Eastern Railroad Discussion > 611 trips scheduled for this weekend are Cancelled

Greetings!
 
After careful deliberation, the Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT) leadership made the decision to temporarily delay 611’s arrival to Strasburg Rail Road. As the 611 crew worked to make the engine ready for the move, a malfunction was discovered with the locomotive’s stoker, preventing the stoker from advancing coal forward into the firebox. VMT mechanical personnel are actively working on diagnosing and repairing the stoker. As a result, the 611 events at the Strasburg Rail Road for this weekend (May 21-23) are canceled. We apologize for this inconvenience!
 
The good news is the Strasburg Rail Road will still be open and operating 45-minute excursion rides this weekend (May 22 – 23) with one of our own steam locomotives! (Because of the unexpected delay, N&W No. 611 will not be the mode of power.) Your excursion tickets are still valid for the same time and same accommodation for which you originally purchased. You will receive a new confirmation number sent to the email on file. However, if you reserved specifically because of N&W No. 611 and would like to cancel your tickets, we’d be happy to discuss with you 1) rebooking your tickets to a future date when 611 will be the motive of power or 2) refunding your ticket purchase. Please confirm – one way or the other – no later than by end-of-day on Wednesday, May 19th.
 
Due to limited phone accessibility, ease of communication, and for a prompt guest response, all correspondence to the Strasburg Rail Road is requested to be done through email.
 
Let us know if you have any questions or if we can be of further assistance. We thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we navigate this unexpected delay. We look forward to welcoming Norfolk & Western No. 611 to Strasburg very soon! We hope to see you here! 
 
Eric Conner
Station Master
Strasburg Rail Road Company
 
Alicia Cerankowski
Assistant Station Master
Strasburg Rail Road Company
 
 

Should've brought it up sooner and it could've been fixed in the Strasburg shops. 

grlhughes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Should've brought it up sooner and it could've
> been fixed in the Strasburg shops. 

Except for the fact that not having a functional stoker makes the idea of moving it hot (thereby providing proper lubrication to the pistons and
valves) much more difficult.

Posted from Android

A stuck stoker engine is only a concern if hauling a heavy train
& not being towed the whole way.

If properly hand fired, you can easily keep it hot for lubrication, etc,  
The biggest challenge in correcting the problem is a whole
tender full of coal covering-up access to the stoker trough.

You've got to  get rid of a lot of coal, maybe 10 to  12 tons... just to
get access to the stoker screw and remove the obstruction.

If you've spun the shear-pin in the gear reduction box, then
that's a more technical problem.  Spinning the shear pin is the 
result of outright abuse and should be very rare..

We don't know the nature or cause of the screw being jammed.

However, Best Practice and regs. dictates that you don't leave the service 
area with inoperable equipment.   All systems must be fully functional.
A road failure is a different matter.

​W.



 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/21 01:18 by wcamp1472.

Oh my...

---

?

Posted from iPhone

I would never have guessed THAT!

That’s a truly weird eventuality.
How do you that?

Standard Stoker model HT, intermediate screw section.
A 3-piece stoker screw.

w.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/21 08:37 by wcamp1472.

A post that I saw that accompanies that picture, says they will not be able to have a replacement auger until sometime in June.

Posted from iPhone

Doug Wetherhold
Macungie, PA

I’m assuming the auger snapped because it got jammed up. Question for the experts, wouldn’t there be some kind of a key or shear pin to break first to prevent this?

Posted from iPhone

Doug Wetherhold
Macungie, PA

Take the auger out of 1218.

ALCO630 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A post that I saw that accompanies that picture,
> says they will not be able to have a replacement
> auger until sometime in June.


How about the auger from UP 4014, now that it's an oil burner. Didn't the manager at Cheyenne give a whole bunch of parts from 4014 to the 261 group?

Shear pin...
YES!!

Obviously, the shaft segment broke before the shear pin was stripped.

At the rear of the stoker conveyor trough is a gear box .. there is about
10:1 gear ratio — the smaller pinion
drives the spur gear mounted on the end of the stoker screw shaft. The gear’s hub is a close fit on the shaft & a mild-steel shear pin locks the two together.

It is designed to fail if the stoker
screw gets jammed by foreign chunks in the stoker trough.
It is designed to withstand the strains of crushing big chunks of coal against the trough breaker
the front of the open trough, before
the conveyor is fully enclosed between the engine & tender.

It’ll crush & break big rocks of
coal, so it would be rare for the shear pin to yield—- except if the crew tries repeatedly, and at high RPMs to cram something strong through the ‘crusher’ at the front of the trough.

In this case, the shear pin didn’t see
a force that exceeded its rated
strength.

The broken segment of the conveyor screw was weaker than
the shear pin..

The length of the screw segment approximates the distance between the two drawbar pins connecting the engine and tender.

W.

Posted from iPhone

ALCO630 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I’m assuming the auger snapped because it got
> jammed up. Question for the experts, wouldn’t
> there be some kind of a key or shear pin to break
> first to prevent this?

As I recall, there is a "shear bolt" as part of a universal assembly. That "bolt" is designed to break under high stress, unless some idiot installs a grade 8 bolt!