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Hello Everybody, This week went by fast, but I must apologize I was
unable to get any photos of Chama.. but the 484 is coming along
great and should see Steam pretty soon.. Saturday the 10th the
clouds rolled in and we were expecting rain.. well what we got was 8
inches of snow on Sunday Morning.. This is my Backyard Sunday
Morning!! |
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This week in the Antonito Shop we worked on getting the 487 ready
for the Hydro Test... it is a process in which we fill the Boiler
with water then pressurize it by continuing to fill it with water..
so it wasn't very exciting in the shops... |
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Well there are few of you that wanted to see some MOW work, well I
am going to show you the rebuilding of the Road Crossing in the
Antonito Yard, the Track Crew had to repair a very bad low spot in
the crossing... |
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The Next Weeks will be fast going and pretty hectic.. But I will
continue to try to put new interesting Photo's on the Web-Site...
Here is a few of the Birds that visit my Backyard. |
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The Repair of the Crossing required the initial removal of the
Pavement over the Crossing.. |
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Over the last Year or so the Crossing had sunk and was a little
scarey, we have never experienced a derailment because of this
Track, but we decided it would be a good idea to repair it now...
and it will help ease the access to the Display Spur Track. |
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Initially Max Pacheco the Roadmaster had thought the Ties would be
Moisture damaged, but they weren't and the Track Crew re-gauged the
Track and removed the old wet dirt under the Rails. |
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Under a Blue Colorado Sky, the Track Crew Works to make the Repair,
I actually love to watch these Guys work... they all know just what
to do and work so well as a Team.. |
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I was asked for a update on the tenders, well here is 489's Tender..
it sits in front and 487's tender is behind. 487's tender is
in Great shape, more than likely it just needs a quick inspection
and we hope to paint it and it will be ready to roll.. 489's tender
needs a full rebuild and it has a small lean to the Engineer's side
if I remember correctly.. that will be future project. |
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First I apologize for the shadows in the Faces, but I tend to shoot
pictures quickly between work... Here is the Pacheco Brothers and my
Mom, They all grew up together along the Railroad as children. Both
my Mom's Father and their Father worked together on the Rio Grande
Narrow Gauge between Antonito and Chama! |
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After removing the old dirt and applying Ballast consisting of
crushed rock, the Tamper levels and lifts the track as the crew
watches closely. |
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The Tamper does it's Job as the crew watches, you can see how the
Dirt has been removed from between the ties and rails. To the right
is some tools of the trade, a hand held tamping device, two track
jacks and a spike maul. |
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The tamper from Head-on, it's a mess of hoses and cyclinders and
more of the same.. |
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Toby Vigil at the Tampers controls.. this is really a interesting
Machine and does a amazing job.. |
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The repaired track ready for Ballast and new Asphalt. |
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Here is the Fully repaired and elevated track with the new Ballast
installed.. |
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Sometimes the skies here are just amazing, I don't get tired of
taking pictures of this magical place.. |
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Thursday the 15th and the New Asphalt has been delivered. |
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The guard rails are installed and the Track crew begins to apply the
new asphalt to the track.. |
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We hoped to warm up the water as high as possible during our
preliminary Hydro-test. We used Kerosene Heaters to blow hot air
into the Firebox and smokebox. It actually worked, the water did
warm up pretty good. |
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Once removed, we found the Cab required a lot of new metal... So in
this Picture Ronnie is welding new metal into the bottom of the cab. |
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If you look closely you can see water seeping from a few of the old
staybolts, these ones were replaced about 3 years ago. We plan to
hammer them a little more to seal them as they have plenty of metal
to work with. I was very Happy, above the leaking staybolts you can
see a new walkway stud bolt, it was made by Tommy and I put it into
the boiler.. I was glad to see it sealed properly. |
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The Pressure is building, during a Hydro test we fill the Boiler
with water, then continue to pump the water into the boiler building
pressure, this pressure allows us to check for leaks before actual
steam-up. During the test, the water glasses and other items are
also checked, You can see the Steam Gauge is indeed hooked up and
the pressure is building inside the boiler. |
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The pressure is past 150 pounds and still building!!!! |
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Here is something of interest.. what you see is the pump used to
Hydro test the Boiler... it is actually kind of small. A regular
Garden hose is plugged into the Pump and a hose goes from the pump
to the boiler, we usually make a connection at the blow-down valve!
We leave the Monkey Tail or Atmospheric Valve Open on the top to
vent the Air and add water thru the bottom. |
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Here is shot of the Kerosene Heater warming the Smokebox.. |
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Friday the 16th, here is one of the Drawbars.. these are what make
the connection between the Locomotive and Tender.. There are 2 of
them and this is the Bottom one. Ronnie will began building up the
wear that occurs at the Connection points with a wire-feed welder. |
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Here are 2 more Staybolts leaking.. we will fix them and continue
on. |
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In this Picture you can see 2 removed staybolts at the bottom where
it is a little blue in color.. they would not seal, so we decided to
replace them with fresh new Staybolts.. to the left and above them
are 4 new staybolt caps.. they sealed tight. |
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Here is the second and upper Drawbar.. it also needs to be built-up.
It amazes me how these bars and 2 pins holds the entire Train to the
Locomotive. You can see how careless Train Handling could easily rip
the Train apart.. |
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Here is the Drawbar and one of the pins, this pin is the one that
connects the Bars to the Locomotive,, you can see the wear that we
will correct.. |
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Her is one of our crowded work tables, we didn't get new Bolts to go
with our new Super-Heater Units so we had to clean up the old ones,
they were wire-brushed and the threads were also cleaned.. You can
also see nestled among the bolts a Safety Valve and to the right a
Centrifugal dust collector.. there is also some wd-40 and some pop
bottles that we made into Generic oil cans.. |
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Well thats it for this week, it's gonna get hectic for the next
couple of weeks, keep your eyes open.. I hope to get some great
photo's for everybody out there in Internet Land! Thanks again,
Carlos Llamas... And thanks to a local Contractor "Asphalt
Constructors of Alamosa" for bringing in the asphalt for our new
repaired road crossing in Antonito. |
