Helper engine: Maryland RR group excursion will benefit K4 work

The Cumberland-based railroad received assist from different organizations and people within the heritage rail group and desires to repay the debt — whereas utilizing its newly rebuilt engine to encourage historic preservation elsewhere.

Accordingly, WMSR is making its Baldwin Mallet 1309 out there for a fundraising tour subsequent month that might generate as a lot as $70,000 towards renovation of the Railroaders Memorial Museum’s K4 1361 steam locomotive, which has been present process a rebuild in suits and begins for 30 years.

“It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?” mentioned Western Maryland Govt Director Wesley Heinz of the Altoona saga.

It has been a very long time, however the K4 effort has new momentum, since a reorganization final 12 months involving a brand new Altoona museum director, a brand new museum board chairman, who as soon as ran Norfolk Southern Railway, and a nationally revered consulting agency dealing with the reconstruction, in line with Heinz.

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s Altoona-built K4 1361 is seen in York on Aug. 26, 1988.
Courtesy photograph

“What occurred previously occurred,” Heinz mentioned. “(Now it’s time) to maneuver ahead.”

He’s effectively conscious of the K4’s “checkered previous,” mentioned Altoona museum Govt Director Joe DeFrancesco. “(However) I can’t stress sufficient that this renewed effort is a brand new future.”

DeFrancesco is optimistic concerning the Maryland fundraiser however conservative in his estimation. “It might (generate) anyplace from $10,000 and up,” he mentioned.

Tickets are $361 per individual, and there are 200 seats out there.

“Do the mathematics,” he mentioned.

Railroaders Memorial Museum Govt Director Joe DeFrancesco leans on the brand new firebox as he appears to be like into the boiler of the K4 1361 locomotive. Mirror photograph by Patrick Waksmunski

The night tour Oct. 14 will run from Cumberland to Frostburg, Md., with meals, drinks, dwell leisure and an open carriage among the many automobiles.

K4’s whistle for use

The Baldwin locomotive can be utilizing the K4’s whistle.

“The voice of 1361,” DeFrancesco mentioned.

Tickets can be found on the WMSR web site.

Click on on “Ebook Now!” inside the window labeled “Assist the Spirit of Altoona on Oct. 14th!”

“It is going to be a gala on rails,” DeFrancesco mentioned.

Heinz made the suggestion for the fundraiser. “I mentioned ‘I’m all ears,’” DeFrancesco recalled saying.

“It felt like a pure match,” Heinz mentioned.

All of the proceeds will go to the K4 restoration besides the wholesale value of the meals that the WMSR cooks will put together for the passengers, Heinz mentioned.

Members of his group know individuals on the Altoona museum, the place he’s visited a dozen occasions, Heinz mentioned.

“We simply actually wish to present the best way ahead in preservation,” he mentioned. “Assist your folks once they have one thing that’s particular.”

Baldwin hauled coal

The Baldwin, constructed in Eddystone close to Philadelphia in 1949, “is that this unbelievable device we will make the most of,” Heinz mentioned.

In income service for the Chesapeake and Ohio, it hauled coal on department traces in southern West Virginia for seven years.

It’s been in tour service since November.

It was designed to be sluggish.

It was the locomotive model of “the Honda Accord,” Heinz mentioned, “the on a regular basis working man’s locomotive. … You fired them up, they usually ran.”

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s K4s had been totally different.

“Constructed for high-speed passenger service and to run on time,” he mentioned. “Sixty-five to 85 mph, all in a day’s work — and a few had been clocked going quicker.”

The K4 was the primary “scientifically designed locomotive,” mentioned Davidson Ward, president of FMW Options, the challenge advisor, citing the late Smithsonian railroad professional Invoice Withuhn.

Prototypes examined

PRR specialists examined prototypes for it on a treadmill in Altoona, trying out energy and gas and water consumption, Ward mentioned.

The Altoona-built 1361 would have routinely gone from Philadelphia to St. Louis and Chicago, Heinz mentioned.

He referred to the K4 and the Baldwin anthropomorphically — and as female.

Locomotives have at all times been “romanticized,” he mentioned.

It would value about $2.4 million to finish the “top-to-bottom” restoration, in line with DeFrancesco.

The museum has raised about $200,000 towards that quantity for the reason that reorganization announcement in June 2021 — $100,000 of which was contributed by the members of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historic Society, DeFrancesco mentioned.

The cash raised for the reason that reorganization announcement will allow the museum to purchase and kind the supplies for the firebox, he mentioned.

The museum is now making an attempt to boost an extra $200,000 for firebox set up, he mentioned.

The firebox is the most important single part within the restoration finances, in line with DeFrancesco.

The group hopes that exhibiting progress by “chunk(s)” will encourage donations.

“There’s nonetheless an extended option to go” to finish the restoration, DeFrancesco mentioned.

“(We’re) devouring the elephant one chew at a time,” he mentioned.

Most prior repairs OK

Previous to the 2021 reorganization announcement, restoration efforts had value round $1.7 million, in line with DeFrancesco.

Lots of the repairs had been completed at Steamtown Nationwide Historic Website in Scranton, below a partnership between Steamtown, the College of Scranton and the Railroaders Memorial Museum.

Most of these repairs had been acceptable — “not wasted,” DeFrancesco mentioned.

That restoration effort had begun after the K4’s fundamental bearing and drive axle failed throughout an tour in 1988.

That breakdown ended a year-and-a-half of excursions following a partial rebuild that started after the locomotive was dropped at the Conrail store in Altoona in 1985 from the Horseshoe Curve, the place it had been on static show for years.

The locomotive went out of income service for the PRR in 1956, in line with on-line sources.

FMW is managing the restoration, directing the work of a handful of native volunteers — expert machinists with backgrounds as Norfolk Southern staff of the Juniata Locomotive Store, in line with DeFrancesco.

FMW schedules classes as funding permits, DeFrancesco mentioned.

Since final 12 months, prior repairs on the steam dome have been corrected, resulting in a profitable inspection, and work has been completed on the operating gear and body, in line with DeFrancesco.

Staff have additionally eliminated the firebox and different boiler parts, so {that a} rebuilt firebox will be put in, DeFrancesco mentioned.

Security updates deliberate

A few of the firebox work can be based mostly on security updates put in place by the Federal Railroad Administration in 2000, after a steam locomotive incident in 1996 close to Gettysburg, in line with Ward.

Some can be based mostly on security updates put in place for railroads within the Twenties, when the protection requirement for stress vessels was elevated from 3.75 occasions regular working ranges to 4 occasions, in line with Ward.

FMW consulted the unique blueprints and carried out digital evaluation, modeling and laser and ultrasound checks on the firebox — the a part of the boiler the place a fireplace is constructed beneath water held in an envelope of metal above and to the edges, thus creating steam.

The testing disclosed some rivets of unsuitable composition, given the motion and stretching of the boiler when heated, in line with FMW’s Wolf Fengler, in a video supplied by DeFrancesco.

It additionally disclosed a design downside attributable to brackets related to the backhead that “dangle down fairly a bit into the boiler,” making a stress problem, Fengler mentioned.

It disclosed issues with metal sheets that had been butt-welded, however weren’t in good alignment, in line with Fengler.

And it disclosed issues with facet sheets that have to be thicker, and issues with staybolt sizes, patterns and spacing, Fengler mentioned.

Staybolts maintain the metal sides of the firebox water envelope a particular distance aside, creating the house for the water to be heated to steam.

After the firebox is completed, staff will put the boiler again onto the body, run the steam pipes to the cylinders and numerous home equipment and make wanted repairs to these home equipment — together with the injectors that feed water to the boiler, Ward mentioned.

Staff can even attend to the driving gear and operating gear: crank pins and facet rods, bearings, spring rigging and brakes.

Century of service

The objective is to arrange the K4 1361 for a “century of operation,” Ward mentioned.

It is going to be totally different than it was in income service, he mentioned.

The PRR “used and abused” the K4 then, working the locomotive maybe 28 days a month, he mentioned.

As an tour locomotive, the K4 can have “a nicer, retirement way of life,” he mentioned. “We are going to child this just like the museum piece it’s,” he mentioned.

Museum piece perhaps, but additionally an engine of financial growth and a automobile for “dwelling historical past” training, in line with DeFrancesco.

“Extra purposeful than only a relic,” he mentioned.

“Working full tilt or simply putzing alongside,” Heinz mentioned, “you’ll hear it respiration, and it turns into this dwelling factor.”

Mirror Workers Author William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.