I have been a volunteer at the WW&F Railway Museum www.wwfry.org for several years now. During most of that time, there has been a locomotive being restored…someday. Well it seems the day is coming up pretty soon.

The Train Department will be offering a 7/8" scale model of this engine…coming out soon Jason’s 7/8th scale page

Here are some photos of the first time I saw her at the museum in 2005, before restoration had started:

Here is how far we got as of last weekend:

The two foot gauge Forney locomotive was built by the Portland (MAINE!) Company in 1891 for the Sandy River Railroad.

She worked for the Sandy River (#5) until it merged with fellow two foot gauge lines to be come the Sandy River and Rangely Lakes Railroad (#6). She served there until the late '20s when she was sold to the Kennebec Central (#4)which ran a short line hauling passengers and coal to the Old Soldier’s home in Togus Maine. In 1933 she was sold to the Wiscasset Watervile and Farmington Railway (#9) were she served a very short time before the end.

Her days at the SR RR and the SR&RL RR were hard…she saw a lot of use and her share of accidents. Within months of delivery she was involved in a collision with a standard gauge train with the expected results! She needed a new cab and a good bit more. In february 1917 she tumbled down an embankment with both driver axles busted. She also survived an engine house fire.

The SR&RL did maintain her as well as they could. they added Janey automatic couplers and electric headlights. they did not add Westinghouse air brakes though. by that time she was too small and old to get the equipment and Retained the Eames Vacuum brakes.

The Kennebec Central was in need of new equipment by the 1920’s and purchased two Portland Company Forneys to replace their old engines It looks like the SR&RL gave #6 a coat of paint but didn’t do much mechanically before sending her out. After a few years on the Togus line, the engine the WW&F purchased was pretty worn out.

The WW&F shop guys did what they could to her, she was “better” than their existing engines. one change that is noticable is the addition of brakes on the drive wheels. before that only the rear truck had brakes.

when the line closed in the depression, a railfan from Connecticut purchased the engine, a flat and a box car with dreams of a tourist attraction at his farm…well they all stayed where they landed but were preserved from the scrappers. In 1995 she was moved to the WW&F railway Museum, given a little paint and even run on compressed air. her boiler was beyond service and she had some other issues needing attention.

I’ll post some photos and describe some of what I have been doing to restore the engine.

Very cool Eric. As in restoring, are we talking to operating condition? If so, that would be awesome.

YEP…as in RUNNING and SOON!

But here are some old photos showing the work in an earlier state:

this photo shows the rear frame which supported the cab and rear tank (seen behind the frame) This is the original frame which was quite rusty and had (has) several broken parts. you can also see the back end of the original boiler.

On the front side of the firebox you can see fittings which held the engine frame. the firebox was a structural part of the locomotive frame on these old Forneys.

this is a close up of the firebox area. you can see the rear frame is bolted to the sides of the firebox and the main engine frame was bolted to the front.

this is the replacement rear frame. Note the big casting at the right side. this will connect the front and rear frames of the restored engine. the new rear frame was basically a copy of the original with some modifications to fit around the new casting which itself wraps around and supports the firebox.

this shows the rear frame with its casting. you can see the new boiler fits into the casting between the new frames. the frame now supports the boiler not the other way around.

The main engine frame is a bar frame. I have looked for photos of the original…I must have some somewhere…

Anyhow, the original frame had cracks and repaired breaks and seemed too delicate to reuse. So the Museum had a new frame Plasma cut from 1 1/2" steel plate. the same way we do it on our models! a goodly amount of machining was needed to make accurate mating surfaces for parts and to drill and ream holes for bolts.

Here is a photo of the frame on its side showing the cylinders mounted and some of the other bits added. you can see a rectangular piece which holds the frame in alignment and the plate that connects the middle of the frame to the boiler and supports the cross head guides. the small slots in the frame are where the spring hangers will be…part of the suspension system.

the cylinders are original. The 4 holes are where the steam and exhaust connect. the two outer ones are for steam the two inner for exhaust. they are connected to the valve seat via cast in passages. The valve seat is the flat section (above) the cylinder with all the slots. The steam enters the valve enclosed area through the two horizontal slots. the middle vertical slot is the exhaust. the two narrower end slots are the passages to the cylinder, steam and exhaust are exchanged in these by the valve which slides forward and aft over the three slots.

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The boiler.

the old boiler was probably the original 1891 boiler and still pretty complete. You can see the ends of the boiler stays around the firebox, including 4 big nuts which connect to rods running the length of the boiler. the iron or steel plates were riveted together…see all the cone shaped rivet heads?

Ultrasound showed some thin places which would no longer pass inspection. the boiler was the reason to tear into the project in the first place. as you can imagine, under every stone is another problem.

The Railway museum decided to build a new boiler using modern code, materials and techniques. this one welded rather than riveted you can see the smooth sides of the boiler barrel and barely see the welds between the parts. the bumps on the firebox are stays which keep the inner and outer walls of the firebox together.

The finished boiler was hydrostatically tested…pumped full of water and pressureized to test for leaks and pressure holding capacity. Next it was given a steam test ( last winter )

the throttle was opened to force steam though the plumbing to the cylinders ( lacking the cylinder heads and pistons ) this checks the function of the throttle and clears any dirt and metal shavings out of the system.

the safety valves were also checked for proper function.

Some of the projects I worked on:

Ben ( my son ) and I cleaned and painted the drive wheels. there shape becomes apparent with the red primer.

here is one of the drivers before cleaning…

this one must have been damaged in service, note the crank pin was “fixed” by the shop. they seem to have machined out broken wheel casting and pressed a new piece in. it is peened over on the back side to keep it from coming loose. Perhaps the 1917 wreck?

Wow! This is just awesome! You guys are doing a nice job on her. It’s got to be great to be so intimate with a build like this. It almost looks like you could build one i out in the garage too with it’s small size. Very cool. What was the steel plate over the front driver for? Just for getting things aligned before the crank pin was in? Cant wait to see it in action at the Narrow Gauge Convention!

I want one!!!

Very cool Love to see these old Locos coming to life again

Eric Schade said:

this shows the rear frame with its casting. you can see the new boiler fits into the casting between the new frames. the frame now supports the boiler not the other way around.

Eric,

is the purpose of the casting tying the main frame to the rear frame done for strength? I am just wondering why it was decided to part from the original construction method. I get why the boiler was built to a different standard but was wondering why the departure from the original frame design?

Way cool! Great info, very interesting and helpful to see how these locos are put together.

Did they save the original boiler? Seems like it would make a nice display.

Devon,

The original frame had no connection between the front and rear sections except through the firebox. This is no longer acceptable practice. The Portland company and also Baldwin locomotive works later used a similar casting to connect the two frames. The engine frame is narrower than the firebox… and the rear frame. The casting transmits the forces around the firebox. The change was justified by the need to make an operational engine as close to original as possible.

I’ll talk about that plate over the driver later…

Eric Schade said:

Devon,

The original frame had no connection between the front and rear sections except through the firebox. This is no longer acceptable practice. The Portland company and also Baldwin locomotive works later used a similar casting to connect the two frames. The engine frame is narrower than the firebox… and the rear frame. The casting transmits the forces around the firebox. The change was justified by the need to make an operational engine as close to original as possible.

I’ll talk about that plate over the driver later…

Makes sense Eric, thanks for the explanation.

Okay, like I really need another enticement to get me to come to the narrow gauge convention next year.

Great to see one of these coming back to life! Keep us posted on the progress!

Later,

K

Nice posting and great info being shared. Thank you Eric and son Ben. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Eric, You will have no idea of the feelings that will come, when you watch the Ol’ Gal move under her own power for the first time in decades.

There is still a long ways to go, but that day will come.

Keep us posted.

These photos are still several years old but show how the running gear looks.

Stephenson valve gear uses 4 eccentrics and eccentric rods shown here. Ben and I cleaned them and reinstalled them on the driver wheel set.

they are pretty small on a two foot gauge engine as they have to fit between the frames.

here they are installed on the engine this is the rear drive axle as viewed from underneath.

here is the expansion link end of the eccentric rods.

before installing the wheels, the axles were re-machined to be smooth and round. here a wheel set is setup in the big “wheel” lathe.

the journal bearings are inverted U shaped brass blocks carefully machined to fit the axle. The holes in the brass are oil holes. there will be oil cups above here which keep a steady drip of oil into the bearing surface.

With the wheels installed the next project was to install the side rods.

here is one of the connecting rods. this and its mate connect the front and rear wheels and cause them to rotate together.

the rods have brass bearings at each end for the crank pins. the brasses have to be machined to fit their mating pin.

here is the fireman’s side connecting rod. Note that the wheels are resting on rollers like we do with our models. these rollers can only (barely) deal with the weight of the cast iron wheels, the weight of the engine is still supported another way.

Here I am using a wood 2x4 to rotate the wheels. all 4 should rotate together and rotate smoothly…sadly it was not so easy. careful measurement showed that the crank pins were not all set up the same way. This is probably due to age and wear but it may also be that one wheel set came from a different engine. we dont really know. anyhow a fix was needed. this took a good bit of thinking and building on the part of Jason Lamantagne the chief engineer. It probably set us back 6 months or more. this work was above my pay grade so I stuck to my models for a while!

this odd looking contraption was what Jason built. you can also see that plate over the wheel, which is the base for this machine. The machine is a lathe which can cut the crank pin very accurately and at the desired distance from the axle center and the right “quarter” with respect to the opposite wheel. I think all the cranks received attention from this device.

When complete, with newly machined ( to fit the smaller pin diameter) brasses the connecting rods were reinstalled. they worked fine!

Love this stuff Eric! I thought that plate looked like it was a solution to some big problems. Indeed Mr. Lamantagne came up with a very elegant solution. I’m glad it all worked out well. Those wheel rollers are hilarious! I guess you have to make due with what is on hand sometimes. Thanks for all the work shots and descriptions. It’s really going to make seeing this loco all the more meaningful.

so I always wondered how all those wheels on a Forney or for that matter any other engine make it around curved track. On our models the lead truck (or tender truck on a Forney) have a pivot and a spring which puts a little pressure on the wheels. it more or less works on a model. but how do the real guys support all that weight?

here is the rear truck of Number Nine. The side frames are rigid. no obvious springs or equalizing bars.

This is the part which supports the rear tank on the engine. there are the springs hidden inside. you can see the truck supports the locomotive on that round pivot block with a rim around it. Put some grease in there and it will swivel just nice. the springs give some cushioning right? But how can all this go around a curve? the trick is in those round rods with the rectangular bars. Remember that the truck supports the loco through the springs and pivot block.

so starting at the truck frame, the round bars at the middle of the photo hang the spring below through the rectangular bars (swing links). the spring is held up by the bars like a porch swing glider. the springs and thus the locomotive can move (swing) sideways with respect to the truck.

You can imagine that as the engine enters a curve and starts to turn, the rear truck would be left behind off center from the loco. the supporting springs and pivot block would swing to the side. the swing links would be at a angle which tries to re-center the springs and pivot block.

I have looked at drawings of other locomotives and a similar system was commonly used for lead trucks both two and four wheel. also on some trailing trucks.

here I am holding one of the swing links.