Just before the transition to the new server Jack Anderson (STEAMRR@MASHELL.COM) posted this very valuable info; I have taken the liberty of recopying it to the new board.

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I'd like to compare notes on pin greases and mileage you are getting on your side rod bushings. We use Mikados doing about 15 mph on adverse grades and frequent drifting, 40 miles a day, 5000 miles per summer.

All my locomotives have oil cellars so I am reluctant to steam clean the running gears. How are others keeping their locos clean?

We have been using small, digital bicycle speedometers for years on our locos. The sensor is applied to the trailing truck axle end (28" wheels, precision calibrated by circumference) or can be hidden inside a tender journal box. Works great.

Whenever we rebuild a compound air compressor we drill a hole through the low pressure piston. The hole is 1/8" almost the thickness of the piston, with 1/16' for about a 1/8" length poking through the top of the piston. If you have trouble with a compound pump re-starting after the governor has stopped it for a while, this may be a solution for you. After a while even nicely ground-in pump air check valves start to leak, and if 40 psi of air leaks into the low pressure air cylinder, the steam pressure on the high pressure steam piston is not enough to overcome this back pressure. The hole through the LP air piston will allow the pressure to equalize on both sides of the LP air piston so the pump will start every time. Westinghouse made pressure relief valves that were applied to the intermediate air check valve caps which would relieve excessive air pressure in the LP air cylinder, accomplishing the same goal. (This drilled-hole solution was discovered in a hand-written note found in an air brake trouble-shooting book.)

If your B-6 (old style) reducing valve squawks and vibrates when using the independent brake valve (for which it supplies the air), try the following cures: clip off the very tips of the coil spring that holds the regulating valve to its seat, so the thin, flattened tip that comes back against the coil is removed; Replace any warped or creased brass diaphragms with good ones; put a coating of air grease between the two brass diaphragms when assembling, also grease the brass plug on the adjusting spring where it contacts the diaphragms; sandpaper on a flat surface both sides of the brass ring that holds the diaphragms in place; tighten the cast iron spring housing onto the diaphragms very tightly, after lightly greasing the surface that comes into contact with the brass diaphragm retaining ring.

After reading an article in a 1940's Railway Mechanical Engineer magazine on crown brass lubrication with oil, we changed our methods and have had very good results. It was finally discovered that brasses with oil grooves (especially the main slot at the top of the brass where the oil entered and was distributed) were creating a pumping action which effectively pumped the oil out of the cellar and out the top of the driving box. Oil would be wiped onto the journal by the packing in the cellar, and then at the top of the brass where the oil film pressure was the greatest, the oil film broke at the oil groove, accumulated, and was forced out the top of the brass. The broken oil film now had to be reestablished to continue lubricating the journal and brass on the other side of the oil groove. It was recommended, and we have further refined, that the oil holed to the brass in the top of the driving box be plugged, that new brasses have absulutely no groving or old brasses when bored out are bored deeply enough to remove the original groove. We apply a small oil reservoir made of pipe and caps for each cellar, bolting the reservoir to the frame and running a rubber hose to the cellar connected to a short length of small pipe directing the oil to the center of the cellar on one side of the packing. A dollop of journal oil each morning keeps the packing saturated.

This has been a long entry, and I've enjoyed myself. Does anybody else have low-tech solutions to common steam problems that they would like to share? Notes and kinks and solutions like were published in the Locomotive Engineer's brotherhood magazine would be good to start up again, and what better place than right here?

Best wishes and happy steaming,

Jack



eledbetter@rypn.org