Was the locomotive in this story repaired, or essentially built anew?

Factual Questions
1

Would anyone who knows something about building or restoring steam locomotives care to examine this old story and give an opinion on what exactly happens to the engine in question? I grew up with an old series of picture books about a “Little Red Engine” (by Diana Ross; pictures by Leslie Wood). The one I read most thoroughly is “The Little Red Engine Goes to Be Mended”; where “mended” seems a major understatement: the engine is shown being completely rebuilt, and it’s not clear how much of the original parts survive in the end! The whole book, apart from apparently the very last page, has been uploaded here.

Here is what the author tells us. The thing that causes the Little Red Engine to be in need of repair is that on a trip to India, it develops a lot of rust after being left in the jungle during the rainy season while her driver was in bed with a fever. On being shipped back to England, she is taken to the Railway Works in hopes of a quick repair. But on getting there, the Chief Inspector finds that she is so rusty that she needs to be stripped in order to find out the amount of repair necessary. Then the engine is taken to the “Erecting Shop”, a giant factory-cum-repair shop, and placed on a stripping pit. She asks her neighbor what will happen to her, and the other engine replies: “They will take you to bits like the rest of us.” The Little Red Engine expresses a natural concern, to which her neighbor reassures her: “As long as they still have a drawing of you with your number and your name you’ll be all right. In the drawing you are seen as a whole. The whole is more important than the parts, so it does not matter if they take away the bits. And your name and your number tell people who you are. While they still have those you retain your identity - you are still the Little Red Engine - you are still yourself.”

Hard to say if the above comment was meant physically or metaphysically, but the inspection report comes in, and “almost every detail had the same remark: Renew.” The Costing Clerk opines that “They’d do better to scrap her”, but the Chief Inspector answers: “We can’t scrap her. The people of Taddlecombe are fond of this engine. Repair her we must”. So a Charge Hand is chosen “to see that the parts were repaired and erected again within a given time.” The stripping gang then gets to work, and is described taking away the engine’s parts one by one, beginning with the chimney and ending with the frame. The author finally surmises that “There was nothing left of the Little Red Engine but the drawing in the drawing stores. Even its name and number had been sent to the Brass Shop for polishing up and repainting.”

OK, so far we know that as a minimum the engine’s original name and number have been salvaged, but what of the balance? Sam Trigger, its driver, comes by to see how things are going. First he asks a laborer where the Little Red Engine has gone. He answers: “The smaller parts are there in the Boshing Tank, boiling in water and caustic and soda. Bath night with knobs on - that is! Soon gets rid of the oil and rust! When the bits come out they’ll go to the various workshops. But if they’re too bad they’ll send them for scrap.” OK, so now we also know that some unidentified “smaller parts” may be salvaged, or may be scrapped if the corrosion has been too heavy. Then Sam makes a tour of the shop, and finds the following parts for the engine being built from scratch: 1. new frame plates being made, drawn for cutting on steel with a template; 2. the steel outer shell of the firebox and possibly also its inner copper shell; 3. brake blocks; 4. a connecting rod; 5. a drag hook; 6. a wheel (a wheel center, axle, and steel tire are mentioned; these are apparently being made new); 7. new stays, studs, pins and bolts; 8. oil trimmings.

Next thing we know, the parts are ready for re-assembly. This is described in detail; when the job is mostly complete, the valve setters test the motion of the Little Red Engine’s wheel assembly on a set of motorized rollers (here she is seen again as sentient) and make some adjustments. Then the re-assembly is completed; the engine is meticulously painted, being given five coats (stopping, 3X paint, varnish). The Little Red Engine’s name and number are screwed on, and she is “completely itself again, good as new or even better.” Sam Trigger stokes her up, and off she goes.

That is all that the text tell us - we know more of what parts were built anew than of what original parts were salvaged. It’s not clear if the author truly meant to describe a repair of any substantial portion of the engine or, in fact, the re-creation of all but a handful of its parts. Now suppose this happened in real life. Realistically, how much of the original engine would still have been salvageable for the rebuild? It’s notable that some of the parts that are mentioned as being re-made are or may be inner/nether parts (particularly the inner copper part of the boiler is the most blatant example, though the author asserts that Sam didn’t find out if it was one being made for the Little Red Engine or not). Would the corrosion have penetrated that deep after only one rainy season? OTOH, not many of the parts of the outer skin, I.E. those that would have been most suceptible to rusting, are specifically mentioned (unless these are included in the “frame”) - we don’t know what happened with the chimney, dome, cab, and so on. If this really happened, how much of the original parts would likely have been salvaged instead of having to be built from scratch?

For that matter, would being left in the rain for one season have really caused so much rust that such an extensive rebuild would have been necessary? I imagine a rainy season in India would have been heavy, but look, for example, at the engine in this video, which is heavily rusted after, I imagine, years of being left outside, yet it’s implied that they will salvage a large part of the original parts. What gives?

2

Quite unrealistic both for there to be such substantial rust from a year’s exposure, and for any but the most precious of museum artifacts to be so thoroughly rebuilt rather than scrapped and replaced with new.

A steam locomotive might have its firebox replaced, or even have its boiler tubes repaired and partially replaced. But no one would ever have thought it worthwhile to at the same time replace the frame and the cab/controls and the driving gear as well.

Railway museums do restorations that border on recreations, particularly of wooden cars of which only rotting portions are left. But not to the extent of recreating the steel frame.

The story is merely an intriguing thought exercise about what is the essence of something that’s been replaced, same as great-grandfather’s famous ax. You know, the one that’s gotten a new head twice and a new handle six times—but it’s still great-grandfather’s ax.

3

Ship of Theseus.
The author pretty clearly has that question in mind, and the philosophical question of identity is directly addressed.
My vague understanding of steam locomotives is that boiler re-tubing is done, firebox rebuilds, and considerable maintenance is needed on bearings, valve gear and pistons and the like. But once the frame has reached its use by - due to cracking from the constant cyclic loads from the pistons - the engine is considered uneconomic and scrapped.
Rust from a year in the rain is not going to do a thing to a working engine.

4

The same thing pretty much happens whenever Capt. Kirk beams down to or up from a planet.

5

I think it might be not so much that everything rusted that badly, but that some major parts rusted that badly, and other parts, while not rusted, were nearing the end of their useful service life anyway, so while they had it apart, they replaced them too.

It sounds like the net effect is that the economical decision would have been to scrap the engine, only saving a few bits and pieces that were still in good shape to be reused (because it’s cheaper to give a part a lye bath and a scrub than it is to machine a whole new one), and then build an entirely new engine to replace it (apparently, to the same design, because the design was still a current one). But because the engine had sentimental value, they instead… scrapped the engine, saving only a few bits and pieces that were still in good shape, and built an entirely new engine to replace it, to the same design, except that they made sure that the bits they kept ended up in that same specific engine, and kept the nameplate.

Tracking the inventory of a few bits and pieces and restoring a single brass plaque is cheap for the PR value they’d get from “keeping” the “same” engine and just “repairing” it.

6

This describes the most logical explanation that I could come up with. I just didn’t want to add it above to an already very long post.

@Francis_Vaughan Ship of Theseus - yes, indeed. Quite a mindscrew on part of an author whose book I read at 7 years old. Makes me think of a time when I read that a certain Dutch town had a windmill from the 18th century. As a windmill can have a lot of wooden parts, I wondered how many of the original planks and beams still form part of it…Just outside Prague, where I live, in the town of Roztoky u Prahy, there is the Church of St. Clement, which bears the title of the oldest church in Bohemia, having been founded around 880 AD. However, only the foundations are original; the current structure is baroque and dates to the 17th century.

7

This makes me think of the Festiniog Railway’s locomotive “Welsh Pony”. The
locomotive, built in 1867, has been rebuilt several times during its carrier and was
recently restored after not running for about 80 years. Many parts were replaced
with each rebuilding and many more were replaced in in the restoration. Almost
nothing is left of the original 1867 locomotive now. Is it still the same locomotive? I guess
that is a matter of opinion. Here is a page that gives the history of the locomotive
and describes what has been replaced over the years:
Welsh Pony – No longer ‘Unfinished Business’ - Festiniog Railway Heritage Group (frheritage.org.uk)

There have been a few locomotives that have been pushed into rivers to control
erosion and have been pulled out decades latter and restored to running condition. An
example of this is New Zealand railway K class locomotive #88. Scroll half way
down this page to see a ‘before restoration’ photo:
WHITE BUS FAMILY PRODUCTIONS - The First Restoration of K88
Here is a video of the restored locomotive running:
1877 Rogers K88 Steam Locomotive - YouTube
Was it repaired or replaced? I guess that would be up to you.

8

This happens with a lot of California missions. Adobe is a poor defense against earthquakes and over nearly 250 years, every brick has eventually been replaced in most of them. The one in my town only has a 8x8 foot remaining section of original wall behind plexiglass.

9

The OP’s description of the story seems reminiscent of certain legal concepts. For example, in restoring an old car, you might replace a whole bunch of parts–but the VIN remains the same. Thus it is (legally, if not conceptually) the same car.

10

Some engine designs were unsuccessful, with early frame cracking. In that situation, there was sometimes frame repair.

As with a car, if you required early frame repair, you might fix it -once- before you decided it was characteristic problem, but after that you wouldn’t buy more of that model, or spend money on maintenance.

11

The same principle applies to very old Japanese shrines. If every plank and beam has been replaced over several hundred years, is the building still truly that old?

What if you do it on purpose? This shrine is 1300 years old but they’ve deliberately rebuilt it on a 20-year cycle. How old is it really?

12

Yes, muscle car rebuilding has gotten so silly, considering you can buy almost every metal part as a reproduction, that it consists of basically attaching a crane to the VIN plate, lifting it up, sliding out the old rusty car, sliding in a new one, and attaching the VIN plate to the new car.

Likewise, old aircraft do that, too. I remember a comment, “The aircraft was a total loss, but the Data Plate continued to fly.” That would explain why there are more Bell 47’s registered than were ever made.

13

This Ship of Theseus is veering towards GD territory, but as the OP seems to have largely been asked and answered, hopefully that’s OK. Philosophically speaking, it may be helpful to distinguish between physical parts, and concepts. So the old axe/Ship of Theseus of course does not have any parts in common with the original, and so physically is not the same object, but conceptually it has survived/existed continuously. Similarly with the Little Red Engine - the concept has been preserved, even if physically it was little different from starting from scratch with all new parts.

I wrote this post, then deleted it, then wrote it out again using exactly the same words - is it the same post? :slight_smile:

14

There’s the old joke about Paul Bunyan’s axe. he’s had the same axe since he was a boy - he’s replaced the handle five times, and the head twice, but it’s the same axe.

15

Am I right in remembering that drop-forged/wrought iron parts actually rust quite slowly compared to some other types of iron and steel?

16

I would say that if parts were gradually replaced, they would gain synergy with the conceptual original (or less esoterically put, would gain experience and use being part of the whole over time); the replacement would be a more natural evolution and you’d be replacing parts on top of parts that had already been parts of the whole for some time.

OTOH, if the overhaul of the Little Red Engine actually involved building most of it anew and just symbolically incorporating a few original part, the transition from old to new material would have been very abrupt.

17

Dr. McCoy? Is that you?