Rebuilding a well worn Roundhouse/Shawe Sandy River 24

artfull dodger

artfull dodger

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After getting discouranged with the Riverdale Elke, and being unable to convince the buyer to sell her back to me. He came up with a well worn Roundhouse/Shawe Sandy River 24 that I ended up buying from him for a great price considering what these sold for new. Someone was not doing their upkeep and the coal dust mixed with the oil has worn out the axle bushings and side rods. UPS did their best during shipping, causing damage to the smokebox and front frame ahead of the cylinders. Both of those issues have been fixed now. I had a few spare rods but not everything for a Sandy River. So a parts order has been submitted to RH to finish the chassis rebuild. During the rebuild I am taking the time to change her looks as I also have a gas fired older 24. Gone are the headlight and generator, to be replaced with a Arc style oil burning headlight. The side frames on the pilot and trailing trucks are gone so you can see the wheels. If I can find same size spoked wheels, I will swap those in to replace the solid disc wheels. Not shown, but fitted up tonight is a LGB Butterfly style snow plow as its winter time here in Indiana, might need it to clear the way. The engine once carried the Hunter Ridge RR name on the tender, can be seen in witness marks on the tender sides. Then was redecaled Sandy River, but never overcoated. So I easily removed those decals and will scuff sand and respray the tender before new vinyl lettering for my Waterville Central goes on the tender. Hope to have her running under steam by early January. PIcture shows how she looks right now, looks nice, but the rod journals are oval shaped and the axle bushings are totally shot.
 
She finally ran on rollers powered by coal this afternoon. All new side rods, main rods, eccentric rods, 3 new axles, 6 new axle bushings and all new side rod bolts were installed and the smokebox resealed. Just a short run without the tender hooked up, Running a bit fast as the new motion work is quite stiff at first. Much like the first runs when one builds a RH kit locomotive. I was able to throttle way down after the video and before I dropped the fire as water ran low. Now to finish the partial repaint of the tender and get ready for the steam up in 2 weeks.
 
artfull dodger said:
She finally ran on rollers powered by coal this afternoon. All new side rods, main rods, eccentric rods, 3 new axles, 6 new axle bushings and all new side rod bolts were installed and the smokebox resealed. Just a short run without the tender hooked up, Running a bit fast as the new motion work is quite stiff at first. Much like the first runs when one builds a RH kit locomotive. I was able to throttle way down after the video and before I dropped the fire as water ran low. Now to finish the partial repaint of the tender and get ready for the steam up in 2 weeks.
Click to expand...
Wow I think we can conclusively say that has been fixed, super job.
 
Thats guys, right after I got it fixed we got very rainy, so the area around my raised railway was a swamp of mud, then it got super cold with snow and ice. We had temps at 0'F or lower with wind chills down to -30 or lower. So no track time for it yet. But our steam group will be setting up the portable layout at a show indoors at a fair grounds this coming Sunday. So the plan is to run her there on the track and see how she performs. Tender is lettered now for my Waterville Central. I still need to sand and repaint the cab, but to cold now to paint so you can still see the old marks from the "24" lettering on the cab sides. I got the tender repainted before the weather changed.
 
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