Pete, who expressed concern about #11's parts slowing up #9's progress and others with the same opinion.
I, Wayne, and Bruce live down here in Pennsylvania and have little ability to physically work on #9 and most of her parts are made. For myself, I have little desire to work on #9 either. I like to make new parts and for most of my hobby life have been making foundry patterns for the organizations I have been involved with. I have also found that people who work away from the base of operations and are working in their own shops are invisible most of the time (like myself) and are not appreciated by some of the people doing the every day grunt work. This attitude caused me to leave an organization and running steam and I pray that it doesn't rear its ugly head at the WW&F.
As far as I can ascertain, the only physical work done on site to #11 was the machining of the wheel center, pressing on the axles and shrinking on the tires and this was done in conjunction with the railcar and took up little time from #9.
The rest of the work was probably done off site and this includes all the drawings, all of the bell work, the builders and number plates and finish, the leading wheel center pattern, the driver patterns and the axle and pins. I don't think any of this in any way interferred with #9's progress.
If all this work wasn't done on #11, what would it be--just someone's distant dream which I hear other people ramble about on other forums about their dream locomotives?
Bernie