MNGRR Steam Team Work Session Report 4/5/2008

Mechanical Department Work Session, April 5, 2008
By Hans Brandes

One Step Closer to Boothbay

Another close call with Mother Nature; it rained once again on Friday night and was wet Saturday morning. However, the day dried out and we were able to haul #7 out of the house for another day's work. Once again, good weather equals good attendance as volunteers once again came from four of New England's states.

In attendance today were Rick Knight (CMO), Gerry Bagley, Hans Brandes, Bob Meckley, Joe Monty, Jay Monty, Rich Currie, Don Sanger and George Collard.

With #7 outside, we were able to pull out the torch and continue disassembly work in preparation for the trip to Boothbay Railway Village for the heavy work.

Rick climbed into the smokebox while Rich and Joe worked from the steam dome to remove the dry pipe. The pipe is held against the forward tube sheet by the T fitting in the smoke box which had since been removed. With the throttle being removed from the steam dome, the dry pipe was free to be removed. With some persuasion, the dry pipe came out and was lugged back to the tender for the trip to Boothbay (the old dry pipe will be used as a pattern for the new one).

With the dry pipe removed, tube cutting and removal could begin. There are 134 tubes that have to be removed. Each tube must be cut at both ends. Once removed, the ends have to be carefully removed from the sheets as the sheets have been found through ultrasound to have adequate thickness. Joe, Jay, Rick and Rich were doing this job.

Another big job accomplished today was the removal of the ash pan and grates. With the finding that most of the firebox will need to be replaced, it was necessary to remove the ash pan and grates to gain access to the firebox. The ash pan is held in place by 10 studs. Heat was applied and the nuts were removed. It was also necessary to disassemble the grate shaker as the linkage goes right through the back wall of the ash pan. The removed ash pan allowed for a good inspection. It showed that the bottom of the ash pan has rotted away. The whole ash pan will need to be replaced and will be done with volunteer labor (thank you in advance to Russ Page). So once again, disassembly has shown that there is more that needs to be repaired.

Hans and George worked on UT of the steam dome, the outside of the firebox (wrapper sheets and backhead) and the forward tube sheet. Also, once the firebox grate bearers were removed, Hans was able to crawl under and take a bottom row of data. Fortunately, the metal behind the bearers proved to be good. Over 400 data points were taken leaving us with the throat sheet and the boiler barrel to finish the job. All areas of the outside of the firebox were OK. However, when the forward tube sheet was done, there is one thin spot the size of your thumb. We have taken 753 data points to date and could approach 1,400 points by the time it is all done.

As usual Don was always nearby to add his support with all the little things to help set up jobs and keep the work moving.

Lunch was back to our staple of 'round steaks' and fries from the golden arches. All the good cooks were taking a break this week.

After lunch, Joe, Jay, Rick and Rich continued working on cutting and removing tubes. By the end of the day, 20 tubes had been cut and 5 tubes had been removed. This, along with the work required to remove the ends is one of the 'long poles' to get us to Boothbay. Hans and George continued with ultra sounding finishing up inside of the cab and then did the front tube sheet.

Cutting and Removing Tubes. Photo's by Arthur Hussey II

By 5 PM the work day was about done and #7 was pushed back into the engine house with another successful day drawing to a close. The engine house doors were closed and locked and all headed home.

The volunteers still have a lot of work to do before we can transport #7 to Boothbay.

The next Steam Team work session will be on Saturday, April 19th. We will attempt to finish the ultrasound, working on the throat sheet and the boiler barrel. We will also continue to work on tube cutting and removal. We need at least one more work session to get us to Boothbay. Spring is here and we will soon have to dedicate time to #4 so that we can have steam at MNGRR in 2008. Please come and help out.

As mentioned last time, we continue to be in the 'discovery' stage of our repair work. This time we discovered that the ash pan will require some repair work as will the forward tube sheet. This will continue at our next work session and all the way through our visit at Boothbay. Not until the last piece has been, disassembled, replaced and inspected will we know what our final bill will be. Until then, we continue to be exposed to additional cost. Remember, a standard gauge locomotive having this kind of work done would cost around $500,000. We are doing our best to get through this at a fraction of the cost and a lot of sweat equity. Currently, we estimate that the value of the volunteer labor will be worth over $50,000. Please send your monetary contributions so that #7 can be under steam once again!