Re: Steam Locomotive Maintenance - Avoiding the total rebuild?

Sometimes it's the labor that kills you. I know that on many cars, the timing belt needs to be replaced at regular intervals. My '87 Volvo's maintenance schedule calls for a timing belt replacement at 90,000, 150,000, and every 50,000 miles after that. A timing belt replacement can be a pretty involved procedure, necessitating the disassembly of many components in order to gain access. Once that amount of disassembly has been achieved, it can be very little additional work to replace other components that are normally hidden, like the water pump. Many manufacturers recommend the water pump, or other normally deeply-buried components be replaced when the timing belt is being replaced because the savings in labor charges for the additional components can be significant.

I can see how a similar approach to servicing a locomotive can be taken. If you have to get into some areas which are normally very difficult to service in order to perform an inspection to service something, it may be sensible to service and inspect other nearby components as long as you're already in there.

Locomotives, like old cars, always seem to be in need of more service!
Dave