A springtime snowstorm did not slow down our progress this month; an abbreviated Build 11 team was back for our April 3-5 work session. Between sessions Harold Downey continued assembly of the rear truck frame.

Gordon Cook spent part of the day Wednesday working on locomotive 9’s injector with Roger Whitney and Jason Lamontagne. Later Gordon worked on machining one of the sleeves for the rear truck axles. Gordon tried to return on Thursday but was unable to reach the museum during the snow storm due to fallen trees blocking route 218!

Rick Sisson spent the day Wednesday completing the anvils that will be used as tooling to form the main spring staples, equalizer pedestals and main spring hangers:

Thursday Rick was able to fillet the driving axle jaws in the forward frame. The jaws have to be rounded to accommodate the inside corners of the driving box shoes and wedges. We were able to borrow a 30 degree plate beveling machine from our friend Brian Fanslau of Maine Locomotive and Machine Works in Alna, Maine. Using this tool, we were able to remove most of the material in two passes, as shown in the drawing. We then removed the remaining material with a hand grinder and finished the surface with a file.

Brian’s plate beveling machine saved us an enormous amount of time; we used to remove all the material with a great number of passes with the hand grinder.

The boss will be welded to the lower radius bar when fitting up the pedestals and journal boxes.

On Friday afternoon, Jason and Rick completed forming the lead truck spring hangers. When formed in our flanging machine during the last session, the legs sprung back as we anticipated. We were able to reheat the corners and square up the hangers in the bench vise while holding the pin holes in alignment with a shoulder bolt. Below we see before (left) and after (right) examples:

We look forward to seeing everyone at our next work session scheduled during our Spring Work Weekend, April 26-28. We invite you to stop by, say “hello” to the Build 11 team and let us show you what we’re up to!

Our 2024 fundraising is continuing! To date we have received $15,161 (30% of the $50,000 goal for 2024) – which includes a $2000 anonymous donation made today! Remember, you can still donate directly by check to the museum (which is preferred for large donations), use a credit card to donate through the gift shop, PayPal, or you can go to: build11.org