WF&P Logo News Letter Index

Jim Strain, club president, gives a weekly report of happenings at the railroad.

Sunday, August 19, brought another mucky day for the WF&P. 366 passengers braved the heat and humidity to ride our railroad behind steam and diesel. 928, 535, and 13 provided the mainline power, and 5205 was available. Mosbacher was trainmaster, and he kept traffic flowing smoothly. The first train out was 535 at 10:58, then 13 and 928 rotating for at least 15 trains. Several members were busy working on 403, putting it back together and doing a test firing. We had approximately 25 members out today, so there were plenty of hands to help out with operations.


Foster, Tabernacki, Fritschle, Eckrich, Mosbacher (Carol and Wayne), Walsh, Brennan, Bell, Ernst, Bitsch, Mohen, Lawson, Scotty/Scott, Haack, Owings, Owens, Smith, Rands JR/SR and the souvenir ladies.

Mike Walsh - reporter/photographer (Jim Strain is on vacation)

water tower

Thanks very much to Dale and Devin, who stayed with me all day, and Jerry Fritchle for joining us in the evening.  Last night 403 turned it's wheels under it's own power for the first time in three years.  Unfortunately, she didn't turn them as well as I had hoped.  The good news is everything was working OK and was firing better than ever.  Had some minor leaks and a weak injector but nothing that can't be easily fixed.  We were able to play around with the timing some, making it worse and better, but never got it right and starting on it's own (had to give her a push to get going).  We did have a lot of valve and piston head leakage but I think it's not getting enough throw for the valve lap, opening way too late.  Will probably need longer eccentrics.
We're real close.  I'm probably going to make an adjustable eccentric so the next time I can get out, we can spend the whole day adjusting and tweeking until it's right.  One last note of good news, I still need to get a little more weight on the pilot truck but can already tell the weight on drivers and tractive effort will be better than before, even running at 125psi!  Thanks again to Dale, Devin, and Jerry, who didn't quit on me until I called it when it was starting to get dark!
Steve Haack

 

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