WW&F No. 11 - Official Work Thread

[Brendan Barry]

Driving wheel sets being pressed together last week at Millinocket Fabrication & Machine.

[Bob Holmes]

Unreal!!

[Jeff Schumaker]

Impressive!

Jeff

[john d Stone]

Another big step! Fantastic!

[Ed Lecuyer]

Build Locomotive 11: March 2025 Update

Our latest Build 11 work session was held on February 18 - 20. Brendan Barry and Jason Lamontagne picked up driving wheels, axles and counterweights from Mountain Machine Works in Auburn, Maine and transported them to Millinocket Fabrication and Machine on Tuesday where they were joined by Quentin Bethune and Rick Sisson. Preliminary inspection of the axles was performed and additional work identified. On Wednesday MFM personnel – Robert, Rodney and Gary joined us in the fabrication shop and prepared their 200 ton hydraulic press to press our wheels and counterweights onto the driving axles. These guys were great to work with, took pride in their work and treated our components with care.

After getting fixturing in place on the press, and modifying keys for us, the gang pressed the first pair of wheels and it was lunch time. After lunch the remaining wheels and counterweights were pressed in less than an hour and a half. Brendan and Jason then brought the driving wheel assemblies back to Mountain Machine Works where the quartering will be checked and crankpins turned to final dimensions. We plan to install our tires (finished by Mountain Machine Works) during the WW&F Railway Spring Work Weekend.

This photo shows an overall view of the press:




Rodney, Gary and Robert (l-r) from Millinocket Fabrication and Machine:




One of the keyways – we put each key outside (in the snow) for a while to shrink the key:




We took care to ensure perpendicular alignment to the axle:




Pressing the counterweights:




Pressing the second wheelset:




On Thursday, Quentin turned an aluminum fixture plate that he will use to bore and turn the valve gear eccentrics. Quentin also brought back the cylinder heads that he worked on at home:




Harold Downey has also been developing a fixture to accurately position the shoes and wedges for machining. Harold has completed his tram measurements with which he can complete the shoes and wedges.




Noah MacAdam has continued to work on the lead truck journal boxes as seen here:




In other news...
Rick started to form part of the fire ring we will use to install the driver tires during the Spring Work Weekend: April 25-27, 2025.

Gordon Cook has been refining our 3D locomotive model so that the team can determine the center of gravity and weight on wheels so that we can specify and order the suspension springs.

Jason and Rick have reviewed and revised the main and parallel rod models and drawings and are prepared to send these components to outside machine shops for quotation.

Our 2025 fundraising - $120,000 challenge to put Build 11 On the Fast Track - is well underway. To date we have received $33,313 which will be MATCHED by an anonymous member, bringing us to 56% of the $120,000 goal for 2025.

Recent donations included an unsolicited check for $10,000 and $1309 from Western Maryland Scenic Railroad (in appreciation of our CMO, Jason Lamontagne assisting Maine Locomotive & Machine Works in repairs on a locomotive just a tad larger than no. 11.)

Remember, you can donate directly by check to the museum, use a credit card to donate through the gift shop, PayPal, or you can go to www.build11.org.

[Ed Lecuyer]

Build 11: April 2025 Update

Our latest Build 11 work session was held on March 25-27. Rick Sisson assisted by Bob Longo and Quentin Bethune fabricated the “fire ring” that we will use to heat the driving wheel tires during installation planned for our Spring Work Weekend. Our design is scaled up from the fire ring we built to install lead truck tires years ago.

Rick and Bob used the hydraulic press to form the straight pipe into a ring. We also used our flanging machine to correct some bending errors.



Once the ring halves were bent holes were drilled to form makeshift gas ‘nozzles”.



Harold Downey and Quentin fabricated chain hangers and ring supports.



We performed a limited number of tests of the ring and tire assembly and determined the tooling is ready for the tire installation.



After these tests we added turnbuckles to allow us to level the tire and ring assembly.



Gordon Cook drilled and tapped the holes required in the wedge bolt straps and pedestal binders. The wedge bolts will be captured by these straps; the straps will allow us to adjust the vertical travel of the wedges.



Finally, we see the pedestal binder lift in action (that’s actually Gordon lifting the binder in place).



Harold kept busy meticulously machining the faces of the shoes based on exhaustive measurements he had previously made. Quentin brought wedge washers he machined at home; these will be used to secure the shoe bolts.



Our friends at Mountain Machine Works have completed quartering of the driver wheelsets; they achieved 90.000 +/- 0.002 degrees. They bored the crankpin seats and are machining the crankpins. We will retrieve the wheelsets and crankpins in time to install the driver tires during our Spring Work Weekend.



Quentin went to pick up our crossheads from D. S. Greene Co. in Wakefield Massachusetts. They Blanchard ground our crossheads as well as the eccentrics that Quentin is working on at his home shop.



On the fundraising front, we have ALMOST unlocked the $60,000 challenge! Thanks to a very generous (and unexpected) donation we are only $5914 shy of reaching our goal! Can you please help put us “over the top”? Any donations received beyond the 2025 funding goal will be used to build the locomotive faster (by hiring more contractors) or reduce the “ask” for 2026.