Berkshire Construction Photos

[JKreider]

Attached are some photos of the handiwork of Gene Lurwig of the
Atlanta, GA area.

Jim Kreider

[mjahn]

Sure is purdy!

[765nkp]

Wow Jim
Thanks for posting, Gene is doing a nice job.
Tim

[gcarsen]

Very nice!!!!!

[765nkp]

Is that one of your boilers Jim? That thing sure has a mess of flues in it.
Tim

[JKreider]

Tim:
Yes the boiler is one of mine. There are 48, ½” ID tubes.
This has been the most popular tube configuration. They have been fired on both coal and oil. They steam very well. Gene and another builder plan on using propane.
They have also been built with 37, 5/8” ID tubes and 28, .74” ID tubes. Both of these configurations are close to being steamed so we’ll have a comparison soon.
Jim

[srrl5]

Hey Jim,

Is that a feed water heater in the smoke box, or just more Gravity?

David

[JKreider]

David:

That’s the cutout for the Dave Moore modeled Worthington feedwater heater, and the associated piping ditch.
No one has made the heater itself work yet. It’s one of those things to experiment with in the future. We can’t make it an open type where the feed water mixes with the exhaust steam because a little oil in the exhaust steam would cause some grief in the boiler as you know.

Jim

[Rob Gardner]

I've heard the story that John Bortz built the entire functioning feedwater system for his Berk but found he could either steam the feedwater system or run the locomotive but not both.

Rob Gardner

[JKreider]

Rob:
I don't know why that's the case. On the Berkshires that I've run out here, we can be running the locomotive, run appliances like the injectors, and still pop off if we want to. One guy actually complained about making too much steam after taking a public train around Riverside with Gil Beaird's engine.
Jim

[tsph6500]

We have a 1-1/2 inch scale Northern in our club that runs a functioning Elesco feedwater heater. The owner is maybe 95 now so he stopped bringing it out for the past two years.

[Dave Bortz]

Hi Rob;

Don't know where you heard the feedwater heater story, but my Pop never had the feedwater heater working in the system... Also we've never had any issues making steam... or running appliances while pulling long trains around PA live steamers (and most of the other 7 1/4 tracks in the NE USA). As I've been told, the real ones ran better when they had a load behind them and our Berkshire responds that way as well.

I find it really fun to run, to actually manage the boiler, while running it with a train... Keeping the pops from going off, minimizing the amount of coal used, while keeping a good even fire is a challenge on that engine. The steaming capacity for the Berkshire's Boiler is huge. Some days I think we could run it on ballast, its that good.

Since the first time out, we've never had an issue making steam with our Berkshire.
Dave Bortz