Carson & Colorado Railway

After a great 2013, we kicked off 2014 with our awesome and talented welder Robby Jett repairing some old Southern Pacific welds inside the firebox. Back in November when the FRA was in town they had examined the areas between the firebox sheets and outside sheets with their inspection camera and in doing so discovered two areas that totaled about 24″ in length which the S.P. had not achieved 100% weld penetration on their repair. While this old repair was likely done in the late 40’s and operated as such for numerous years it is not considered acceptable. Whenever doing flush patches – such as the wrapper sheet patch we did in 2012 – you must have 100% weld penetration between the old and new materials. Thankfully this is a relatively easy fix if you have a really good welder.

To achieve the desired full penetration on the new weld, Robby first ground out the old welds in question until he had about a 1/16″ gap.

After having the desired gap he went about welding in his “root” pass of weld. The root pass is done with 6010 welding rod. Robby – like many pressure vessel welders – lays his root pass in a keyhole manner, burn through and then pull out, over and over.

Once he has a root pass to his liking he starts to lay his “hot” passes. In our case he put down 3 hot passes with 7018 welding rod. He would start on one end, weld about 6 inches and then jump to the other end and weld about 6 inches. This is done to keep the heat concentration at a minimum and not distort the sheets.

Finally, after about 12 hours of grinding and welding he had fixed everything that needed fixing. And Robby donated his time to do this! We are now almost ready to roll flues in and fill the boiler with water.

Aside from the welding, we also have received word from the Mt. Rainier RR that our drivers and boxes will be done by February 10th. Dave and Rick’s trucking will be headed north and should have them back in Independence the following week. Currently we are planning on putting them back under the locomotive in early March.

Other January progress occurred with the completion of four new cab windows. The new windows were constructed all to the same size (the old were not) and of poplar wood. They also had tempered safety glass installed in them. All four windows are now ready for paint.

Finally, we are working on getting all the final signatures from the county officials for our museum plan to permanently house the locomotive. If you would like to contribute funds towards the track and building please feel free to do so. Your contributions towards that aspect of this project will be greatly appreciated.

November 15 was an important day for the restoration, the FRA made their first official inspection and report of the locomotive. The on site inspection lasted about an hour and included an interior and exterior boiler inspection as well as running gear inspection. They were very impressed with the quality and amount of work that had been done so far and gave us the go ahead to install tubes. With the help of the FRA’s fancy inspection camera we did discover what at first glance appeared to be about an 18 inch crack in one of the firebox side sheets that we had not seen before. After a more in depth investigation it was discovered that it was actually a welded joint from an old railroad repair in which the weld had not fully penetrated, thus looking like a crack from the inside. In short, it is a relatively easy fix that our welder Robbie is already scheduled to take care of after the first of the year.

With things going well on the boiler side of the project, the photos below show the driver work is also moving along up at the Mt. Rainier Scenic RR. As of December, the #1 and 2 drivers are complete as are most fo the driver boxes while the #3 driver is scheduled to receive a new axle as soon as the material arrives at Mt. Rainier’s shops.

December 22 we were back at work in Independence. A warmer than normal December day allowed us to make good progress. After having had removed it one more time for the FRA, the throttle was once again (and hopefully for the last time) re-installed.

Perhaps the most exciting thing was that after numerous fittings and adjustments the second water glass was finally finished! This project really turned out nice. With all the machine work in fittings and valves, and acquiring the second water glass, this little project cost in total about $2000 dollars. With the completion of some other little projects such as a new steam gauge line and lapping and installing the new engineers side boiler check, we are coming down the home stretch of sealing up the boiler!

With half of us working on the smaller items, the rest worked on cutting and installing the remaining tubes. In all, about 70 tubes were cut and put in the boiler by the end of the day, which means all of the tubes are cut to length and in place! Next up is to install the copper ferrels and roll the tubes in place.

What a great 12 months of work that has occured on the #18 in 2013, THANK YOU ALL that at one time or another have come up and helped or just supported us with your donations, we couldn’t do it without you. 2014 should be even more exciting in Independence.