This year marked a historic event that will help contribute to the longevity of the East Broad Top Railroad. Last fall, a crew of FEBT members spent hours scrubbing, scraping, oiling and generally adding “elbow grease” to the Lodge and Shipley 22 inch Engine Lathe, bought new by the EBT in 1906. This century old machine was chosen because parts needed to be fabricated for the restoration of Combine 14, currently going on in the former Paint shop, and a lathe was needed to do it. Dave Richards fabricated the electric motor unit to replace the defunct overhead belt system as a source of power, and Rich Wickett wired it up.
When power was returned to the shops in May of this year, Dave started the machining work for spring hangers and pivots. Shown in the accompanying picture, Dave is machining a pin for the spring hangers. Picture was taken 27 June 2010, making the machine 104 years old. And it still can do what it was intended to do.
Other machines are being considered for return to operation, based on needs of the restoration crews.
YOu might be interested in a new technique for Boiler Flue and superheater tube analysis that may allow despensing with periodic teardown of steam locomotives. Look at the thread for flue inspections on the Steam and Preservation Forum at TRAINS and/or visit the website www.acousticeye.com
Does that thing turn wood or just metal? Nice to see the work you folks are doing on a great piece of technological history!
Although you probably could turn wood on this thing, it’s designed to turn metal. Wood lathes are much lighter construction than a metal lathe. We’ve never found a wood lathe around the EBT shops, but also rarely find anything made on a wood lathe. The three machines we’ve brought back to operation are all metal working machines, that’s where most of the shop work was done.
There are several wood working machines in the Car Shop, dating from the time the EBT used wooden freight cars. Several of the passenger cars are late 1800’s wood construction. Currently, I’m looking into restoring one of the wood surface planers back into operation, we have a small one, but it probably won’t last much longer as hard as we use it. I’ve been in touch with several members from www.owwm.org forum board and have picked up valuable information about these and other machines in the Car Shop. Most of these are 1906/1907 vintage and built extra heavy. I’ll be evaluating them at the next FEBT work weekend.