MNGRR Steam Team Work Session Report 6/07/2008

Mechanical Department Work Session, June 07, 2008
By Hans Brandes
Photo By Rich Currie
Description:#4 Being filled with water

Summer 'Combo' Work Sessions Begin

Today was the first of a series of work sessions that will continue through the summer that are on steam operating days. We chose to do this as it is more efficient to pull out a second steam when one has to come out anyway. So today #4 handled our first Guest Engineer Day while #7 was hauled out of the house for another day of hard work. Though the day started foggy, it would quickly warm up when the sun burned through.

In attendance today were Rick Knight (CMO), Gerry Bagley, Hans Brandes (train crew), George Collard, Rich Currie (train crew), Steve Kohut (train crew), Joe Monty, Jay Monty, Bill Piche (train crew) and Larry Urbanski.

While #4 was towed to the bridge for steam up, Rick, Gerry, Joe, Larry and George went to work on #7. Gerry and Joe worked on the ends while Rick climbed down into the boiler to cut off the remaining tubes. With this done, the tubes were pulled out through the smokebox and put aside with the rest of the tubes lying on the ground waiting to be sold to the scrap yard.

As tubes were being removed, Gerry ground tube ends on the firebox end. Once tubes were removed, Joe ground tube ends in the smokebox. The procedure that seemed to work best was to grind a half dozen tubes, heat up the tube ends, let them cool and then hammer them out. By the end of the day, about 20 tube ends were out and about a third of the tube ends had been ground in the smokebox end.

Rick and George continued to scrape more dirt and grime off of the outside while Larry painted the outside of the boiler with a coat of dark red paint. This looked good as it covered over all of the spots that were shined up for UT which made the boiler look like it had the measles. The scraping showed that we have a ways to go and to properly prepare the outside for painting we are going to have to use a needle gun. Larry said that we would look into the cost of one.

By 1645, the final run had been made and it was time to drop the fire on #4. Before that was done, #4 was used to push #7 back into the engine house, an unusual and interesting sight. Once #7 was put away, #4 had it's fire dropped and it too was put to bed. The doors were closed and another successful day was in the books.

At this point we are working on completing data gathering for Form 4 and tube ordering Our next goal is to meet with BRV and get this resolved. The cost of new tubes will not be cheap and we will need to continue to raise funds to pay for the entire project.

Our next work session is going to be in two weeks on June 21, 2008. Joe, Trevor and Larry will ply the main line with #4 while the rest of us continue to remove tube ends on #7. Who knows, this could be the first time steam uses the new run around track in front of building 7 making for two way head end operations. Wouldn't that be nice!

Our thanks goes to all who continue to give their time and put expensive gas in their cars to make the journey to MNGR. More hard hours will be needed, but once done will be a great source of pride and joy.

Please send your monetary contributions so that #7 can be under steam once again!