NCNG Project

A couple more comments about the visit to California...

I visited the NCNG (Nevada County Narrow Gauge, or "Never Come, Never Go") historical museum, as I always do when going to Nevada City. My grandpa and grandma have spent many hours volunteering there. Grandpa gets involved with restoring train cars and you-name-it, and Grandma used to work in the gift shop.

The current project in the work barn is the fabrication of a steam-powered locomotive. It seems they are designing it basically from scratch, making as many of the parts as they can and outsourcing for those which their machining equipment can't handle. Grandpa has been doing the wood work for the cab, and providing technical knowledge for the mechanical function. They are going to use a steam generator instead of a boiler to produce steam, which will then be routed to the pistons that drive the wheels. There's a lot of interesting physics involved to make the wheels go the right direction -- including a separate, smaller piston that directs the steam to the right side of the big piston. (I think this is called a double-acting engine -- e.g. steam goes to both sides of the big piston at various times.)

I also learned something about lubrication -- apparently they put the oil in with the water in the boiler, and this oil goes with the steam to help lubricate the pistons. Part of why this works, perhaps, is that oil has a greater affinity for metal than water does.

Anyway, pretty neat stuff.