Vanquishing Zinc Rot

Greetings All,

Happy New Year everyone!

Like a 1:1 railroad looking to vanquish steam power once and for all to realize the economies of the diesel engine one of my goals for 2018 was to finally vanquish zinc rot from my locomotive fleet. Followers of this blog may recall that I've been fighting zinc rot issues in the frames of some of my Walthers FA-FB locomotives for years. 

Zinc rot also known as zinc pest results from lead impurities in the zinc alloy which leads the zinc to expand and crack in an irreversible process. Trust me on this. It's irreversible. For more on zinc rot click this link;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_pest 

I first documented by experiences with zinc rot in this December 2012 blog post . To try and repair the damage and get the engines back in service I turned to my bench grinder. Here is a ground down frame that allowed me a few more years of operation.

In the fall of 2016 I dealt with zinc rot issues again when my previously fixed FA-FB frames continued to expand and once again cracked the shells. This is the proof of irreversible damage. 

This time instead of the grinder I used a hacksaw to cut down the frame.

This repair allowed me to get the Lehigh Valley FA units back in service but the B unit frame was not repairable.
 
Following the advice of fellow model railroader and blogger John Bruce I decided at this point to try and find some replacement models on the used market. Fast forward to 2017 and I came across a couple of auctions on ebay for Walthers  FA-FB sets that looked to be free of the zinc rot plague. I won the auctions, one in July and a second in late December. Once I got the new engines it was a quick replacement of the old frame for the new ones. 

Here's the newly repaired fleet on January 1st, 2018;

A PRR FA-FB-FA on the Empire City viaduct with a new FB frame installed.

The Lehigh Valley FA-FB-FA lash up at Terminal Yard with new FA-FB frames installed. Note the shiny trucks.

A newly replaced A.T.S.F. FB frame allows this sharp looking FA-FB-FB-FA lash up to be operational. I know the Santa Fe did not have the FA-FB on their roster but they should have! They did have war bonnet PAs!

Last but not least is my favorite, the NYC FA-FB-FB-FA units in their lightning stripes. The trailing FA, #1043, had it's frame replaced in July 2017. Looks like a Lionel catalog picture!

As of today all of the FA and FB units look to be zinc rot free. Some are around 20 years old and I'm hoping my zinc rot fighting days are over. Thanks for tip John B! 

So what about the shells from the replacement frames? As of this writing I think we'll see some custom painted Empire Belt FA-FB units coming out of the Patti O Paint Shop this Spring. That's the plan for now anyway.

Thanks for reading!