Meanwhile, over in Middletown, NY, the "new" tender body for 23 has been sitting for some time. In truth, it is an ex-New York Central tender which had been converted to an oil storage bunker and set on a flatcar. The fuel oil in the old tender has been donated to folks who have heated their depot and buildings for a few years now. It remains to get the tender body off the flatcar and headed towards Kingston. On the way, the tender body will be taken to an outside contractor for steaming out and cleaning. This will remove the residual oil and sludge, which they will dispose of as part of the job. It will also get the tender body safe for the Steam Team to start burning (oxyacetylene cutting), welding and riveting upon. The tender body, having been converted to a fuel oil bunker, has to have a new coal pocket fabricated. New baffles have to be fabricated and welded into the water tank and "wet bottom"- the water-filled space under the coal pocket floorplate. This will mean laying down a few hundred linear feet of seam welds. The Steam Team has no shortage of good welders, now. John Dearstyne has complete his course of study at Modern Welding and become quite proficient. However, we had been limited to "stick" welding. This is fine for structural welds, piping and boiler repair work to some extent.

For long seams and bigger jobs where production rates are needed, stick welding is kind of slow and has the attendant problems of post-weld distortion. Earl Pardini and Ernie Klopping have solved that problem by getting a wire-feeder to run on their engine driven welding power supplies. This allows us to do state-of-the-art flux cored "MIG" welding. High production, sound welds with minimal post weld distortion are what is needed to put the tender body back into condition for holding a load of coal and water. Now we are set to do just that. The plan now is to get the tender frame back on its trucks, down on the track. That will then be ready to be sandblasted and painted. Once the tender frame is off the loading dock, the area will be cleared to receive 23's boiler and frame. The loading dock is poured reinforced concrete and is the closest thing we have to an erecting shop floor. We will separate 23's boiler from the frame. At that point, the drive wheelsets- drivers and axles- will be ready to be sent offsite for the wheel work. This will consist of taking the drive wheelsets to a railroad machine shop with a wheel lathe. There, the tires- forged steel rings which have the actual tread and flange- will be removed from the drive wheel "centers". This is done by heating the tires to expand them.

The tires and wheel centers were damaged when 23 was last in steam in the Upper Peninsula. Too many incidents of spinning the drivers on 23 got the tires hot enough to expand free of the wheel centers and let them slip inside the tires. This chewed up the wheelcenters and the good fit between the tires and wheelcenters was lost. This has to be restored. The wheelcenters will be turned true and to the same diameters in the wheel lathe. Then, the insides of the tires will be bored oversized to take a shim band. The tires will then be heated and expanded so they slip onto the wheel centers which will have the shim bands on them. When the tires cool, they will lock onto the wheel centers in a good "death grip". At that point, the tires will be remachined to correct tread and flange profiles in the wheel lathe.

Steam Team members will accompany the wheelsets to the RR machine shop to work along with the machinists there. With the frame up on the loading dock, it will be blocked and shimmed to level, and work will begin on the rebuild of the springs, spring rigging, brake rigging and running gear. This is where the boxcar machine shop will come into its own. Work has been done to separate 23's boiler from the frame.The actual lifting or "picking" of the boiler, frame and wheelsets will be done by an outside
crane contractor.

So, like the proverbial house building site, a lot of materials and parts are on the ground. Like a house project, the most important part is the foundation. In the case of a steam locomotive, this means the frame and boiler. Having got ourselves into shape with the work on the tender and some boiler work, things are now falling into place to tackle the frame and boiler.

Please help us to complete this project.
Forward all donations to:

ESRM
P.O. Box 455
Phoenicia, NY 12464

Attn: Engine 23 Restoration Fund
(your support will be greatly appreciated!)