2009-10-13
Scranton,PA
Steamtown, USA - a national historic site
run by the United States Park Service

Steamtown is on the old yards of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western
railroad, one of the Antricite railroads of Pennsylvania. The site
exists to preserve the history of steam locomotives. There are quite
a few locomotives in the "boneyard" [outside and unmaintained]. Most
have been painted to prevent further deterioration. My favorite
locomotive is there also -- the Union Pacific Big Boy, the large
locomotive ever built in America. Below is a picture of the Big Boy.

[5300]

We went on a 1 hour walking tour of the railroad shops and found the
employees (US Government Employees) at work restoring a locomotive.
They were in the process of rebuiling a boiler. To do that they needed
to install 1260 bolts across the surface of the boiler. Once installed
they all have to be squashed smooth. The bolt is about 1 inch in
diameter and sticks out 3/8 of an inch. One of the men takes an air jack
hammer and beat to the bold until it is almost flush with the surface
and smooth. It takes about 8 minutes per bolt. With 1260 bolts and two
sides of each bolt, we're talking 2520 installations of 8 minutes of
work each. That means 350 or so continuous hours of work just to
reconstruct the boiler.

You can see a picture of one man using the jack hammer to smash the

bolts down to almost flush below. [5237]

The Lackawanna yards had a round house and Steamtown is now housed in

the restored round house shown here: [5272]

Here is a picture of the Boneyards. Some of this equiptment needs to be

painted soon. [5315].