poniaj posted:I was at a local (Southeastern Michigan) train show years ago, when there was only talk of resurrecting the Northern. Folks then were dumpster diving at the factory in Mount Clemens and some interesting things found their way on sellers' tables. Unpainted freight and passenger car shells when the factory closed, and earlier on, some of what the seller said to be (and I don't suspect they weren't) factory test shots of Northern boilers using surviving Gilbert tooling. They were ROUGH. You could tell that the tooling was VERY well worn, and the fact that it hadn't been used in decades allowed the tools to corrode to a point where any castings from those tools would require too much final finishing to be practical. I almost bought one of them simply because it would have made an interesting historical artifact, but the price was too high at the time. In retrospect, it would have been cool to own one of those casting. Alas, hindsight is always 20-20, isn't it?
Agreed.
Todd Wagner kindly permitted me to inspect (circa 2002) a test shot of the boiler from the original tooling. It wouldn't have been acceptable. I have a test shot of the Northern tender made with original tooling in my collection and, although not too awfully bad, the finish of the casting is not up to current standards and expectations. There are instances were the old tools fail. For example, this is why an all-new tool for the No. 936 depressed center reel car was made. And, so forth.
Bob
