Re: Davenport 'trench' locomotive restored!

I’m happy to shed some light on anyone’s questions regarding the locomotive. I am the lead machinist at the Norgrove Railway and was one of 6 guys responsible for bringing the locomotive back to life. It was done over a 3 year period and the restoration (more like recreation) consisted of a fully rebuilt running gear where reprofiled the tires to what our profile is which is basically a match to what Ffestiniog uses. Same with the chopper style couplers, we build them in house but they are a Ffestiniog design. So the gauge of the locomotive is technically about 23-5/8. We still call it two foot gauge though.

Anyways, we received the locomotive as a 2-6-0 chassis from Schurmanns Iron Horse Ranch in Ridgefield, WA. Said chassis was missing the entire rear 6 feet of the frame which included the trailing truck assembly, rear equalizing links and spring rigging, as well as the end buffer beam. We tore the running gear apart, reprofiled the tires and polished all journals and crankpin surfaces. We found that the chassis had very little wear on all the crown brasses and all rod bushings so most of that was simply cleaned and reused! I did make new wedge adjustment bolts, and we did hone the cylinders, build up and remachine the pistons and installed new piston rings with them. The slide valves were surfaced and lapped, I made all new valve chest studs and all the cylinder heads were replaced. The brake shoe hangars were bored out and new pins were made.

In November of 2017 we acquired the other Davenport 2-6-2 trench engine which was formerly “Byron Railroad 2968.” This one we acquired from Ron Trottier of Watertown, New York. While complete for the most part, the engine was heavily customized and still wearing its Byron railroad appearance. We immediately tore down the locomotive in order to get the original boiler off and sent up to Boilersmith in Ontario Canada who would build the new boilers. Upon disassembly we found a lot of other original components that were still on the engine. Such as the water tank supports attached to the boiler which were being used as running board brackets. The cab floor was original along with the front and rear buffer beams. The main items we took from this Davenport, to help us restore the first one was the trailing truck assembly although we had to make a new Pivot fork, as well as the steam dome and the sand dome. One sand dome came with the first Davenport so now we had a complete original set.

So in all, the restoration of U.S.A #5240 included a refurbished chassis which needed the entire rear 6 feet to be built, as well as the front section of the frame. A new boiler was built and fitted with all new waste and furnace bearers, new firebox mounts, and I made all 18 new taper bolts to secure the smokebox to the cylinder saddle. The cab and water tanks were built in house and meticulously riveted together. We made all the plumbing in house and did our best to match how each steam and water line went originally. We had a great builders photo of the backhead so that was our model for how we set up the cab and the rest of the plumbing. Originally built with metropolitan injectors, we were able to locate 3, Sellers 3.2 injectors. Two of them in the cab and one as a spare. Kelly Anderson and his team at Strasburg replaced the cones and nozzles to one of them, Anthony Duarte of Eccentric engineer did the other two. The locomotive also has a 2 feed hydrostatic lubricator for the cylinders that was built by the Ohio Injector company. There is an additional single feed hydrostatic lubricator in the cab that is for the air pump. Originally there were two hydrostatics in the cab, and the original single feed was for the steam jam valve. So we were able to put the same style Detroit single feed hydrostatic lubricator where it was originally located, and use it for our air pump. There were countless new castings we had made for the locomotive. Such as the number and builders plates, branch pipe cover castings tank on the smokebox, and many parts we fabricated in house and made to look like they were cast!

All in all it was a very long and arduous task to bring this locomotive back to life, but we stand back and look at what we’ve accomplished and feel great knowing we have a better than new locomotive that represents part of World War 1 history. The locomotive is an absolute joy to operate and it’s all due in thanks to Peter Nott for allowing us to do this.

-Hayden Seybold