Monticello Railway Museum 2-8-0 "Consolidation" Locomotives in the USA

Class H-4 - restored (Locobase 16341)

Data from diagram 21-F-3 drafted by the Monticello Railway Museum and supplied in a 20 January 2018 email from Chris Hohl, to whom thanks are due both for securing the diagram and for telling Locobase about the update. See also "L-27 Members Build Boiler for 1907 Steam Locomotive", Boilermaker Reporter, Volume 44, No. 4 (September-October 2005), p. 8, archived at [], last accessed 28 January 2018.

As noted in the original H-4 entry (Locobase 5143), the 401 originally entered service on the Southern Railway in 1907. After its retirement, second career in Alabama, and eventual purpose by the Monticello & Sangamon Valley Railway Historical Society, the Monticello Museum Railway received a donation in 1995 to begin restoring the locomotive.

This proved to be a fifteen-year undertaking. One key decision in the rebuild was to convert the locomotive to oil burning, which meant changes both in the firebox and in the tender. Included in the firebox heating surface area is 27.2 sq ft (2.53 sq m) identified in the diagram as "flue sheets".

401's new boiler was constructed by members of Local 27 (St Louis) working for Continental Fabricators Inc (CFI). Because they lacked detailed drawings or templates or the equipment to shape the plates, said the Reporter, they had to use "their experience and 'boilermaker eye'." When finished, the vessel measured 29 ft 8 in (9.04 m) long, 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) wide, and 9 ft 5 in (2.87 m) high and weighed 39,000 lb (17,690 kg)

Locobase wondered about the tube count in the diagram, which is shown to be 257. His calculation for the reported tube heating surface area of 1,720.8 sq ft (159.87 sq m), given the tube length and diameter, is that the new boiler should have 225 tubes. But a very clear photo of the front tube sheet in the 2005 Boilermaker Reporter article reveals the 257 holes. So Locobase has recalculated the tube heating surface area to be 1,966 sq ft, and a total as the 2.091 sq ft shown in the specs. This is still 14 tubes fewer than the 271 in the original boiler.

401's first public run occurred on 18 September 2010. MRM reports that its fuel consumption averages 38 US gallons (144 litres) /hour and its water use comes to 800 gallons (3,038 litres)/hour