This reply is a question to everyone knowledgeable - Does the milling, polishing, and fittings of new parts to the wheelsets normally take up $200K or roughly 1/10th of the project costs for a large steamer?
No, not in my opinion, especially when contracted to the Strasburg Shop. Re-surfacing the crank-pins should not be that big of a job, and re-surfacing the axle journals isn't either when one shop has the tooling to accomplish both functions on the same machine.
I ask partially because of Mr. Anderson and Hot Water's replies. I understand the shipping costs can add up so mentally subtracting 10k-50k for that from the total costs; even so it still seems like a huge amount.
I can't believe the trucking charges would be THAT expensive between the WMSR Shops to Strasburg Shop and return.
