Derailment and repair
On Saturday, during our annual meet at WLS, I had just steamed up after repacking the cylinder rods on my Consolidation, hooked up to my three riding cars and put all eight drivers on the ground. As we were re-railing the locomotive, the lead truck came out of the pocket, so it had to go back to the steaming bays for a quick repair. After we got her back on the track, a friend noticed something more severely wrong with the lead truck. The axle appeared to be bent, and bent it was. That night, we went to my workshop, pulled the wheels off the axle and made a new one. All was ready to go in a few hours. Here are a few pictures. (click for larger view)
My first run in July 2010
Lead truck before repair, facing wheel actually angled on bent axle
Turning a new axle
Repaired lead truck ready for installation
Fr Finelli, Nice looking consolidation . I am encouraged that you built your locomotives and use them for the Lord’s glory! I am building a Gene Allen consolidation, 7 years in the making! Presently have the engine under air, with lots to do yet!
Thank you! She’s a great running engine. Good luck on your project. Your welcome to send pics as you go along, with a description and I’ll,post them.
Thanks for writing about this. We Live Steamers tend to keep our mishaps and repairs to ourselves, so it’s good to see you so open about how your loco was damaged and how you repaired it so quickly.
I’ll have another one shortly. A mistake I made in machining a wheel and how I solved the problem.