Category Archives: Western Coal & Coke #1 Status Updates

Welcome to the Western Coal & Coke #1 steam status blog! Work on the #1, a.k.a. “the Montreal,” is on hiatus while efforts focus on other locomotives. Updates from past years are archived here and on the Locomotive Shop forum of the MCRM members’ webpage.

Hot Flanging a New Door Sheet

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Early February Mid-Continent members Jason Sobczynski, Dave Wantz, Bob Ristow, Don Angles and Jim Connor traveled to Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga. At the TVRM shops, they assisted Gary Bensman in flanging a new door sheet for the WC&C #1 fire box.

Pictures show the McCabe Flanger is use and hot flanging (heat and beat) operation.

The heat and beat operation was a very intense 45 minutes from starting to heat (two rose bud torches) to completion.

The metal is heated to bright red, almost white. One person guides the flatter and one person administers hard blows to the flatter with a sledge hammer for 30 to 40 seconds. Metal is heated again and the pounding continues.

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Creating New Tender Truck Springs

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Leveling the WC&C #1 boiler in preparation of upcoming work.

Jason and Ed jack the boiler to level position in preparation for work next week.

Jason and Ed jack the boiler to level position.

Bottom two photos – In the process of rebuilding the tender trucks we are repjacing all of the elliptical springs. Over the years, two sets of springs had been replaced with non-standard types. Luckily, it was only required to fabricate two of the “end blocks” that are in between the mating surfaces of the springs. This has been done by Joepen, a local, well equipped CNC machine shop in North Freedom.

New Castings

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Driving Wheels Completed

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Tires for the driving wheels of WC&C #1 have been applied and are ready for shipment back to Mid-Continent.

Pictures show completed wheel sets and detail of completed crank pin quartering main driver for WC&C #1.

Pilot Beam Fitted

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The new pilot beam has been fitted to the locomotive frame. This is temporary, but does help determine the positioning of the beam. The new pilot will have to be secured to this beam at a later date.

New pilot beam.

New pilot beam. Photo by Bob Ristow.