By A. Randall

Had a big crew today, Peter, Kyle, John Z, and Bill Jump, were there in addition to the more usual Tom,Larry, Denis, JB and I.

John Z and Bill Jump were servicing equipment, Kyle cleaned and painted some studs, Larry and Denis worked on the cab lining, and Tom and I worked on identifying areas where we still have issues with the boiler.

Tom wanted to check the firebox to see which staybolts are hollow. Because the firebrick in the firebox comes up to cover the second row of staybolts from the bottom, it is important that those two bottom rows be hollow (i.e. drilled all the way through), so a cracked or broken bolt will weep outside the boiler, indicating the break. Otherwise, the firebrick has to be removed and replaced (with new brick) each time the staybolte need testing. We found a total of 19 hollow bolts out of a total of 98 in the two bottom rows. In addition, two flexible stays at the rear corners of the firebox aren't properly drilled for testing and must be replaced. (thank you Manley)

The attached photo shows the right side of the firebox, with ten of the nineteen hollow bolts shown. Hollow bolts are indicated by the crayon marks on the wrapper sheet. The two 'ok' marks on that plate over the blow-down nozzle mark open bolts behind the plate. Also in the picture is a bolt that is through, nut apparently into the water space.