Re: Boilers removed from #9 & #30/74

This is interesting, if not surprising news.
Thanks for the information.
Remember that #9 was sent to Chicago in 1939 in very good condition and was only run for two events in the following 15 years or so until it was sent off to the Black Hills from the Q's shops in Aurora, Ill. It is still debated whether #9 was ever steamed in South Dakota. But several tires are known to have been burned in the firebox.
#74, on the other hand was on it's very last legs in 1943 when the Climax Branch was widened and the engine retired from the C&S. The RGS squeezed the last bit out of her in the last three years of it's operation. That engine was in need of a complete and major overhaul and rebuild in 1952. The situation has not improved in the past 53 years.