Hello All,

For those who find boiler repairs interesting, the following photographs might spark some questions . Answers might be a bit harder to provide..................your thoughts here, please?

Location is unknown..............

Take care,

Dave Griner

We stand behind our work.
Half a mile is sufficient.
All code welding, criminal code.

Reminds me a bit of repairs seen on one of the Quincy & Torch Lake RR locomotives from the Quincy Copper Mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Clearly the sheets were already thin when the locomotive was retired in the 1940s judging by the post-operation wasting that's occurred. Granted, sitting outdoors exposed to the Northern Michigan climate for the last five decades or so probably hasn't helped things.

It has been 40 plus years since I took a good look at those engines outside near Hancock, Mi. Always felt that the boilers on those locomotives were fascinating to view as far as old repairs went. It lent a new meaning to "patch work". To be fair there was a newly built boiler in the engine house many years ago not sure what locomotive it was meant for. Think it sat on the floor but not sure anymore? Fascinating history. I toured the place Christmas Eve maybe 1975-ish or so. Went into the basement of the machine shop that was fully intact minus part of the roof. Totally unprepared to document the place with no camera or flashlights. It was getting dark out and snowing so we went to a bar downtown.

Back to the boilers outside. Working nearby to ready the Copper Range #29 for its trip to Mid Continent {2004 at Smelter plant}. I was not able to view the Quincy and Torch lake engines as we were working under a time constraint waiting for crane and trucks to show up. It was kind of sad to look at the condition of those little engines and the repairs made to them. But it was the most fascinating thing to really look at. Both the boiler repairs and the entirety of it all. It was a display ready to display on what could be done in the back country away from class 1 railroads. IF you were to restore any of the three there would be absolutely nothing left of the original locomotive. The fourth engine ended up at Huckleberry in lower MI. I think that was repatriated back to Hancock area but lost track of it and what if anything is happening up there. It is about a 2 hr or more to get up there and another 2 hr back, so I don't get up there often. Any news what is going on up there more recently?

Don't wish to hijack the subject of the thread, but here's my best answers to your questions.

A ton of progress has been made since even my first visit back around 2008. A small group of volunteers with fairly minimal resources has been slowly poking along at getting the remaining railroad equipment stabilized and looking good for display.

This operation was similar to the EBT in that the mines shut down in the early-mid 1940s, everyone put down their tools and left to wait out the shutdown, never to return. In the mid-70s(?) the roof of the roundhouse was caving in around the locomotives that remained (1, 3, 5 and 6). #6 was moved to the Pine Creek RR in NJ for restoration (which never occurred) and has since moved back to its former home in the now restored roundhouse. #3 is the one that went to Huckleberry in Flint with the spare boiler that if I recall correctly, was actually built for the scrapped #4 locomotive and wouldn't actually fit #3 as they had thought, so that's where that one remains. #1 and #5 were moved up to the main property of the mine now run as a museum and were located behind the hoist house (home to a beautiful Nordberg mine shaft hoisting engine) for display. The roundhouse roof was removed and more or less abandoned at the time. Around my first visit, they were starting to do archeological work in the roundhouse ruins and surrounding area and eventually rebuilt the roof and installed new replica doors and windows. It is now home to a cosmetically restored #6 and is where the volunteers do their restoration work on the other equipment. They've also restored the unique boxed in water tower nearby (insulated for the UP winters) and several of the wooden side and center dump cars remaining on the property. #5 was cosmetically restored a few years ago and relocated a short distance away from its last spot, to the former power house lead (a stabilized ruin now) with a string of side dump cars as a nice display. They're in the process of cosmetically restoring #1 as well, with its tender having been temporarily relocated to the roundhouse for an in depth restoration that includes an entirely new wooden frame. I was very impressed with the progress when I finally made it back up there last summer.

While the roundhouse is off the beaten path from the main museum area and is generally closed to the public, I believe they do at least one open house each year. The rest of the facility is quite unique with many remaining ruined buildings, a mine tour (with a cog rail tram ride down to it from the main building), the preserved Nordberg hoisting engine, etc. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

They do have a Facebook page for the railroad group that's fairly regularly updated (where most of the above information has been observed by me).

Holy mackerel Dave! I believe those photos deserve prominent display in your collection of boiler artifacts and oddities.
I assume all those radial and unsupported welds were x-ray certified, no worries.