<VV> Studly reply - Manifold issue

[Tony Underwood]

At 08:20 hours 06/09/2005, Sethracer at aol.com wrote:
>
>In a message dated 6/9/2005 7:11:37 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>kirbyasmith at gwi.net writes:
>
>SS nuts  are unlikely to gall if NeverSeize or equivalent is used on the
>stud  threads first.  When the grease carrier evaporates due to heat, the
>residual nickel and copper paste will keep the threads from  galling.
>
>Or, you can try monel nuts.  They won't corrode and won't  care about the
>temperature. You likely won't find them at the local  hardware store
>though, unlike SS  nuts.



Monel was great stuff.   It was used to make nuts for bolting up hardware 
in the fireboxes of steam locomotives etc, never discolored or stained or 
corroded or whatever.   Many people with  that "craftsman" thing working 
for them would snag a monel nut and take it home, sit in the livingroom 
after supper with a file and cut/polish a signet ring out of a monel 
nut.    The metal would take a high polish like silver and gleam, was hard 
enough to hold the polish well.

Roanoke VA was/is a railroad town, courtesy of the Norfolk & Western 
Railroad.   The entire city is split east-west by a large rail marshalling 
yard nearly 1/4 mile wide, often filled with hoppers carrying coal from the 
WV mines to various points west, with the West End shops at one end of the 
rail yard west of town and the East End Shops at the other end, between 
which is the marshalling yards.   Rail lines enter-exit the city in all 
directions, rail traffic constantly moving in and out at all hours, busy 
railroad.    The Roanoke shops on the east end built well over 100 steam 
locomotives up through the early 1950s and were awarded the reputation of 
building some of the finest steam locomotives ever to blow coal 
smoke.   The Class-A and Class-J locomotives were renown for durability and 
performance and an example of each of these locomotives are currently on 
display in a museum in town next to the east End Shops; they were running 
and pulling excursion trains until recently when a new CEO came on board 
and he ordered them both "grounded" because he's a skinflint and doesn't 
wanna pay the costs (insurance, maintenance, licenses etc) for these two 
locomotives to pull passenger trains... although on occasions BOTH 
locomotives were actually working for a living *pulling coal trains* to 
convenience the railroad when they were deadheading back from an excursion 
somewhere and there was a consist to be hauled to some place...  got a 
photo of that big Class-A articulated #1218 "Mallet" locomotive pulling a 
mile-long consist on its "maiden voyage" to help "break it in" after 
leaving the rebuild shops in Alabama on its way back home to 
Roanoke.     ;)

I'd have LOVED to have seen the faces of farmers in the fields and 
townspeople waiting at railroad crossings as they watched that huge 
locomotive billowing steam and a light wisp of coal smoke chugging down the 
track hauling a mile long string of hoppers...  not much 
smoke...  (  "Smoke Means Waste!"  ).

It must have looked like a ghost from the past appearing from a 
half-century before, right in front of them, whistle screaming at the 
crossings just like it had done 50 years before.    The #1218 has a rather 
shrill shrieking whistle, piercing and harsh and amazingly loud, gets your 
attention real quick.   The Class-J #611 "streamliner" passenger locomotive 
(a true class act and a magnificent locomotive) has a "chime whistle" with 
4 mixed tones that sounds more like an ocean going passenger ship that a 
railroad locomotive, deep bellowing roaring whistle that was kinda unique 
to the "streamliner" locomotives (J and K) and easily recognizable by rail 
fans anywhere.

The 611 J was actually the first locomotive pulled out of the museum and 
restored at the Birmingham steam shops (the East End Shops in Roanoke 
having long since taken down the steam shop tooling/servicing hardware and 
converted to servicing diesels)  and when it came back into town again 
under its own steam, there was quite a bit of hoopla about it...  word was 
advertised around town that interested parties who wanted to see the 
"rededication" of the 611 should gather on the slope beside the N&W 
passenger terminal (now the O. Winston Link Museum) for the dedication.

People began showing up early, only to find that the 611 was already there, 
parked a short ways down the track , just the locomotive and the tender, 
calmly (and rather quietly) hissing and clinking as the lube pumps 
occasionally cycled, lights glowing and basically doing not much of nothing 
but sitting there.    People were fascinated to actually see the locomotive 
looking like brand new, alive again... although rather static...   then the 
MoC showed up and gave a brief speech about the history of the railroad and 
the passenger locomotives that the Roanoke shops had built for so many 
years, including the #611, "...the last surviving example of a Class-J 
passenger locomotive, the finest of its sort ever built.  I present to you 
the #611, home again at last."

...whereupon the locomotive cut loose with a blast of high pressure steam 
from that chime whistle that astounded everyone there who either had never 
heard it before or had forgotten how astonishingly loud and powerful a 
blast from a "full head of steam" Class-J locomotive whistle actually 
was.   You could hear it all over town.   It echoed off buildings in the 
downtown area and old men were grinning (some of them crying) and women 
shrieked in surprise and kids were covering their ears, all watching in awe 
a sight that hadn't been experienced in decades.   GREAT stuff.    And of 
course it wasn't long before the railroad sent the #1218 to Birmingham and 
restored it as well...  whereupon the next scheduled International Railroad 
Historical Society convention was held in Roanoke and along with a bunch of 
other locomotives and rolling stock on display, the #611 and #1218 occupied 
"pole position", under steam, sizzling and hissing like dozing dragons 
while hundreds of people swarmed around them.   During the event, the #611 
did some "yard work" hustling back and forth moving some stock around and 
in general "showing off" to the crowd.   People came from Europe, 
Australia, South America etc to see these locomotives on display, all 
within hollering distance from one another and all under power.   I felt 
rather smug in that I lived about 3 miles from the convention site and 
attended daily, took some photos etc...

Incidentally, a local photographer who has some national distribution of 
events such as these arranged to take some aerial photos (his son is a 
private pilot)... one rather nice example of which I've seen published in 
magazines and hangs in various businesses here in town.

In the photo, parked behind the two large locomotives across the street on 
the "rise" is my red Corsa ragtop.

Trivia...?   On the 611's last passenger carrying run before it was retired 
from regular service, it pulled a passenger train from Roanoke to Bluefield 
("The Powhatan  Arrow") in the Fall of 1959.   I was on it, one of the 
cadre of boy scouts, railroad "suits", and several local dignitaries (Mayor 
etc) and a Hollywood celebrity or two.

...enough about the railroad for the moment...  I'm rambling.


After a tour of duty as a police officer, my g-grandfather went to work for 
the then-Norfolk & Western Railroad which is now Norfolk-Southern (the East 
End Shops were about 1/2 mile from the house, we could clearly hear the 
riveting as the shops assembled locomotives and coal hopper cars etc) and 
he brought home a monel nut and carved most of a signet ring from it and 
then lost interest, it got dumped into the "family cedar chest" where it 
remained long after he died...  grandma gave it to me when I was about 14 
and told me I could finish it, and I did, got it looking good...  and 
a  year later lost it while swimming in the river when it slid off my 
finger and poof gone...  been kicking myself in the backside over that 
monel ring ever since.    I still remember the exact spot where it came 
off...  even brainstormed as a kid on how I could maybe cofferdam that 
section of the river and drain the section, and get a mine detector and go 
find my ring (no commercial cheap metal detectors just yet).

Anybody know where I can find another monel nut, reproduce grandpa's 
ring...?    :)


tony..

PS:   The East End Shop are again building hopper cars, space age light 
weight cars with steel alloy frames and trucks and aluminum hoppers, bright 
sparkle, there's a row of them looking almost like a consist stretching 
down the siding on the eastern side of the shops, first time coal hoppers 
made of aluminum have ever been made anywhere, railroad expects to sell a 
batch to other carriers along with Norfolk/Southern using a bunch of them.

PPS:   Anyone interested in seeing the locomotives mentioned above only 
need google them.   You'll get thousands of hits