Boiler weight?

[Dennis Holler]

But I got to see the Columbia River Gorge, and Mounts Hood and Shasta really up close.

That had to be beautiful! Been a long time, but I loved my 2-3 years out of Bremerton and getting to do some hiking in those areas.

[bob turner]

Yeah, you really haven't lived until you do a low level flight in the Pacific Northwest. I have been privieged to see it from 500 feet (best), 7500 feet (ok) and 35,000 feet (you can see lots of volcanoes at once, but it is truly from afar).

Last night I got the valve gear sorted out, and this AM will stabilize the crosshead guides and give it a test.

I shall then anchor the Northern to its mechanism, and try for photos.

[bob turner]

Done. Photos tomorrow. Both ancient mechanisms operate smoothly.

On the Northern I was puzzled by how low the big cast firebox ring was over the trailing truck. I think the spring style coupling started to contact the frame, so a previous owner must have bent the ring, raising the motor and mis-aligning the shaft.

A short hunk of Toyota hose cured that in a hurry.

I never dreamed I would ever work on a CNW Northern - good thing I remembered seeing them in the PFM book. Somebody tried to convert it to ATSF.

[bob turner]

Here is the PRR L1. Carey can fill you in on its lineage, but I got the job of sticking the boiler back together. It was thin wall brass, held together by boiler bands (as was the CNW that follows).

I first made a new conical section - less faithful to the original builder who, like USH, followed the multiple course boiler drawing in the MMR Cyclopedia, and more faithful to PRR, who used a single conical section on L1, K4, and I1 boilers.

Carey did not ask for mechanism work, but I could not let it leave here without making it operable. It was originally 2-rail, with hub-insulated drivers and plastic bushed rods on the insulated side. I assume that meant a plastic Walshaerts link, but it was long gone. I converted it to outside third, by adding a metal bushing and valve gear to the insulated side. It can easily be converted back, since the metal bushing is just resting there.

And I left the tender derailed for Dave's amusement.

[bob turner]

This one got a couple boiler bands re-soldered, a pushed-in area returned to almost round, and not much else - it was (and is) really flimsy. But the mechanism is a work of art - outside third from the get-go, but castings you will find nowhere else in O Scale. Check out the trailing truck and firebox support.
In the photo the firebox support is bent down around the trailing truck. I fixed that later, to discover that it had been purposely bent so the motor would be angled up, eliminating the contact between spring loaded coupling and the frame. Solved that with the Toyota hose fix.

Some of the details are exquisite - the Walschaerts links are fabricated, and the radius rods move up and down with the reversing switch. Nicely done.

I don't think the CNW H Northern has ever been done in O Scale, except for this one. If it were mine, I would jack up the entire boiler and re-do it with brass tube of .032 or better wall thickness. It won't be mine, though, ever - because my project list does not include more CNW. I may do an Erie Berk with those giant hole drivers, and maybe - maybe - a C&O F-17, but no more CNW.

Oh- that tender is in fact CNW, but Callie made me some Katy shields. It goes behind my A-N Pacific, which you can see in another thread here somewhere.

[Dennis Holler]

Those look great to me! Need some paint now!

The cylinders on the L1 look sort of Scale Craft-ish from a distance...