March 2020 Work Reports

[Gordon Cook]

AFAIK a lot of the wheels are ~100 years old and/or sub-optimal. (The casting date on one of 9's wheels was 1921 I believe.)
We're running out of options. It's getting to be a critical issue, similar to couplers, and will require a significant outlay of money to fix. As we have with many other challenges, we'll figure it out.

[John McNamara]

How can a tender wheel get a flat? It's neither powered nor braked....

[Bill Piche]

How can a tender wheel get a flat? It's neither powered nor braked....

The tender wheels on 9 (and the B&SR Baldwins) have brakes on them. 9 also has a handbrake on just the tender wheels. (7 has a handbrake but it isn't hooked up at the moment).

A number of things could have happened. Several over-zealous stops leading to the brakes locking up is one. Leaving the handbrake on accidentally is another. Both are avoidable with good operating practices.

9's hand brake usually isn't enough to hold the engine against a good dollop of power, though (and the times I've heard it left on the engine just works harder, but doesn't slide the wheels), so it's more likely from sliding to a stop and the spot developing out of that. Once the flat spot develops it's prone to being the spot that slides more than others and the beating it takes lead to the shelling that Gordon described.

The train brakes will help eliminate this issue on the locomotives, but may lead into seeing this issue on cars since cars are lighter and have more braking power (especially if you have multiple cars being controlled from one location).

[Kevin Kierstead]

can these wheels have a tire applied after turning? can the flat be built up w/weld?

[Bill Piche]

can these wheels have a tire applied after turning? can the flat be built up w/weld?

Tires are an option, but require turning an existing wheelset down to a blank or casting new centers (which if you're doing that you might as well make new wheels). That's a lot of machining and can only work with the solid wheelsets (like the one that came off of 9's tender or the one that replaced it). One problem is that some sets are solid and others are hollow (you can see that in the pic of the truck from Brian's boxcar), and the hollow wheelsets have very little meat to machine out (if any), and thus can't be made into blanks.

[Ed Lecuyer]

[Moderator's Note]
A discussion about spiking the rails leading to a major derailment on the New Haven in Stoughton, Mass has been moved to the General Discussion section of the Forum.

[Mike Fox]

They tried turning the wheel. They are cast steel, and did not agree with turning. So they hand ground the worst spots on the rear axle so they are not as noticable, and swapped it with Brian for one under his boxcar, which is turnable if necessary.

[John Kokas]

Good practice is to turn both wheels on an axle after profile measurements are made, then both wheels are turned to the minimum profile.  This will prevent the axle from skidding due to unequal diameters on the wheel profile.  This skidding makes the truck to want to "hunt" from side to side on straight and level track.  In moderate to severe cases this can cause a very uncomfortable ride up to and including derailments especially around switches.

[Wayne Laepple]

The wheel in question was actually a chilled cast iron wheel. The chilling process during manufacture produces a very hard surface, while the material underneath is comparatively soft. Jason tried to break through the hard surface several times with no success. That's what required us to find a better set of wheels. Brian F. offered a wheelset from one of his boxcars in trade, since the boxcar will be used very little as opposed to No. 9's regular service.  The wheels we got are steel and can be turned but should last for a couple of years. Hopefully, by that time, we will have some new wheels that we can use.

[James Patten]

Anticipated work for Saturday March 14:

* Car barn extension
* Carlos's riveter project
* Coach 9
* Machine shop
* Gift shop floor
* Board meeting at 3

It may be warm enough now to start thinking about track work, and there's also the upside-down trailer that needs paint removal and painting.

[Fred Morse]

Yesterday, Al and I finished cutting up the logs that were on the flat car"photo shoot" and this morning we started splitting it. After fixing a door hinge Stewart came by to help us. All nice wet heavy oak. By noon us old guys were done for the day.

[Mike Fox]

Carlos, Jerry and Alan have been pounding out the riveter

[John Kokas]

Do I assume the internal repairs are complete and the reassembly/painting is the last stage of the project?

[John Scott]

Thanks for the riveter pics. That is a business-like piece of machinery.

[James Patten]

Work done on Saturday Mar 14:

* Locos: A sizeable crew from MNG was onsite putting 3 and 7 back together after inspections this past week.
* Machine shop: Carlos and Jerry were working on the riveter.  Mike's photos show it white, but when I saw it a little after noon it was black.
* Track: Dana showed up to spike the last of the track at the north end, he was joined by Dan, James, and Bryce.
* Pavilion: Mike, Fred, me, and Stewart put up all of the north side and one panel on the south side.
* Gift shop: The floor has been painted (looks sharp) and so Linda needed help moving furniture back to paint the unpainted section.
* Board meeting: went long.