November 17, 2015 Winter is surely here now as our first snow fell Tuesday. Overnight lows are now into the 20’s. Another four cold months ahead for our volunteers working on the 2926. All of the new foot boards have now been removed and painted. Crews worked hard removing surface rust that accumulated while the […]

November 10, 2015 Over the past two weeks work has been focusing on tiny boiler leaks at staybolt caps, washout plugs and various threaded connections. The sand dome welding is complete. The welds are being ground smooth for future paint work. Most if not all of the new brake shoes are being hand ground on […]

October 27, 2015 Last Wednesday we were rained out so no work was performed. It rained most all day off and on, sometimes very hard. Since Wednesday was lost we called a special work day on Friday. Most of the week was centered around locating tiny leaks at washout plugs, existing rigid staybolts and also […]

October 20, 2015 The week began with a trip to the chemical recyclers. We had accumulated a sizeable amount of old oil and various liquids from undisclosed sources, so off they went. We installed the last of the broken and wasted stud bolts on the boiler. Only the lower stud bolts on the bottom of […]

October 14, 2015 This week began as most of them with removing wasted and broken stud bolts both on the boiler and those on the mud ring supporting the firebox pan. Work resumed test-fitting the new footboards and checking the bolt alignments. We also began to reassemble the sand dome. The bottom half was lifted […]

October 7, 2015 Much of our time on Wednesday was taken up removing and storing open house displays, supplies and engine equipment. We did however receive the new running boards from Reliance Steel next door. The mounting holes were being punched out. all the holes are either square or rectangle to accommodate the round headed […]

September 29, 2015 Not much restoration work was done this past week due to our Annual Open House preparations and event on Saturday. 2926 visitors began arriving prior to our start time of 9:00AM which kicked off a steady stream of visitors all day until 4:00PM. The number of people were about the same as […]

September 22, 2015 Preparations for the open house continued this week as volunteers began rearranging the maximum usefulness and public safety. While clean-up was ongoing a few projects continued. Final alignment was done for the cab and all remaining bolts were installed. The engineer’s side combustion air tube assembly was welded out. Both sides are […]

September 14, 2015 During the past two weeks volunteers are still working through the heat of summer even though we are in September. Besides the work that goes into preparing for this year’s Open House on the 26th of this month, restoration projects continue in various stages. It has taken several weeks but the replacement […]

September 1, 2015 Flexible lubrication lines were procured and many were installed. More will be done this coming week. The firing deck along with it’s rear support was installed. This is a new deck as the original was in poor condition due to metal wasting. Holes are being drilled and cut for pass through pipes […]