Kloke is at it again! Florida logger may steam in 2020 NEWSWIRE

SOMONAUK, Ill. — David Kloke, the man who built operating replicas of historic steam locomotives Leviathan and York, is about to bring another historic, yet significantly more humble, back from the dead.

For the past five years, Kloke, the semi-retired owner of Kloke Locomotive Works, has been working on the 1913 Baldwin-built 0-4-4 Forney steam locomotive, Bock Lumber Co. No. 1. Kloke says he started on the project in 2014 in his shop in Somonauk, Ill., when he was commissioned by Fred Haberkamp, owner of the locomotive, to bring Bock No. 1 back to life. Kloke says he rebuilt the boiler in 2014 and then began the frame-up rebuild on the locomotive, which includes a conversion from wood fuel to waste oil. “We started with the frames and had the cylinders rebored, had the wheels rewheeled, new crank pins, new axles, new bearings, new drivable drive brass, new brass on the rods, all the rods are rebuilt,” he says. “It’s going to have new pistons arranged. New boiler. It’s a complete frame-up restoration from the ground up.”

Bock No. 1 nearly missed its chance to ever be rebuilt. It served Bock Lumber Co., in Florida until the company closed in the early 20th century and was then out of service for most of the next half-century. The locomotive was then sold for scrap value to a dealer in Pennsylvania and was mostly cut apart when it was purchased in the 1970s by California resident George Thaggard, who saw an advertisement in Trains Magazine for the remains of the engine. Thaggard had possession of the remains of the Bock No. 1 for nearly four decades when Haberkamp purchased the parts and had them shipped to Kloke. He says the ongoing rebuild is possible because he was able to account for most of the original parts of the locomotive. “It looked like it was an Erector set … a pile of parts,” Haberkamp says. “Nothing was together. It was completely cut apart when I got it (but) … at least we had the components.”

Haberkamp says the parts which could not be reused were manufactured from scratch using the original parts for measurements and specifications. He says although the original boiler still exists, he elected to have a new boiler built by Kloke and have it designed to meet modern requirements. “You can grandfather it, but I elected for longterm safety,” he says. “I want to have this available for the next 30 or 40 or 50 years. I don’t want to come down the road in 10 or 15 years and have issues … The new boiler is the way to go.”

Haberkamp says he hopes the locomotive, which will have a capacity to carry 250 gallons of waste oil and 950 gallons of water, will be operation in early 2020. “The reality is we’re getting closer, that maybe within the next six months depending upon how much time I can get out there, we could be going live with it,” he says.

Kloke says the project is more than three-quarters complete. He says a rebuild project such as this is more than just assembling the parts of the locomotive. “Rebuilding something like that, you take it apart and put it back together a couple of times,” he says. “It’s rebuilding a hot rod or a car. You put it together and then take it apart and paint it and then put it back together again.” Kloke says the rebuild of the Bock No. 1 is fulfilling, even if it is a humbler locomotive than his previous builds. “You’re saving a piece of history. It’s not a big famous engine like the Leviathan or the York, it’s just another steam engine that did a job in the swamps in Florida. It helped build America back in the day.”

Haberkamp says he hopes the Bock No. 1 will find a home at a railroad museum that will welcome the opportunity operate it and care for it. He says any museum or group with interest in housing and operating the Bock No. 1 when complete can contact him “There’s more than a light at the end of the tunnel. We’re coming out of the end and we’re going strong right now,” Haberkamp says.