Southern Pacific #18 Restoration – September 2013

For the past year Scott Shaffer has maintained a time lapse camera in the tent to record the work that we do. Some days videos are not very interesting, but some give a great sense of what goes on. Click on the link below to see the work performed on Saturday  and Sunday August 30th and Sept 1. What you will see is about 16 hours of work in 3 minutes.

Now for the weekend of September 28th and 29th:  The most exciting news came during our second meeting with Inyo County regarding our engine house plan. The County has given us the preliminary approval for our project! While we still will need to go before the full Board of Supervisors to finalize the plan, the approval has been granted by all the necessary department heads, which is a huge step. To see some of the plans go the museum plan page.

As for the locomotive work: Dave, Rick, and Ashley spent the day putting the new cylinder insulation and jacketing on.

IMG_9883
Ashley adds a little more curve to the cylinder cover.

IMG_9881

IMG_9891
Almost finished cylinder jacket

While they worked up front, Travis worked in the middle of the engine putting the last of the spring rigging up. The holes in which the equalizer pins go through the frame were very worn out. Since there is no easy way to bore out the holes we did the next best thing: welded them up and manually bored them out. It took a few hours but the results were what we wanted, relatively round holes that the pins fit very nicely in.

IMG_9875

IMG_9895
Fully installed spring equalizers and hangers

At the rear of the locomotive the rest of us worked on installing the new water glass, fitting some of the new cab plumbing, installing part of the cab floor and worked on the firebox door cover.

The weekend also saw the completion of most of the brake rigging repairs and the readjustment of Marty Westland’s valve grinding machine. Marty wanted to do one more finish pass with his grinder to really make it nice.

IMG_9894
The old (left) and new (right) water glasses
IMG_9890
New floor and getting ready to fix the door cover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we are just about ready to start rolling in flues down in Independence, up at the Mt. Rainier Scenic RR our drivers and driving boxes are well in process. MRSRR says they will be completed by the first of November which means we will hopefully have the #18 back on her feet soon.

photo
Drivers being re profiled at MRSRR

And finally, mark your calendars for our annual BBQ fundraiser on Oct. 26th, don’t forget to stop by and say hello!

CCRW