Work stopped after the Diversified Rail Services crew installed the drivers into the front engine last week. “We need to raise the remaining funds so the contractor can come back,” Executive Director John Garner said Friday.
A last remaining part for the rear engine, a driving box, must be purchased from a foundry at a cost of $39,000, then machined and installed. At that time, the boiler can be set on both engines and final piping and assembly can move forward. A crane company has offered to donate the lift. Once on its wheels, there’s eight to 12 weeks of work to get the engine ready for testing.
Hampering the effort has been the 2018 employee theft of running gear parts and the overall condition of the locomotive when it was acquired in 2014.
The parts theft complicated running gear repairs — the stolen brass was valued at the price of scrap, but the new parts must be carefully crafted and machined for fit and heavy use at great expense.
“The project, and the locomotive, has been dealt multiple bad hands since this initiative began,” says preservationist Jason Sobczynski, who worked on the locomotive. “But thanks to Diversified Rail Services and John Garner, the locomotive is very close to completion. In fact, had it not been for the bronze theft consuming available financial resources, it would have been running 4-5 months ago.”
After five years of work and more than $2.7 million, the project needs between $100,000 and $150,000 to finish the engine and another $80,000 to install a coal storage and ash removal system required by West Virginia environmental regulations, Garner says. That’s about 8 percent of the total cost of the project.
“The engine was in much worse shape than believed when the restoration began,” Garner says. “We’re hoping that our supporters, the people who want to see the engine back in steam, will push us over the top.”
For now, mostly completed, No. 1309 waits inside the former Western Maryland car shop at Ridgeley, W.Va., near Cumberland, waiting to see if people who care about steam step forward.
Ref contributions…you don’t need an official web site. Just mail a check to WM Scenic Rwy in Cumberland, MD. I did twice, and each time got a nice “thank you” card in return.
Yes, Mr. Jenkins–funny indeed! Don’t expect TRAINS and Railfan & Railroad to reveal the contents of the Stone Consulting report to a nationwide audience. Western Maryland Scenic RR is in deep trouble on many fronts, and as the Stone Consulting study points out, #1309’s return to steam may NOT necessarily overcome those issues. Indeed, in a short amount of time, it could well end up being GOODBYE WESTERN MARYLAND SCENIC RAILROAD. Rather continually reporting only one side of the story, the national railroad press is creating the same FAKE NEWS surrounding rail preservation projects that our President Mr. Trump accuses national reporters of doing with political issues. If anyone in the national railroad press has first hand experience in the difficulties surrounding steam operations, it’s
AMAZONSMILE
Al Dicenso,
Who do you think did the inspection at the B&O RR museum, a monkey, it was done by a professional, and as in almost all locomotives that can be restored 80 – 90% of the machine is hidden away and can’t be inspected until it’s torn apart…and once you’ve torn it apart you might as well go ahead and do the job right the first time and restore it completely…cost be damned.
Play it again Sam .
Very surprised that they apparently did not have theft coverage on their insurance!
What is a driving box? Was it something that is worn out or one of the stolen parts?
Restoration projects are not things that can be done ‘on time’ and ‘under budget’. Only when you start taking the thing apart do you find out all the issues that cannot be seen from visual inspections for the outside.- or even visual inspections from the inside. The theft of the journal brass, rod bushings etc. got the thief penny’s of scrap value on hundreds if not thousands of dollars of machine work invested in the replacement parts.
There is too much invested in this restoration to stop on it now.
Had the proper due diligence been done by a true expert, the loco would never have been pulled out of the museum. Good money after bad, now that it’s this far along, completion at any cost, right? Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
The CEO needs to be fired and the operation turned over to a professional. I would suggest Robert Franzen’s company that is running the nearby Potomac Eagle.
Brass (copper and zinc) is usually sold at scrap to extract the more expensive zinc. Zinc is favored because of its ability to resist corrosion.
There are other alloys available, like bronze (copper & tin) or the merging of other products to get the needed capability, but they vary depending on the other product. Copper and Aluminum can be made into an alloy that looks like brass, but doesn’t have the same level of durability. It would require alum refined at a certain level which again, can be expensive.
The largest brass replacement is composites. So if they have the specifications of the missing parts, it may be possible to replicate it in composite to get the engine running and tested for service. If they are smaller brass fittings, you may be able to 3D print them.
… theft of running gear parts!
What the #heck# is going to do with them, rebuild another engine?! People steal anything.
No prosecution as of yet for the x-employee thief.
What happened to the employee who sold the parts for scrap?
Funny how they ran out of money right after the negative audit report came out.
While I hope they are successful, it is not surprising to me that they have run out of money considering that their fundraising effort is practically non-existent. Multiple NewWire articles mentioned they were going to form a 1309 club yet nothing about donating to it is on the WMS website. I also have contacted them twice about it and have never heard back about how to make a comittment to it.
I can only hope things work out for you guys.
Well hopefully the Employee that stole and scraped the bronze running gear for the engine got what he deserved, and hopefully won’t be hired by any other steam restoration group.