Steam Returning to Youngstown, OH

looks like a big project but well worth it when completed. i will have to check this out.....

At first glance at the photo at the top, I thought this was going to be about a "fireless

cooker" (external steam source) loco for use in an area where flame was a hazard,

which, of course, makes little sense if used around molten metal.  Interesting and

different shrouded tank engine.

looks like a great project!

It has piston valves, not slide valves! Nice. And is that a small version of Baker valve gear I see? Hard to tell for sure from the picture. It's sort of a mini-Super Power locomotive. 

 

Best of luck with it, Rick.

That was what I was thinking as well. With a boiler pressure of 225 psi, she certainly is getting close to superpower class for a two footer.  Had Lima built her no doubt she would have superheaters!

Most excellent! Best of luck to your group and engine program.

I saw the videos of that. Upon first glance, you would think it would never be restore, too high a cost. I guess I was wrong, I can't wait for it to run again! They are actually making process very quickly. 

It looks like a Baker valve gear hanger but the radius rod seems to come straight through the reverse yoke. I don't see a Baker bell crank or pins. A manual reverse rod seems to come from the cab to a point behind the reverse yoke. In the b&w illustration, the valve gear is Walschaerts.

 

I am always amazed by the "backwards Baker" valve gear on the Strasburg's ex-N&W 4-8-0 No. 475. I can't imagine how shop crews "time" it but it works fine.

Many would call this a "unique Fixer-Upper Opportunity"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUcp8zW2D9I

But surface rust in itself doesn't mean jack when looking into the condition of a locomotive. I've seen great running restorations finished from locomotives that looked a hundred times worse that this!

This is a little beauty. I get the impression from the first picture that the locomotive was designed for low overhead clearances. Something like getting under coke oven retorts or similar type of plant equipment?

Best of luck to the restoration crew; this will be a really interesting project. 

The locomotive is stripped down with the boiler ready to be shipped off to the boilermaker and the frame ready to go to a heavy plate fabricator for some rework.   We got "sidetracked" by an Alco S2 that was donated to us this spring, but now that we have it running I'm back working on the 58 again. 

 

The saddle tank will be the first thing that we restore, followed by refurbishing the driver sets.  Then when the frame comes back it will be lowered onto the drivers and the running gear reassembled.  We are moving the restoration project to the Carrie Furnaces in Pittsburgh from Youngstown because we can work inside a large building instead of out in the weather.  It will then come back to Youngstown after the restoration is complete.

I saw your videos on 58 and from what I have seen, you make progress very quickly! From what I have seen from the builder's photograph, 58 is a really cool locomotive! I love the semi-streamlined saddle tanks! Good luck and I can't wait! 

The 58 and its sisters were designed to provide the maximum tractive effort in a package that fit within the tight confines of the J&L South Side Works.  So they added weight to it wherever possible, including making the boiler plates thicker than needed to handle the pressure.  Its an ingot on wheels basically.  95,000 lbs. in working order.  But what makes it so weird also makes it interesting.  Nobody else ever had the need to build such a small locomotive so massively, and that makes this J&L locomotive unique and worthy of preservation. 

 

Yes it does seem that we work fast.  I get focused on something and away I go!

 

 

Why did they cut the back of the frame off? I've seen recent pictures of the cab and the frame under it still attached. It appears to me that it was cut.