Grand Canyon Railway Locomotive 237 Rebuild - Part 3

July 9, 11:27 PMGrand Canyon National Park ExaminerLinda Updike

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Grand Canyon National Park Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Radiator Roof Section - photo: Grand Canyon Railway Maintenance Crew

The main components of the locomotive have been removed and many of them are in shops all over the U.S.  The Maintenance Crew at the Grand Canyon Railway is ready for the next step of the rebuild of locomotive 237 (GCRX 237).  They have started getting the body work repaired and prepped for paint.

They plan to use their sandblaster to clean off most of the rust and old paint.  To do this they needed to improve their facility.  They constructed a blasting pit and a blast media recycling system.  Once this was set up, the crew finished the removal of all side panels from the locomotive for cleaning.  Lots of corrosion caused many of the mounting bolts to break during removal.  These were drilled out and the holes tapped. 

During the entire project, a long list is being made of the necessary hardware needed to put everything back together.  Most of the nuts, bolts, washers, etc. are just too rusty to be re-used.  They are removed whichever way is easier – with a wrench, or the really sticky ones, with a cutting torch.  None of these are thrown away however.  The maintenance crew is keeping all of them in a pile while keeping a count so that they know how many new ones are needed, what size is needed, etc.

The locomotive rebuild project continues…………..

Click here to view overview article of the locomotive rebuild, here to see part 2 of the project, or here to see part 4 of the project, or here to see part 5 of the series, or here to see part 6 of the series.

For more info on the Grand Canyon Railway go to:  www.thetrain.com