Steam Locomotive Firebox Explosion on the Gettysburg Railroad ...

Figure 5. <strong>Locomotive</strong> 1278.
The locomotive had had a variety of
owners and operators. In May 1965, the
Canadian Pacific Railway sold the locomotive
to a man in New Hampshire. In
1969, he donated it to <strong>Steam</strong>town, a railroad
museum then located at Bellows Falls,
Vermont, and it was renumbered 127. From
June 1970 to August 1971, it was leased to
the Cadillac & Lake City Railroad in Lake
City, Michigan, as locomotive 127. In
September 1971, it was returned to Bellows
Falls and renumbered 1278. In 1984, it was
moved, along with <strong>Steam</strong>town, to Scranton,
Pennsylvania. In June 1987, Gettysburg
Railroad bought the locomotive and leased it
to Gettysburg Passenger Services.
Boiler lnformation-According to form No.
4, locomotive 1278 had a radial-stay,
straight-bottom, wagon-top boiler with three
courses, or diameters. 16 The boiler was
constructed of three connected rings or
courses of different diameters. The lowest
tensile strength of the steel was 72,100 psi
for the first course, 80,030 for the second
course, and 70,840 for the third course. The
crownsheet was 3/8 inch thick when new.
The water space at the firebox back was 3
1/2 inches. The firebox grate was 45.6 feet
square. The lowest level of water in the
boiler that the water glass could indicate was
a level 3 1/8 inches above the highest point
of the crownsheet. The height of the lowest
16
Form No. 4 is a steam-locomotive boiler specification
document required by the FRA in 49 CFR
230.54. Gettysburg Railroad had only one form No.
4, the one that had been filed by the Cadillac &
Lake City Railroad, a lessee of the locomotive. The
FRA does not require a form No. 4 to reflect the
actual condition of the boiler in its present configuration
or to be completed or submitted by a qualified
person.
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