For those who haven't seen this update it provides a lot of interesting information.
A 1309 Community
Posted by John Hankey on Friday, December 09, 2016
Western Maryland Scenic Railroad’s 1309 project crossed a major threshold in early November. Mike Manwiller, now CMO with the Heber Valley Historic Railroad Authority in Utah, delivered 1309’s new rear tube sheet to the Ridgeley, WV shop. Mike is a WMSR veteran with local roots. This was a 2,000 mile delivery run.
The sheet is now riveted in and ready for a few hundred new tubes and flues. That was the last major boiler component needed to wrap up the 1309 project. Almost everything else for the 1309’s reassembly is on site or on its way, including the “new” 26L air brake equipment and completely rebuilt “pops and guns” (safety valves and injectors).
A few weeks ago, 1309’s new cab arrived from Pro Fabricators. It is a near-duplicate of the original, and it was more economical in the long run than to piecemeal replace the sheet metal in the old one. This new cab will stand up well to the 50 years of service WMSR anticipates for the locomotive.
A few days later, WMSR CEO John Garner delivered the pony wheelset the Strasburg Railroad folks had recently turned. It is a small thing, but I find the glint of fresh metal on a newly profiled wheel to be pleasing in some irrational way.
Along with the tube sheet, Mike Manwiller delivered the firebox door ring patch, 100 pounds or so of sculpted boilerplate. Mike used a classic shop tool for forming the flanges for the tube sheet and the bends in the door patch: a McCabe Flanging Machine. It is one of those ingenious heavy metalworking tools that populated hundreds of backshops across the country.
Finishing the firebox inside corner patches was another recent milestone. The defects could have been cut out and welded up, a repair that may have lasted five years, maybe longer. That “quick and dirty” solution would have been perfectly legal and common railroad practice. But as I have noted before, WMSR’s CMO—Kevin Rice—is a meticulous craftsman who takes the long view. With the grates and ashpan out and the corners easily accessible, why not just do the job correctly and make it a 50 year fix?
Stathi Pappas, one of the best Boilermakers in the field and a true philosopher of Railway Heritage, spent a week with the WMSR shop crew cutting out the corners back to good metal. Each corner was slightly different and required heating and beating an almost identical 90 degree patch out of new 3/8th and 5/8th boilerplate. It represented classic heavy railroad boilermaker work at its best.
In a few weeks, a crew from the Strasburg Railroad’s shop will be in town to help install the nearly 300 rigid and flexible staybolts needed to bring the firebox and combustion chamber back to “as-built” condition. The always reliable Bernie Watts is rebuilding the injectors. What would we do without Bernie?
One thought in particular occurred to me watching this latest round of progress.
The 1309, like most big projects, requires the skills and experience of many craftsmen in many disciplines from different places. It is cliché to call it a “team effort.” I prefer to think of it as evidence that Railway Heritage increasingly has the wisdom to work together in the best interests of everyone.
Not too long ago, most of us thought in terms of discrete shops or projects. We were (and remain) a pretty tribal and territorial bunch. More and more, at least some boundaries are beginning to fuzz.
When the 1309 is done, a half-dozen or so of the most respected steam locomotive men in the country will have had important roles in the project—not as competitors, but as colleagues and collaborators. Scott Lindsay did the main boiler inspection. Bob Franzen supplied the tubes. Kelly Anderson at Strasburg turned the pony wheelset and supplied and mounted the tires. Pappas and Manwiller literally left skin in this game. This could be Kevin Rice’s capstone project. Rehabbing the 734 will seem like a weekend hobby job by comparison.
Hundreds of people will have had significant parts in helping the 1309 boil water. They range from Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan, who understood how effective funding for the project could be in stimulating Western Maryland’s struggling economy, to the skilled machinists at Bikle Manufacturing who turned, polished, and case hardened dozens of new pins and bushings.
Volunteers like Dave Moore and Paul Blackenston have given hundreds of hours of skilled time to be part of the project. Others have made gifts of cash or useful “real” stuff like a welding machine and locomotive "jewelry.” In a few months, almost everyone riding WMSR’s trains will be supporting the project with their ticket purchases.
I mention these people not to drop names, but to suggest that the 1309 project has, like all big railway heritage projects, created its own community. Some folks are part of it only fleetingly. Others (we hope) will be part of it for the rest of their lives. There is always room for more.
A hundred years ago, at least 600,000 individuals built, ran, and maintained North America’s steam locomotive fleet. Today there might be a thousand men and women directly involved in the day-to-day work of keeping steam locomotives alive and well on the continent. That is a pretty small—but increasingly connected—community of a very different sort.
The 1309 project has tested WMSR’s capabilities and compelled it to reach out in ways it had never done before. A new community of interest has formed around the 1309. Those folks overlap the 611 community and a half-dozen other important preservation projects around the country. I think that is A Good Thing.
I wonder. Should we—could we—think more explicitly about making that the way we do things going forward? The 1309 could be a splendid precedent.
