Re: Piston valve conversion question??

I’ll need to look around. The 2-8-0s that FES bought from IRCA in 1966ish all look like they have the conversions. Your point on the whole piston and valve shebang being replaced is likely- I’ve read that the IRCA shops in GCity had a full service foundry that could turn out everything they needed in the way of castings. IRCA might have been able to core and pour big stuff like that. They also probably knew they could order big steamer parts from Metro- Cammell in the UK, where FES got their castings after Baldwin stopped their parts services.

**EDIT** I pulled out my IRCA and FES references that have photos- A 1970 photo of 117 by MHF and a 1974 photo of 117 by Ron Ziel (both on FES) seem to have different cylinder head and side profiles, but the same double pipe steam feeds. Maybe as members of the 101 class were deadlined in Guatemala they were parted out to FES to keep their five examples running...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2024 05:45PM by Wayne Sanderson.