Weekend Activity

johnjk

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
B3200 w/loader, Woods RC5 brush hog, 4' box blade, tooth bar, B1700 MMM,
Apr 13, 2017
1,252
819
113
West Mansfield, OH
Had the opportunity to do an in depth tour out at The Age of Steam Roundhouse in Sugar Creek OH this past Saturday. Three hours of steam smoke grease and soot. Great place to see them restore and operate these giants.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

BAP

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
2012 Kubota 2920, 60MMM, FEL, BH65 48" Bush Hog, 60"Backblade, B2782B Snowblower
Dec 31, 2012
2,513
657
113
New Hampshire
Nice pictures.
 

johnjk

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
B3200 w/loader, Woods RC5 brush hog, 4' box blade, tooth bar, B1700 MMM,
Apr 13, 2017
1,252
819
113
West Mansfield, OH
Thanks. I took around 150 or so along with some videos on Saturday. I may end up printing some for display in my office
 

CaveCreekRay

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
L3800 HST, KingKutter box scraper, KingKutter 66" rake, County Pride Subsoiler
Jul 11, 2014
2,631
93
48
Cave Creek, AZ
A friend lives in Nova Ohio and he said there are a collection of locos in Eastern Ohio that are daily runners but have the odd outside driveshaft for the bogies. Very cool to see them running. He was so stoked, he ordered a steam whistle and plans to run it off some steam source you can build up.

A couple years back we went to Durango and rode the Durango-Silverton up the hill. One day, we did the tour of the maintenance facility. Awesome work but the guys said they are having a real time finding younger people interested in working on ancient technology. Dirty work but so very cool.

A passenger car getting rebuilt...



A loco in the roundhouse getting torn down..



Lathe envy. Look at one of their lathes, from the 30's or 40's I believe. It's a long bed for turning axles...

 

Attachments

johnjk

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
B3200 w/loader, Woods RC5 brush hog, 4' box blade, tooth bar, B1700 MMM,
Apr 13, 2017
1,252
819
113
West Mansfield, OH
The machine shop was quite impressive. Everything is sized to work on locomotives. The wheel lathes are massive, but if you have to turn a 72" drive wheel, you aren't gonna pop that off and take it down to NAPA. Really need to stay aware of your surroundings when working there. They had the same ask for people to come in and help out. Small operation of 10 or 12 guys. The facility was built by Jerry Jacobson to house his collection. He owned and ran the Ohio Central for years and passed away a few years back. http://www.ageofsteamroundhouse.com/ Worth a few minutes to look if you like these big old beasts
 

Lil Foot

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
1979 B7100DT Gear, Nissan Hanix N150-2 Excavator
May 19, 2011
7,259
2,203
113
Peoria, AZ
Very cool. And I learned a new word today.
Ferroequinologist
 

CaveCreekRay

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
L3800 HST, KingKutter box scraper, KingKutter 66" rake, County Pride Subsoiler
Jul 11, 2014
2,631
93
48
Cave Creek, AZ
Great pics John. Lotta love reflected by shiny paint and metal.
 

SidecarFlip

Banned

Equipment
M9000HDCC3, M9000HD, Kubota GS850 Sidekick
Oct 28, 2018
7,197
546
83
USA
I have a Khaleberg solid brass triple chime steam whistle mounted on the front of my shop I blow on compressed air. Would sound better on steam but it sill wakes the neighbors within a 1/2 mile when I blow it.

Feeds with a 1" diameter copper line and sucks hard on my compressors.
 

Lil Foot

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
1979 B7100DT Gear, Nissan Hanix N150-2 Excavator
May 19, 2011
7,259
2,203
113
Peoria, AZ
A few decades ago, one of my bosses belonged to a steam railroad club. They had several engines they were restoring, but these were tiny- maybe 16 or 18 inches between rails. Anyway, my boss had me make a replacement part for one that had broken, and it could be a twin for the part in the first pic of this post, only smaller.(the part looks like a connecting rod from a gas engine)
He had me use Meehanite, and we were never able to match the look of normal cast iron, but it was close, and functioned well.
Wish I had saved a pic.
 
Last edited:

BAP

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
2012 Kubota 2920, 60MMM, FEL, BH65 48" Bush Hog, 60"Backblade, B2782B Snowblower
Dec 31, 2012
2,513
657
113
New Hampshire
Nice photo album. Looks like a great place to visit. Thanks for sharing it.
 

dlsmith

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
BX2230, LA211
Nov 15, 2018
1,191
697
113
Goshen, IN
I saw in this months Trains that The Age of Steam is getting another locomotive, a Bessemer & Lake Erie 2-10-4 #643. I has set in McKees Rocks in the Pittsburgh area for decades and will be moved to Sugarcreek sometime in the future.
It's a fairly rare locomotive and could develop 100,000lbs of tractive effort.
 

Attachments

Last edited:

johnjk

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
B3200 w/loader, Woods RC5 brush hog, 4' box blade, tooth bar, B1700 MMM,
Apr 13, 2017
1,252
819
113
West Mansfield, OH
I have a Khaleberg solid brass triple chime steam whistle mounted on the front of my shop I blow on compressed air. Would sound better on steam but it sill wakes the neighbors within a 1/2 mile when I blow it.

Feeds with a 1" diameter copper line and sucks hard on my compressors.
Been looking for one of those for quite a while. I bet it would sound great with some saturated steam flowing through it. I'd love to locate some original drawings and build one from scratch.
 

johnjk

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
B3200 w/loader, Woods RC5 brush hog, 4' box blade, tooth bar, B1700 MMM,
Apr 13, 2017
1,252
819
113
West Mansfield, OH
I saw in this months Trains that The Age of Steam is getting another locomotive, a Bessemer & Lake Erie 2-10-4 #643. I has set in McKees Rocks in the Pittsburgh area for decades and will be moved to Sugarcreek sometime in the future.
It's a fairly rare locomotive and could develop 100,000lbs of tractive effort.
They have pieces and parts there already. The doghouse off the tender as well as the sand and steam domes off the boiler along with a whole bunch of piping. The engine is so massive that it has to be disassembled to meet clearance/weight restrictions on local roads and bridges. As of Saturday, they were disassembling the boiler from the frame and looking in to transporting both on a couple low boy rail cars. I'd love to be back over there to see it arrive and be unloaded.
 

dlsmith

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
BX2230, LA211
Nov 15, 2018
1,191
697
113
Goshen, IN
Sounds like quite a project.
There is a lot of iron in a big beast like that. Looks they weighed around 500,000lbs with the tender.
 

lugbolt

Well-known member

Equipment
ZG127S-54
Oct 15, 2015
4,807
1,575
113
Mid, South, USA
My dad did a few years maintaining steam stuff, 1960's before he went to Vietnam. Came back and diesel stuff was taking over, steam was "novelty" only at that point, shops changed over to all diesel stuff and that's where he continued his career, mostly machinest stuff. My grandfather was an ALL steam locomotive man until February of 1975. He died in July of '75, not long after the big tornado wiped out the entire neighborhood where dad lived. Lung cancer got grandpa but he was a HEAVY smoker for most of his life as I understand. I wasn't born but a little bit after he died.

Sometimes dad and I will go fishing together or drag racing or whatever and he sure can tell some stories about those early diesel locomotives. Alco's, Jimmy's, etc. Tells a few stories about steam too; that stuff is super interesting to me. One that sticks out in my mind was in the very early 80's, he was finishing up an overhauled EMD. The engineers always liked more power out of them, and they asked him to turn up the governor a little, I reckon to climb the hills better with more cars behind them. Dunno the reason. So they have it running and run it up to governed speed (900 RPM) and the engineer motions to him with the thumb "more rpm". Dad and another guy kept cranking on it and watching for the thumb to go down or whatever. It never happened. The locomotive started vibrating, heavy smoke ensued, and they couldn't get it shut down. Dad looked forward from the engine room and the engineer was nowhere to be found, so they bailed as well, found the engineer on the opposite side of the shop. By then the engine finally self-destructed with plenty of escaping parts, smoke, oil, fuel, and coolant, entire shop had to be ventilated (in the cold of an Omaha winter). The engineer said he motioned them to stop at 1200 RPM but they kept going, said when he saw 1500 on the tachometer, he bailed off and ran for his life. If you've seen the size of the internals of an EMD 16-645, you know that they're big, heavy, and they WILL escape the engine "block" if asked to, which is exactly what happened. As I recall, the 645's were 645 cubic inches--PER cylinder, and that particular one was 16 cylinder. Seen a guy hauling one down the freeway the other day, 16-567, 645, or 710--I can't tell the difference between them, but it was on the flat bed of a F450 which had a 14' bed on it, and it was hanging off the back of the flat bed about 2 foot or so; and the truck was riding on the overload springs. The last few years dad did railroad stuff, he was a machinest in a shop that specialized in the turbocharger rebuilds. Somewhere...I've got a compressor wheel out of one of them, was a reject (brand new but rejected). The WHEEL (impeller) is roughly 304mm diameter (12"), weighs about 20 lbs. Let that sink in a while. We talk about how "big" a 105mm turbo is.....

I had considered railroading the same as my dad and grandfather, but things have certainly changed. Used to, if you wanted to get into machining, you applied for a machinest job and normally got it. Now, you just apply and you go where they want you to. You might be on the track gang or you might be a painter, they'll make you whatever they want you to be. They know what you specialize in and they try to get you in that field, but no guarantees these days. My neighbor works on the track gang and is home most of the time, but there are times when he's gotta get up in the middle of the night & go wherever they need him, usually within 200 mile radius of the shop (which is about 50 miles from the house), 90% of the time it's closeby. I still might apply and see what they have to say. I'm kinda tired of screwing around with Kubota's after almost 30 years and the retirement pales in comparison to railroad retirement; not to mention the rest of the bennies.

About twice a year a steam loco will come through town. Every time, I take off from work and go watch. Lots of thoughts running through my head, especially about grandpa--since I never got to meet him. The sound they make, unmistakable. The challenger (3985)..the "whistle" on that thing...reminds me of the sound a tornado makes. I actually spent a little time in and behind the 3985 a year or so after dad retired; they were showing it and giving rides at the shop where he used to work and of course I wasn't passing up an opportunity. Steam loco's have character that's completely different than modern diesels do; and that's not a bad thing.
 
Last edited:

dlsmith

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
BX2230, LA211
Nov 15, 2018
1,191
697
113
Goshen, IN
A few years ago we hauled some EMD engines out of a scrap yard in Homestead, IL. Most were 16V-645's and a couple of 12V-576's and one 20V-645 out of an SD45. A load with a 16 cylinder engine, alternator and air compressor was about 47,000#. Those suckers were really top heavy!
 

Attachments

skeets

Well-known member

Equipment
BX 2360 /B2601
Oct 2, 2009
14,094
2,755
113
SW Pa
Dad grew up with the steamers he went to work on the Montour RR after returning from WW2 worked on the road gang and then got his apprentice papers as a machinist and worked there till they had a massive layoff. I remember him taking me down to the yard and riding on a little Joe yard burner. I would take him to the local steam show every year until he couldn't walk and the wheel chair was to hard to push through the wood chips they put on the walk ways. It was fun listening to him jaw with other gray beards about the old days, they were some hard working people.
But I guess all things change sometimes for the better others not so much. And if you listen realllly close on a dark still night along some old abandoned rail line you can still hear a whistle off in the distance
 

CaveCreekRay

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
L3800 HST, KingKutter box scraper, KingKutter 66" rake, County Pride Subsoiler
Jul 11, 2014
2,631
93
48
Cave Creek, AZ
dlsmith,

I was a Titan II Missile Launch Officer in Tucson, AZ. Our standby generator was a diesel, the same type used in the last WWII submarines. It was just a couple feet shorter that the one in your picture (a six cylinder) and, like nearly everything on the site, it was on a frame that hung from the floor above, so as to survive the shock of a nearby nuclear detonation. You could push really hard on the frame and the whole motor would swing. We used air to start it and it would crank right off after getting some RPM.
They hung for less than 20 years until the sites were decommissioned and then some lucky scrap company got the contract to lift those beasts off that frame and back to the daylight. They were low-time motors and I sure hope they found a good use. Seventeen sites were decommissioned around DMAFB alone 52 across the USA.
 

dlsmith

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
BX2230, LA211
Nov 15, 2018
1,191
697
113
Goshen, IN
Our standby generator was a diesel, the same type used in the last WWII submarines. It was just a couple feet shorter that the one in your picture (a six cylinder)
It was most likely a Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston engine.
Two crankshafts, 12 pistons in six cylinders, two stroke cycle with a roots blower.