After spending some time watching videos of Ecuadoran steam on Youtube, I ran across one posted on February 2015 by the Ecuadoran company, Metalmecanica Comercial SA ("Metalco"). The video shows the rehabilitation of steam locomotives #14, 18 & 58 for the Ferrocarriles del Ecuador. I don't read Spanish, but I believe it says the work on these three locos was completed in 2014:

The video shows scenes of the rebuild work in progress, followed by the finished products rolling out. These are some dandy machines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1gAWCfnri0

Below is a snap-shot from the video.

Muchas gracias.

[Edited 4 times to: (1) Add a photo, (2) correct a loco #, (3) revise text, and (4) insert a quote.]

Thanks for the link. A lot of that work looks very familiar. Very interesting for sure. Regards, John.

Looks like they are using a wire feed to weld up the pressure vessel. I believe that is frowned upon in the states. Sub-arc is OK but wire feed isn't approved. Hope they hang together.

CCdW

Anybody notice they heated the driver center and dropped in the axle by hand, instead of cold pressing it? Anybody else do that?

We did this exact method with the drive axle on the Polson #2. After talking to a number of experienced mechanics this method was chosen. If I am not mistaken this is what they did in the video. We froze the axle in liquid nitrogen and heated the wheel center to around 250-300. I forget the friction/interference fit before the heating and cooling but something like .007 per inch? Don't quote me on that. I think the trick for us heating the wheel center {with tire still on} was even heat. We found a local heat treating shop with large enough ovens to pre-heat the wheel centers and had the axle in a water cooler connected to the liquid nitrogen. I was not the ramrod on this project and only assisted in the final assembly. The dimensions and layout work were done by professionals who knew what they were doing. When final assemble or insertion of the axle with key attached it was as smooth as the video. After contraction and expansion there was no moving that axle.

In an earlier vocation I had been around this type of work putting and machining roll ends into shafts for the paper industry, similar in some ways but completely different form. Needless to say it was slick and really a cool thing to be part of from my perspective. I would recommend this over pressing an axle any day. But I am not a leading steam mechanic in the industry and maybe there are reason why one might choose to press driver axles in place? Regards, John.

You're plenty good enough to work on my stuff, John. But, it's because that's the way we've always done it, dammit. I think if they'd had a plentiful availability of liquid nitrogen back then, it would have been used a lot more. The low temp heat and very cold freeze installation of a cylinder lines also seems a far better way to get that job done.

p.s. I don't think they froze that axle. Do you agree? It does not look cold.

Nice flanging on the knuckle radius. Do you suppose it is built to a code? Do the Ecuadoran have a national code? It was obviously designed by someone who knew something.

CCdW

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody like Shaun McMahon might have been involved. he's done a lot of railroading in Latin America. I'd like to know more about their standards and practices as well. Their results seem very good.... nice to know there was some investment in the G&Q.