauge Roaring Camp & Big Trees and the standard gauge Santa Cruz Big Trees & Pacific.
John Bush
