Re: Locomotive Parts

You really can't "stockpile" stuff like this. If these things keep happening, which i'm sure they won't, they are going to have to place an order for new rods from Strasburg. Not a whole set together of course, but as rods wear out. Then you say, yeah but what if a rod breaks during the season and they don't have any on hand and they have to have one made at Strasburg, they should keep them stockpiled. I don't know how much Strasburg charges for new rods, or anyone else capable of making them, but they aren't cheap, and which rods do you stock pile? Broken rods and links are not common occurances. Side rods aren't just steel either. They are made up of numerous kinds of steel and alloys and I believe they are forged at a certain temperature too.
The 488's valve rod problem is puzzling to me. It melted at the end with most friction, and cracked at the valve end. Earl has told me that 488 used to run hot sometimes in the past. I think the 488 should be watched extremely closely over the next...10 years. I have a feeling something happend to this locomotive at some point. Not on the C&T, but on the Rio Grande. Maybe it wasn't a derailment, or maybe it was. Or suppose it was something unreported or undocumented, like maybe it fell off the blocks in the Alamosa shop one time.
Carlos said on a shop update last year I believe that they were re-aligning the frame. That is a common thing when overhauling an engine. But I just can't help but think that SOMETHING must be out of whack. My dad said he talked to an old UP employee years ago, that his job was to break in newly shopped loco's here in Omaha from 1923-1926. He said that every once in a while they'd get a locomotive that would run hot or something just did not work. But most of the time they had no problems.
Kevin Bush