The Backshop of the Steam Railroading Institute

The Backshop of the Steam Railroading Institute The official Backshop page of the Steam Railroading Institute. Home of the Pere Marquette 1225.

12/04/2025

With the highly anticipated return of Pere Marquette 1225 this weekend, we would like to take the time to remind everyone that our entire site will be closed to all guests (including passengers, photographers, and videographers) until 4:00pm Fridays and 9:00am Saturdays & Sundays.

Thank you for your understanding and support!

🚂❄️

Coaches âś…611 âś…Railroad âś…Here we go!
09/18/2025

Coaches âś…
611 âś…
Railroad âś…

Here we go!

09/16/2025

Good morning from Marion, OH!

08/19/2025

Taking a short break to show the next step in the tube installation process. Tube ends are rounded over with a pneumatic chipping gun and beading tool. On the firebox end, the bead and/or seal weld facilitates better heat transfer to the sheet. On the front tube sheet, though not always required, beads increase the staying properties of the tubes and help reinforce the flat tube sheet. Most locomotive standard practices required a percentage of tubes to be beaded on the front end.

08/15/2025

Flues are expanded into the sheet until they make contact, then rolled slightly more to create a tight seal. We aim for about a 3% reduction in tube wall thickness once the tube contacts the sheet. The type of air motor we are driving the expander with has torque adjustable clutches. This allows us to achieve the same fit on every flue regardless of the tube sheet hole diameter. To set the torque amount, the first couple flues are measured on the inside diameter and compared to the hole diameter. The torque amount is increased until the desired wall thickness reduction is reached.

08/15/2025

A tube expander is used to enlarge the flue tight into the tube sheet hole. The expander has sets of steel rollers that push outwards on the inside of the flue. A pneumatic air motor drives a tapered mandrel into the expander, pushing the rollers out. This air motor can produce up to 305 ft lbs of torque.

PM1225s boiler has 73 2-1/4 inch tubes and 202 3-1/2” flues. Two weeks ago our crew cut, placed and rolled in all of the...
08/15/2025

PM1225s boiler has 73 2-1/4 inch tubes and 202 3-1/2” flues. Two weeks ago our crew cut, placed and rolled in all of the smaller tubes. The following week, all 202 flues were cut and placed. Today, the firebox end flues were all rolled. The rest of this week will see the smokebox end getting rolled in.

The front tube sheet holes are oversized and must be shimmed with a steel ferrule. The overlapping ends of the ferrules have a taper hammered into them and are ground square before forming them into a ring.

08/01/2025

We are looking for some volunteers that are interested washing the exterior of our passenger equipment before the “Up In Smoke” train Saturday night.

Washing will start Saturday morning at 9am. Hope to see some of you here!

Thanks to a private donor, we are the very grateful new owners of a Miller Millermatic 252!We cant wait to put this to u...
07/29/2025

Thanks to a private donor, we are the very grateful new owners of a Miller Millermatic 252!

We cant wait to put this to use!

If you are interested in helping us acquire additional shop tools, please dont hesitate to send an email to [email protected]

A few years ago we bought some extra tubes from the fine folks at Friends of the SP&S 700 when they retubed their own st...
07/26/2025

A few years ago we bought some extra tubes from the fine folks at Friends of the SP&S 700 when they retubed their own steam locomotive. Over the last month we had them swaged, and today we cut them to length and laid them in their corresponding holes.

Progress!

Next up: repeating this same process for 202 3-1/2” flues…. We are always accepting volunteers!

Nearly 100 steel ferrules and 2-1/4” tubes ready for installation in PM1225’s boiler…tomorrow!Come on by to our FREE Jul...
07/25/2025

Nearly 100 steel ferrules and 2-1/4” tubes ready for installation in PM1225’s boiler…tomorrow!

Come on by to our FREE July open house (tomorrow, 10a-4p) and go for a caboose ride, see some rail equipment, see our work on PM1225, and ask questions.

See you all tomorrow!

Address

405 S.
Owosso, MI
48867

Opening Hours

Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+19897203951

Website

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