Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad News

The winter months are always pretty busy at Mineral as attention is focused on maintenance and capital projects, especially those that relate to the upcoming operating season.  The shop personnel have been focusing on two main projects:  Baldwin 2-8-2 #70 and our observation car “Nisqually River.”

As each day goes by the #70 becomes more and more a complete locomotive.  There has been quite a lot of progress these past few weeks, especially now that we have a new full-time machinist on staff, Mr. Stathi Pappas.  Stathi brings to MRSR his experience in machining, welding, boiler repairing and believe it or not, industrial archaeology.  Stathi is a hard worker and his talents are proving to be a huge asset for us.

Since the last update, the shoes, wedges and pedestal binders have all been machined and/or repaired and installed on the first three drivers of the #70.  These drivers are now trammed (set parallel to the frame and the correct distance apart from each other) and the side rods have been installed on both sides, although they await final shimming until the #4 driving wheel set has been gone through (it has yet to be removed from the frame for overhaul).  We’re pushing hard right now to finish the rebuild of the trailing truck so that it can help support the rear of the frame and thus allow us to remove the #4 drivers.  The journal box that was repaired by All-Cast was picked up.  Stathi is now machining both of the boxes to fit the trailing truck jaws.  He’s also machined both of the newly cast bearing brasses to fit the boxes, has poured babbitt into them, and has also finished machining the babbitt to fit the trailing truck axle journals.  As soon as the boxes are ready we will finally assemble the trailing truck once and for all.

Stathi machines another wedge for the #1 driver set.

Stathi waits for me to stop taking pictures so I can help him lift another heavy binder up into place under the left #1 driving box.

Brian Wise and Stathi Pappas fitting side rods to the left side of the drivers.

Having machined the trailing truck journal brasses to fit the boxes and to accept their babbitt lining, the first brass is prepared for the pouring of molten babbitt.  Here Stathi has fitted a round mandrel into the brass and is pre-heating the whole thing while the babbitt is being melted.

Once the babbitt ingots have been melted in a small crucible, the molten metal is poured into the journal brass and then allowed to cool.

After it has cooled sufficiently, the newly babbitted bearing is set up in the Lucas horizontal boring machine and machined to the proper radius to fit the axle.

There is a lot of plumbing on a steam locomotive and some of it is starting to show up on the locomotive.  Both left and right injectors have been temporarily fitted in the cab to their respective steam and water lines so that the location of the piping can be finalized and support brackets fabricated and installed, and holes can be located and cut into the front cab wall for the branch pipes.  A new fireman’s manifold is being fabricated and it associated plumbing is being installed.  We’ve recently acquired a new set of boiler taps so now we can install the FRA mandated second water glass, too.  We’ve also finished all of the plumbing on the tender.  The brake pipe was renewed and an emergency brake valve installed.   All new fuel oil plumbing has been installed, including a new hose connection to the locomotive.  Similarly, the tank heater steam line has been completed.  Recently the electrical service to the rear headlight was also installed.  The tender is about 99% complete and with a little luck (and slightly warmer weather) we should see it get a coat of black paint and lettering pretty soon.

Kim and Ron took on the job of installing the electrical service to the rear headlight up on the tender’s fuel tank.  Yes, the headlight sits way up high on that pedestal.  Polson Logging liked the idea of having the light shine out over the loads of logs behind the locomotive.  What’s missing from this photograph is the sound of Jacob inside the firebox pounding out tube ends with a sledge hammer.  Whadja say Ron?

Local master woodworker, Marcel Saterdal, is getting the interior of the #70’s cab looking better than new.  He completed all of the wood framing and both windows for the rear wall, and has the framing members for both sides just about finished.

Marcel Saterdal fits one of the new windows into the cab’s rear wall framing.  The rear windows slide vertically and will drop down behind beaded tongue-n-groove boards that will line the walls.

Some of the new wall framing that Marcell has been milling out for the cab.  Since this photo was taken the inside of the cab has been painted green (a primer coat), the wood has been primed and permanently installed. 

One of the loudest, most tiring jobs that has had to be done to the #70 was the removal of all of the boiler tube ends in the rear tube sheet.  It was necessary to remove all of the boiler tubes on the left side of the boiler in order to effect a repair at the front seam of the firebox wrapper sheet.  The tubes were all cut out with a torch leaving the rolled ends in the sheets.  The ends were easily removed from the front sheet, but at the rear sheet the ends were seal welded to the sheet which meant that all of the welds had to be ground away then the tube ends driven out of the sheet (with a special driving tool and a large sledge hammer).  A number of volunteers have had their hand in the tube removal process, but recently a couple of brand new volunteers, Josh Kaivo and Jacob Marcus, took up the challenge.  The job is finally done and we can all hear ourselves think once again.

Here’s Jacob punching out another tube end inside the firebox.

And here’s Josh continuing the process.  Together they removed almost 165 tube ends from the rear tube sheet.

The repairs to the boiler have been completed and after final non-destructive testing has been performed to check the repairs, we will be scheduling an FRA inspection prior to re-installing the boiler tubes.

Our observation car, “Nisqually River,” continues to shed its last umpteen coats of paint, both inside and out.  A whole lot of folks have been putting in a lot of hours on this car.  With the exterior just about bare, the time is nearing for some body work and then a coat of primer.  Lumber has been procured so we can begin milling out new framing members for the inside of the car where they are required.

David and Carl took on the task of removing the rotted flooring at a couple of places inside the car.  The bad spots weren’t as wide spread as we thought, which was good news.

Bill and Larry working to remove more bad wood from the walls.  The old windows leaked pretty bad causing dry rot. 

Last Saturday the weather was pretty nice so a few of the guys worked out of doors to put new rubber diaphragms on the ends of the “CLOPEN”, our open-air coach. 

Ron (left), his Doug (on ladder) and Matt installing new diaphragms on the CLOPEN.   Looks like Ron’s dad is doing all the work, too!

That’s it for this update.  The #70 is changing almost daily so it won’t be long before I’ll need to post another!

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