Cliffside 110
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many months gone by..... March 21, 2015 up-date

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many months gone by..... March 21, 2015 up-date Empty many months gone by..... March 21, 2015 up-date

Post by DaveLathrop57 Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:37 pm

All day at the railroad, it was a wonderful sanity break. The weather cooperated, and we got quite a bit done, but as always, in bits and pieces.

The boiler has been removed from the frame and the interior of the shell sandblasted. Unfortunately, the sand was left to get damp in the water legs, and in order to inspect the water side of the rear tube sheet we had to break up and dig out a lot of wet sand. Last week the "official" mapping, gridding and NDT was done from the exterior of the shell and in the firebox and all the numbers were unexpectedly very good apart from the eroded rear tube sheet which was badly damaged on the water side - pitted and warped from the seam at the crown sheet through the tube bundle and down below the braces into the stays. We wanted to answer the question about how much of it should be replaced and how: the answer was so much that we were better off renewing it entirely than patching the worst of it and hoping the rest would not get worse during the next 15 years. So, our current strategy is to remove it and the riveted seam along the side and crown sheets, cut it off a little below the top of the mud ring a the bottom, and make the new sheet to butt against the side and crown sheets and install it with full penetration welds all around. This way we can use the old one as the form on which to heat and beat the new one to fit and exactly lay out the tube holes. Of course there will be staybolts to deal with and the wrapper and backhead have some small pittted areas where braces and other things attached - none of which are reduced to below the 60%of minimum necessary thickness so we can pad weld them and grind them smooth and end up with a like-new shell.

The other exploration was into the wheels and tires. We will need to replace all the driver tires, in the hollows they are so worn that even if the flanges were good, they would still be condemned. The pony and trailing truck tires have adequate meat and decent enough flanges that both can be turned. All the wheels on the tender truck axles can be turned as well.

So, a mixed bag of good and bad news, but sign of a lot of slow but steady progress and evolution towards the goal of operating sooner rather than later.

In other news, a concrete pad is being poured with rails embedded in it to serve as the shed in which the frame and running gear will be trammed and repaired. A Tyvek tent will be erected over it since we have no enginehouse.

We had a visit from J David Conrad from the Valley Railroad last weekend who was very helpful and had a lot of good words for us. Thanks........ and especially for the offer of your old axles from the heavier engine for recycling in 110.

DaveLathrop57

Posts : 245
Join date : 2013-04-14
Location : North Carolina, USA

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