What does 8 plus 22 equal?
Steam Team Work Session 2, February 10, 2007
By Hans Brandes
MNGRR Mechanical Department Volunteer
Today was our second work session of 2007. Not quite so frosty as the last one. Maybe we are used to bundling up and working in sub-freezing temperatures. This session was well attended by the following: Rick Knight, Roger Merrow, Joe and Jay Monty, Gerry Bagley, Rich Currie, Steve Kohut, Brian Durham, Noah and yours truly. Rumor has it that UNH super student Mike Moulison was under the weather.
After some early morning discussion, various projects got underway. Steve and Rich removed the last two window frames from #4 and then removed all the glass from the frames in the museum shop. The glass is now in the back of Hans’ truck and will be taken to a local glass shop where new safety glass will be made. Once made, it will be reinstalled into the frames and put back on #4.
Rich Currie and Steve Kohut work on removing the plate glass from #4’s window frames.
Inside the engine house, the throttle for #4 was worked on by Jay and Gerry. Joe was working in the cylinder cock linkage as it has become worn and may need replacing.
Jay Monty prepares to lap the throttle inside the steam dome.
Joe will also be making the new cut levers for #4. Hans had gotten the material from a local vendor for Joe to take home and bend. The cost of the steel was donated by Hans.
During lunch we all were updated on the latest happenings including the upcoming Mugglefest in July. This would require 12 hours of steam time. Currently this is being negotiated with the event promoter. Stay tuned for updates.
After lunch we worked on cleaning out and reorganizing box cars. Quite a bit of junk was taken out of 72 and put on the metal scrap pile. Scrap wood was taken over to the box car where we store firewood. Track material was moved to the track car (car 62). Railroad car/engine material was consolidated into car 70. It’s amazing the junk that has just been sitting around.
We also discussed plans for working on #8. We are hopeful that an FRA exemption will be granted and that #8 will come alive. We still need to find where the steam leak is up forward and plan to do this using compressed air in the spring. For now though, we have a tank to scrape and paint, throttle to lap and quite a bit more. It would be very exciting to see #8 out and about again as it is one of the biggest pieces of iron to ply the 2 foot rails!
Word from our Canadian work crew is that the portable standpipe is progressing well. Hopefully the design and cost estimate will be done soon followed by production. Delivery could be in June. This will do wonders for our water filling situation by reducing refill time and avoiding putting a dirty hose in the water tank. The standpipe will look very much like those used on the SR&RL.
We are grateful to have a new volunteer; Shawn Cavaretta. Shawn has known the MNGRR since it’s inception and is now stepping forward to put his skills to use on car repair. We took Shawn for a tour of the yard to discuss the wealth of work that can be done in repairing cars. We then discussed possibilities with Rick, Roger and Brian and decided that car 22 is where we would first focus. This car is not in the regular train and is need of some significant window and wood work inside and out. It has, however, been jacked and has good trucks.
New volunteer Shawn Cavaretta looks over the inside of car 22. Lots of potential here.
The work session fiinally finished up at 1730, closing the engine house door and turning off the heat. Car 22 has been spotted near the engine house so that major work can get underway.
Our next work session is February 24. It looks to be action packed. Bring your tool boxes and tools so that we can start work on car 22. This car is going to go through an extreme makeover, inside and out and will be the poster child for what fixed up cars will look like. Don’t you want to be part of this?
As a footnote…we have a lot of talent and will power inside the engine house. What we don’t have a lot of is money. In fact, we don’t have any money. Our repair efforts are stunted without funds to the point that work that could be accomplished with available labor will have to be delayed until sufficient funding can be obtained. This holds true for all our envisioned projects. Currently members are paying for essential materials out of pocket in order to be ready to operate in the spring. Please help us by contributing what you can so that we can provide safe and presentable equipment to our public. Thank you.
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