October 17th was a big day for this little restoration project. The FRA inspector was in town to witness the boiler hydro. To make sure that all was ready, Charlie and Rick gave the final half-roll on all the flues on the firebox end since earlier in the month our boiler welder Robby had finished the flue welding.
Next was to heat the water to the proper temperature required by the FRA to perform the official hydro, about 110 degrees is where we ended up. The hydro and subsequent inspection took the about half of the day Friday and almost everything was great. The one issue we discovered was a leak on one of the four studs holding the steam tee to the front flue sheet in the smoke box. This leak hadn’t appeared earlier. Since we had just put the steam pipes in since the last hydro, we proceeded to remove both pipes (practice makes perfect) and the tee. Upon inspection the lower fireman’s stud was leaking. Thankfully it appears that we can caulk it and it should be just fine.
With the FRA inspector on his way back to Sacramento it was time to move on to the next projects and get ready for the BBQ dinner on Saturday.
First up the cab. After considering multiple options on how to reinstall it (the tent wasn’t there when it came off), we felt it could be accomplished with some fork extensions on the forklift and rolling the engine to the front of the tent. Well, almost. After a couple try’s it was decided to abort the attempt and try plan B at the next work party.
Under the loco progress was being made with the brake rigging installation, although we have no photos to prove it, by the end of the weekend about 80% of the brake rigging had been installed and we should have the rest done at the next work day.
Finally, the BBQ! Once again, there was more support than could be imagined from a small town of 587 people. At the end of the night, after expenses, we had made $10,437 dollars!!! Of that almost $4000 was from raffle tickets alone! We also received one very generous $5000 donation!! We tried our first ever auction which earned $526 on the sale of one of the old piston rings, thanks Keith from Lone Pine.
To sum up the weekend, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone that contributed with the labor to put it on and through the kind donations of money as well as raffle prizes that we received, as always it couldn’t be done without you.
I also want everyone to check out Ed Fleming’s new Volume 2 Restoration Video trailer, once again Ed is making a great documentary and if you haven’t picked up a copy of volume 1 you’re missing out.
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