Our latest Build 11 work session was held during our Spring Work Weekend, April 24-27. 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 machined the crankpins. The wheelsets and crankpins have been moved to our shop and we installed the driver tires during our Spring Work Weekend.

Noah MacAdam has completed machining the lead truck journal boxes and they were delivered to our shop during our Spring Work Weekend.
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. Gordon also 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.

Jason Lamontagne and Rick Sisson have reviewed and revised the main and parallel rod models and drawings and have sent these components to outside machine shops for quotation.

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for – our driver tires were installed during our Spring Work Weekend! We worked on one wheelset at a time; the main driver set first and the lead driver set next.

We had to upend each wheelset to suspend it from a chain fall.

The wheelset was lifted onto our large forklift (out of sight to the right) and cross-leveled. The “ring of fire” includes hooks that suspend the tire and fire ring. This was suspended from the repurposed chain fall and carefully positioned over the wheel center.

A mixture of propane and compressed air was forced through small apertures located along the inner circumference of the fire ring to heat the tire to roughly 400 degrees Fahrenheit. We heated each tire for 10 minutes to obtain sufficient expansion to allow the tire to slip onto the wheel center. And each and every tire simply slid into place as the chain fall was lowered.

Each tire was allowed 2-3 hours to cool, the wheelset lowered and upended in the opposite direction and the process was repeated for the second tire. We completed the main drier wheelset on Friday and the lead driver wheelset on Saturday. We will pour the lead weights in the main driver counterweights in an upcoming work session.

Jeff Schumaker and new volunteer Brian Dame successfully mounted the lead truck equalizer fulcrum to the bottom surface of the cylinder saddle.

And BIG NEWS….
We have reached our $60,000 fundraising challenge – unlocking a $60,000 match from one of our most generous members and benefactors!

THANK YOU for helping to support this project with your likes, shares, and contributions.

Let’s not slack off though! The more money we raise in 2025, the quicker we will be able to get the locomotive completed “On the Fast Track” (by allowing paid contractors and machine shops to supplement our volunteers.)