Engine 557 Restoration Company
Progress Report October 2018

Our Indian summer continued well into October with no killing frost until our first snow dump on October 30th. The summer tourist are gone and the Alaska Railroad is now on a winter schedule catering to locals and visitors in pursuit of the Northern Lights.

If you follow us on Engine 557 Facebook "557 Restoration Company" some of this may be redundant. October 3 - 13 Robert Franzen of Steam Services of America was here on the job with boiler maker, Bob Gold. We posted daily updates of progress, as from 8 to 13 volunteers supported these professionals installing stay bolts and hammering them home. Ten-hour days were the norm and we got a lot of work done under the tutelage of our Professional Engineer, Robert Franzen.

In the wee hours, each day began with opening the shop and moving congestion outside for the day. The parking lot reflected the eagerness of the volunteer crew. Robert Franzen and Bob Gold began the first day hammering stay bolts on the back head. Bob and Robert traded off this demanding job while volunteers managed the air bucking bar inside the firebox.

To maximize our time with the contractor, free lunch was provided each day. Volunteers also worked Sunday the 7th of October and included Dean Sawyer, Robert Gold, Tom Walker, Ron Dudley Mike McKervey, Ken Elmore, Terry Douglas, Lynn Willis, and Pat Durand took the photo.

Engine 557 Restoration Company continued the marathon of boiler work on October 9th with a crew of 10. The all-important lunch was Cream of Spinach soup with a green salad and a variety of fantastic sub sandwiches from the Krazy Moose.   In the 6th day of the Marathon the volunteers were still showing up strong.   Some have taken leave from their white collar jobs to come and get down and dirty with 557.

Bob Gold used the air motor to ream the crown sheet for the flexible staybolts that will later be inserted from the outside.  Dean Sawyer is on the long handle of the “old man” which supports the weight of the air motor and gets the reamer started in the crown sheet.

Bob and Mike are on the air motor while Ken Elmore provides lubrication and cleans the long tapered reamer and tap for the vertical rigid stays in the crown sheet. Tom Walker and Dean Sawyer are in the firebox moving the air bucking bar from staybolt to staybolt while Bob and Robert use the air hammer outside to finish the heads on the vertical rigid stay bolts in the crown sheet.

Bob Gold and Robert Franzen inspect the last row of rigid vertical stays to be installed in the crown sheet. On their next visit we will complete the four rows of flexible stays down each side of the crown sheet.

After the stay bolts are threaded into place, the exposed ends both inside and out are cut and ground to proper exposure and then peened over with an air hammer. Bob Gold hammering on the inside which cold forms the metal to make it mushroom slightly and to expand the diameter of the stay where it is threaded through the sheet so it will fit tightly. Three of more than a thousand stays to be treated this way are shown here.

Specialty tools were made to deal with the flexible stays with a guide that protected the threads and seat for the cap. The bucking bar weighs over 200 pounds and is supported from an overhead chain hoist. It is still a hand full for three men to position and control while the hammering takes place from the bottom inside the firebox. Dean Sawyer, Tom Walker and Mike McKervey position the bucking bar. Two wraps of the hammer alert the air hammer operators inside to proceed with the noise makers.

Gerry Christiansen and Lynn Willis continue conditioning the flexible sleeves preparing for future installation of bolts.

Paul Dalleska on top of the boiler threading the cab turret dry pipe through the steam dome opening. The pipe has to be in position to clear the vertical stay bolts. Paul then went to work lapping the turret connection surface.

Tom Walker worked on the inside of the boiler to provide guidance and lubrication as the bolts are inserted from the inside. On day one there were no stays in the crown sheet and by day three there was progress. Tom’s crown sheet view on day five. There is now a forest of bolts supporting the crown sheet. The cab turret dry pipe is temporarily suspended amid the stay bolts as it needed to be in place before they were installed.

Jeff DeBroeck and Pat located a good drawing in our collection that confirmed the proper location of the cab turret dry pipe on the steam dome end. It sets on top of the bracket and is just 2 inches below the steam dome cover. S-160 domes were very low to meet the maximum height allowance of 13' 6". At the photo center is the throttle with the dry pipe just below and to the right.

The cacophony of air hammers, air motors, and grinders floods the senses and requires lots of hearing protection. There are men at work on top of the firebox, inside the boiler, inside the firebox and under the throat sheet in this photo. Sort of reminiscent of an old time boiler shop!

The crew posed for a group photo on October 11, 2018. From left to right: Tom Walker, Jerry Peters, Gerry Christiansen, Robert Franzen, Pat Durand, Bob Gold, Lynn Willis, Paul Dalleska, Ken Elmore, Ron Dudley and Mike McKervey took the photo.

Yes we have been busy installing crown stays. After a week's work this is all that is left of three pallets of 1043 stay bolts. For ten two contractors and about thirteen volunteers worked ten-hours each day to make a big dent in the remaining boiler work.

Lunch on the last day of the marathon featured poached salmon, corn casserole and apple cake. From left to right in the photo: Ken Elmore, Gerry Christensen, Jerry Peters, Robert Franzen, Bob Gold, Mike McKervey, Jerry Cunnington, Dean Sawyer, Tom Walker and Lynn Willis. A massive thank you to the volunteers on the mechanical crew who donated over 1,000 hours of their time to return 557 to operation!

Brothers Stan and Ron Tebow who grew up in Moses Lake playing on 557, came by for a tour to see how we are doing with Monte's locomotive. Stan lives up the Matanuska River here in Alaska, while Ron is a cattleman in the Moses Lake area.

Long time live steam railroader, Jim Posey of Anchorage, stopped by with his grandson Nathan who is now engaged in freighting of a different kind, Amazon Air out of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Engineer Kylan Reid keeps an eye on the track ahead. Kylan visited 557 with his dad and older brother on October 20th. They got the tour and he now has an official “557 Returning” signed print # 237 for his bedroom.

Consultant Paul Dalleska checks the heat as he lead 557 volunteers in a proof of concept for pouring Babbitt. A surround of old fire brick held a journal box with the fixture and damming material for the Babbitt pour. The journal boxes for the front engine truck now sports a new layer of cast Babbitt ready to be final machined to mate with the hub liner on the reconditioned front wheel axle assembly.

On Saturday October 27, we took the day to attend a celebration of life for 557 Volunteer, Stewart Sterling who passed away on September 21. We thank those individuals and organizations that made memorial contributions to Engine 557 in memory of Stewart. Those include the Whittier and Kenai Flotilla’s of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary and his co-workers at UPS.

Jim Keene, Ron Dudley and Paul Dalleska were engrossed in the job of annealing coppers for the flexible stay bolt caps. For the large caps on the crown sheet, this was a three stage process of assembly. Paul provided the tooling for forming and installing the coppers. Before the 20 units were complete they had a handle on the process.

Shoes and wedges showed very little wear despite their service in the flood waters of Nenana. One shoe was broken and we will have a set of 2 cast in leaded bearing bronze locally and machined to fit with the original drawings. Patrick Garley of Arctic Fires is making the investment patterns for this work.

Kyle Schltichting has come on board as a volunteer doing the safety seal weld on all the hammered staybolts on the interior of the firebox. He is doing a great job in cramped quarters.

Richard Troutman stands in the ARR wheel shop where a large press is used to remove and install wheels on the axles. A specialized lathe is used to return a wheel's tread to the original contour. The hospital car axles originally mounted 5X10 inch Timken bearings. These axles were shortened 13/16 “ on both ends so they now perfectly fit with our new 5X9 inch Timkens.

Richard completed the four wheel/axle/bearing assemblies for 557's tender trucks under contract. These are completely new multi-wear wheels and bearings on new, old stock axles from hospital cars originally purchased for the Railroad's fleet of passenger cars converted from circa 1940s hospital cars. Here is Richard at the ARRC Wheel Shop after loading out the first two axles on the 557's 1981 Ford truck.

Retaining the original appearance of the old tender trucks while upgrading them to roller bearings proved challenging. This would have been fairly easy 30 or 40 years ago when this was a common conversion for freight cars. Just one of our challenges - who knew that 33" wheels bored to 5" as originally fitted are now difficult to obtain and that their cost is about eight times the cost of standard 33" wheels bored to 7.25” This was finally resolved by replacing the axles and using standard 7.25” bore wheels. Thanks again to the Alaska Railroad.

Upon arrival at the engine house a trial fit of the wheels with the reconditioned side frames and bolsters proved the conversion would be a success.

All this work cost-a-lota. Sue Smith, representing the Matanuska Electric Association Charitable Foundation, delivered an unrestricted $5,000.00 grant for restoration of 557. Thank you to all the forty thousand members of MEA who round up their monthly utility bill and make contributions to the Operation RoundUp program. Earlier this year the MEA Charitable Foundation made the one million dollar bench mark in total distributions to organizations in their service area.

To keep up the momentum in the 557 Engine House we need your help. Please consider a personal donation to Engine 557 Restoration Company at this time. We continue to pursue major grants but the success of those efforts often rely on our demonstration of local private financial support.

Two sources of support are from Amazon and Fred Meyer/Kroger. We receive a small contribution based on purchases by 557 supporters who have linked their accounts or rewards card with these retailers.

Mail and make payment to:
Engine 557 Restoration Company
PO BOX 875360
Wasilla, Alaska 99687-5360

Patrick J. Durand, for the crew at Engine 557 and our friends.

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