The Home Machinist!

Accidentally acquired a partially complete, brand new, 15” ga class D Cagney frame and boiler this week from the Wasatch Auction in Cheyene. I logged an on line bid as a placeholder several weeks ago, then forgot to go back and cancel it. Couple of days ago the auctioneer called and said: “Hey, you’ve only got two days left to remove your loco from the premises!” My wife was not happy.

But Iam.

Hahaha. So now, after the shock has worn off, Can’t wait to start building it out and add an actual Cagney to the roster.

Frame, boiler and running gear appear to be already built. It’s missing drivers, main rods and the cab. Ive found a couple of possible sources for the drivers, but nothing is definite yet. The pony truck may or may not be in a box of parts. The big issue seems to be a general lack of surviving drawings for parts. Looks like the boiler is 14” diameter, 48” long. Heating surface around 16 sq ft. And it appears to be stamped as a code boiler.- but need to confirm…

The good thing is this build is brand new- fresh off the floor. Never finished before Wasatch shut down a year or two ago. The original patterns aren’t available through Wasatch , but are rumored to still exist with a private individual. So Now, time to start chasing the rumors about who might have them, and are they available for parts. Another plus is a small bit enthusiastic and helpful Cagney owners group and bunch of 15” gauge railroaders. Ive put out a couple of feelers for assistance and have gotten a number of excellent replies. Building this out should be fun!
Cagney brothers made around 1500 locomotives between 1885 and end of the company in 1950. A fair number of the originals still survive. Wasatch made perhaps six engines. One or two were sold into private hands. Two sold at auction. And one or two are unaccounted for. This one is one of the two sold at the auction in Cheyene, last week.

Here’s what they look like in running order:
More excellent adventures in the shop forthcoming…

Glenn, Nice looking start to to a little powerhouse. Crown metal locomotives in particular the 15" and 24" boilers and running gear were similar to the cagney simple and robust. I have a 24" gauge Crown in the barn waiting to be refreshed and a mile of 12 lbs rail. (Half mile of track). I might be willing to sell or trade for.......... Jim

Was hunting around facebook Found this . Dont know if it will help

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LiveSte ... 2976138967

Hi Glenn, I was able to get close enough to take a picture of the Crown in my storage barn. Jim

Jim, you have basically just described the storage space in my shop also.

Boiler still sitting in Cheyenne, awaiting transport. Over the weekend a couple of park gauge enthusiasts from our local train club started helping me pull a bunch of 8# rail I purchased recently from a hobbiest railroader estate. Amongst the miscellaneous pile of parts, I came across two patterns: an 11” tall smokestack - perfect size for the Cagney smokebox, and a beautiful 8” spoke wheel - again perfect for casting up some wheels for the Cagney tender I need to make and maybe an additional set or two for a couple of 3” or 4” scale riding cars. Been looking for wheels like this for a long time. Happy they just sort of materialized out of thin air.

I plan on sending the wheel pattern out to the foundry right after the new year. If anybody needs 8” wheels, just let me know…

Still no update on foundry costs to cast the 8” wheels or smokestack. I guess I have to become their new best friend starting Monday.

Kevin Doe and his friend who work in 2.5” NG scale, have offered to share theIr D&RG brake Handle 3D design in 4” scale. They resized a 2.5” NG design they developed for 7.5” NG to fit my 8” grand scale passenger car/tender wheels brake shoes. So, now exploring having these cast in ductile iron and building pneumatic brake systems for the passenger cars based on fabricated brake shoes and these cast brake hangers. They are authentic, detailed models of the actual D&RG brake shoe hanger used on the prototype equipment. If these can be cast for a reasonable cost, it would be a major improvement over the simple bar stock brake hanger style. Iam thinking 4” scale hangers might work for 2.5”, 3” and 4” scale wheels. (6”, 7”, and 8” diameter).

Four per car. So lots of pieces to cast up.

This size is 3” x1” overall. It would fit a 6” brake shoe shoe.
Then using T iron as the rail, or hanger, that controls both the brake shoes on each side of the truck.



This T rail idea looks like it might be ideal for facing up the brake rails, and building up ballast car side walls with heavy gauge sheet metal. Certainly looks like an authentic structural style for riveting purposes.
McMasters car wants $30/foot for the stuff, but I’ve seen it for much less at the local steel yard a year or two ago.

Piece by piece, each little part of all these train systems are coming into place.

Glenn

Finally made the run out to Cheyene and back to pick up the Cagney. Fit nicely in the bed of my pick up. And it added a good bit of tractive effort to the trusty ole F-150 with big tires for the run home. The extra weight came in handy during an unexpected 6 hour slog in snow storm and whiteout at night, heading west out of Rawlings. 450 miles of long, straight high plains desert high way and sagebrush.

Passed one long haul trucker so many times he gave me three toots of his air horn when I pulled off the side of the road the next day in eastern Oregon to check the engine compartment. Must have enjoyed seeing the loco go by so many times in the fast lane.

Clearly some parts of this build are original Cagney parts. The spoked wheels from the long gone tender are worn out and rehabbed with steel rims, plus caked with decades of dried grease and grim. The Cagney smoke box rim has some deep, long term corrosion on one side of the casting. Iam guessing the 1904 date is the date of the original build.

So treating this is an erector set rebuild. I sourced most of the missing parts from Roy Stevens in Salt lake. Roy attended the auction and bought the parts by accident. He bid on one item he wanted for his shop, but the auctioneer said all the Cagney parts for this loco belonged to his lot. Roy pretty much sold me the complete lot of stuff I needed to finish the chassis, cab and engine. He thinks these parts were separated from the Cagney project because the auctioneer just didn’t know what belonged with what.

My plan is to independently verify the build quality and operational capacity of the boiler. Then finish the restoration and build a new tender.
Next week my first step will be to take the boiler to a local NDT lab and verify weld quality. They recommend magnetic particle imaging to verify the weld process. Three shops here in the Seattle area can accomplish non destructive 3D weld quality verification. Iam going to choose one that can verify the welds meet ASME standards and Washington Boiler inspector requirements for 150 psi fired pressure vessels.

Already acquired a copy of the original P-2 builders manufacturing certificate, from the National Board, and have verified the national board registration number.

If it passes, I will take one broken driver up to Cast Iron Mike to weld the wheel back together again, and sweat on the steel tire. Mike is one of the last cast iron master craftsmen left in the country - 60+ years experience welding broken cast iron castings. In Japan he would be considered a national treasure.

Glenn to the Rescue, again.
Nice too know you will rehab this rare locomotive.
History in the Re-Making!
RussN

Hope to see it fired up this summer. The only thing Iam missing for sure are brakes and eccentrics. Conrad will help, so maybe not a big deal..

If Conrad is helping, you WILL succeed!
RussN

Took the boiler and frame to an NDT shop to inspect welds and boiler integrity. The NDT inspector did a full ultrasound and mag particle analysis of all welds.No cracks. No voids. And full penetration with no irregularities in the welds except for a couple of final pass segments displaying substandard undercutting along edges of the welds. The principle problem areas were around the steam dome and the weld along the wagon top above the crown sheet. So took the boiler to an R stamp ASME code welding shop to grind out and reweld the offending segments. The shop then contracted with an Hartford boiler ASME certified inspector to inspect the work, observe a hydrotest, and sign off on the repair. The inspector filed the appropriate certificate of repair with the National Board. So good to go. And the boiler now has a record of repair to compliment the original P2 manufacturers certificate from when it was made in 2013.

Note: I treated all the exposed weld surfaces with Ospho when I brought it home, but the weather promptly turned bad and rained on the parade. So the pics display a bit of flash rust and dulled phosporic oxide residue. Constant battle in the PNW.

Of yes, the original, antique smoke box ring was cracked in a couple of places. So also took that to “Iron Mike” at Cast Iron Repair up at Smokey Point and had him do proper cast iron welding to fuse up the cracks in the casting. They use cast iron rod to fuse broken cast iron fittings back together. Last shop in the western US to do this kind of work. One of the last old world masters in iron repair. So that’s done and ready to re install on the smoke box. Pics tomorrow…

Some better pics…