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From The Yard


NEWS

Firebrick Work: COMPLETE

October 10 signified the end of placing more than 2,000 pieces of firebrick back into the firebox of 3751. As you can imagine, even with today's sophisticated technology of iPhones and self driving cars...there's only one way to place firebrick back into the firebox of a 1927-built steam locomotive: by hand. Unique to this boiler inspection, the steam crew went above and beyond to reuse as many pieces of "still good" firebrick previously installed as possible. While this required hours upon hours of additional labor, our crew was up to the challenge, which in turn saved thousands of dollars of donations to order new firebrick. That isn't to say we didn't order new firebrick...oh no, you can bet we still needed new brick. Many bricks that made up the front of the "flash wall," which is where the flames hit the hardest just below the firebox opening, had finally succumbed to the many years of operations and needed to be replaced.

Thanks to generous donations from our SUPPORTERS and people like YOU, the SBRHS purchased enough new firebrick to build an entirely new flashwall and the outside ring of the firebox (see picture shared with this story). We are very excited to have new firebrick, that we look forward to lasting for another 30 years and beyond!

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