WW&F No. 11 - Official Work Thread

[Bernie Perch]

I have been following your work on other sites.  Alan Downey and I have been making patterns for the #11 project for years and they have been shown on this site.  I would love to see some of these castings made so the actual construction of the locomotive could begin.  I am also working on a whistle project where I will need the parts cast in a high pressure steam bronze.  Will you have that capability?  Would you also be able to cast a complex three chime flat top whistle bell in a horizontal plane?

Bernie Perch

[Rick Rowlands]

Bernie,  I've always enjoyed making the more complex castings, as it take a bit of patience and some out of the box thinking to get the cores to stay where they need to be and get the gating and risering right.  I can try anything, and if it doesn't come out just throw it back into the furnace and try again.   As long as the alloy is available in ingots we should be able to melt it in the crucible furnace.

[Bernie Perch]

I am going to PM my email to you to discuss this fully.

Bernie

[Rick Rowlands]

An organization that I am involved with, Rivers of Steel Heritage Corp., owns a 1900 era lineshaft driven machine shop located in a small town along the Monongahela River about 60 miles up the river from Pittsburgh, PA.  It is the WA Young Foundry & Machine Shop, and most of the machines inside are operational.   With the desire to build No. 11 using techniques that were available around the turn of the last century, we would be able to offer the use of WA Young for the production of some of the components needed for No. 11. 

The shop is equipped with a varied assortment of machine tools, including a lathe that can turn 30" (or maybe larger), a 30" x 6' planer, drills, milling machines, smaller lathes, and a 200 ton horizontal wheel press. All are flat belt driven and are original to the shop.   In the adjacent room is an iron foundry with a 22" cupola furnace and a coal fired crucible furnace for making brass castings.  I spoke with Jason today about WA Young and the possibility of doing some work here.    One of the goals of Rivers of Steel is to make WA Young useful again.  I have been doing some limited machine work down there and reactivating machine tools as I go. 

The Historic American Engineering Record documented the facility and this is their survey:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/item/pa2222/

I also have an album of photos of Young here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/33523379@N03/albums/72157648586082640

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Rick,

That's a nice shop with lots of good equipment.  We like the old flapping belt shops and have all the parts to build a shingle mill with the lineshaft system.  Thanks for posting the links.

Start

[Philip Marshall]

Hi Rick,

What a beautiful shop! Thank you for posting these pictures.

[Jason M Lamontagne]

I had a great chat with Rick yesterday, and believe partnering with his many efforts in PA will hold tremendous benefit for our projects- and hopefully meet some of his needs as well. 

Jason

[Jason M Lamontagne]

And- what a FABULOUS shop at Young; I hope to see the No 11 project blended there and here, and that some of our members might show up there to help when the time comes.  Great possibilities...

Jason

[Wayne Laepple]

The Young facility puts me in mind of the East Broad Top's shops, as well as the old shop at Cass, which burned in 1972. The EBT's facility included its own iron and brass foundry as well. I can't recall if Cass had an in-house foundry. I'll looking forward to a visit to Young sometime.

[Rick Rowlands]

I was down at WA Young today.   While I was there I took a short video of the shop, basically showing the extent of the machine tools and other equipment that are there.  The radial drill has not drilled a hole in many years, but today we used it to drill a couple of 3/4" holes in two smokebox door dogs that I had to make for J&L 58. 

We were also looking at the coal fired crucible furnace that is in the floor.  We plan to test fire it sometime over the winter, and hope to have it ready to melt bronze in preparation to some casting work to do in the spring. 

The planer has a 32" x 10' bed, and the big lathe has a 40" swing with a maximum workpiece length of 16 feet.   There are various jib cranes located in the building to move heavy workpieces off and onto the machines. 

Anyways, here is the video: https://youtu.be/9cSW9KQWIoY

[Paul Uhland]

A co-op arrangement with the Young shop looks like the exact element now needed to get the 11 build started.
And I'm sure Rick has a few experienced hands  from the Youngstown/Pittsburgh area, along with WW&F guys,  who could help.

Looking forward to a fascinating journey toward 11's steamup.
Imagine...WW&F a three-loco road in the near future.   

[John Kokas]

Wow!  What a cool shop.  And still all there which is so rare these days.  It would be great to see parts of #11 being created but I think there might be a just as pressing need to make some more passenger car and freight car trucks for existing and future equipment.  With #9 coming back online and now with our ability to accommodate tour buses we're going to need more WW&F (reproduction) passenger cars.

[Rick Rowlands]

Building trucks might be a good way to "get our feet wet" so to speak over at WA Young.  Most of the machines haven't made chips in decades, so starting out with a simple project such as truck building may be the ideal project to work the bugs out of the machines and lineshafting.   Pressing wheelsets together on the 300 ton wheel press is going to be interesting to say the least.

[Jason M Lamontagne]

In an attempt to reassure everyone that there's some logic and reason behind our aspirations, ill mention here that we have active plans to build a replica coach, along with a historically appropriate WW&F open excursion car.  We have passenger trucks and couplers for the coach already.  We also have most of the in house capability to perform these projects.  Both, and many others, will be started and completed long before no 11 steams.

No 11 is a big project that will serve as a rallying point for members, volunteers and donors.  It's meant to be ambitious, though I assure you there is tremendous thought and planning that will allow the project to proceed smoothly.  Rick's offer of help from WA Young is the perfect outside kick to allow this project to really get off the ground- and we want to use that offer as thoughtfully as possible.  Getting a start on a big, long term project that stretches our own shop's capability seems like a great down payment on the no 11 project, while rebuilding the passenger trucks we have and building a coach is all attainable right in Sheepscot and is a near term goal (2017- after the turntable).

I guess what I'm trying to say is:  these projects can proceed simultaneously- each at their own rate.  No 11 will take so long- it will need to overlap with numerous other projects.  Rest assured- our priorities are straight- we know we have to build 12 coaches so no 11 has something to hall

See ya
Jason

[Ira Schreiber]

12 coaches(?) or coach # 12?

Ira