Work Session Status Week Ending 12/13/2014

December 16, 2014

We had two good work sessions last week.

A special tool was fabricated to remove the donated dynamo’s governor yoke which came off easily. The turbine blade was then removed and examined, some cleaning will be necessary. This week the disassembly will continue for further examination of the bearings.

Painting of the air brake reservoir was completed. They will be returned to storage to await installation.

More overlay welding was being done on the timing gear piston slide. These thin welds will be machined down to facilitate the machine work required on the bronze bearing surfaces.

Some minor weld build-up is being done on various flexible staybolt sleeves which didn’t require replacement.

Installation of the flexible staybolt copper gaskets continued with a total of several thousand of them in all to be done.

As always superheater piping assemblies are still being fabricated.

Our merchandise store is now complete and all is secured, thanks to Randy Mc. for all his hard work on that project and others that helped him.

I tried to send an article from ABQ the Magazine about us, but some it didn’t let go through as it was too large. It had our locomotive on one side of the page all dressed out in her jewelry and then two pages of article and photos. If you can pull it up on the web, you might get it there, or if you’re local or nearby you can pick one up at any store that sells magazines.

Finishing touches were done on the concrete walkway recently poured. The walkway will provide safer and easier wheelchair access to the site, a problem we have had every open house. Dirt and ballast was spread around to fill in where the concrete forms were. Sealer was also applied to the surface.

Membership renewals are being received each day. Thanks to all those who have promptly returned their donations. If you haven’t sent yours in yet please do so as soon as you can. You’ll need to be current for this upcoming year in order to work on the site. As a reminder, those of you that have not been through our safety class this past quarter will need to make arrangements to either do it by email (if you live out of town) with Jon S. or come to our first refresher that will coincide with the general membership meeting on January 10, 2015 at 7:30 AM at Golden Corral on San Mateo NE, just north of McLeod.

Might be raining/snowing tomorrow at first, but should clear up in time for another storm to move in tomorrow night and Thursday. Hope to see you at the site, and as always . . .

Keep on Steamin’,
Rick Kirby, CMO
NMSL&RHS