Moving Jupiter

For almost twenty-four years, the steam locomotive Jupiter dominated the East Hall of the Smithsonian's Arts & Industries Building, part of the exhibition "1876," mounted in celebration of the United States Bicentennial. In the years following, Jupiter became a recognized Washington landmark. "Meet me at the locomotive" became a familiar exchange among visitors and staff. But on Saturday, January 30, 1999, Jupiter traveled across the National Mall to a new setting at the National Museum of American History.

Detailed planning began the previous November, led by NMAH's Ray Hutt and Project Manager Susan Tolbert. Staff from A&I and NMAH, together with the rigging contractor, Hutchinson International Corp./United Rigging, met to check height and width in and out of both buildings, lifting techniques within the building, and truck routes around the Mall. United's Rigging Foreman Jeff Grooms put together his rigging/movement team, including members of Ironworkers Local 5 and Operating Engineers Local 77.

On Tuesday morning, January 26, Larry Jones and Bill Withuhn of NMAH's History of Technology Division met at A&I to survey the locomotive for needed disassembly. Project manager Tolbert and collections specialist Kris DeGrace discussed inventory and packing of the parts to be removed. A specific agenda for the disassembly was worked out, so there would be no surprises or delays in the rigging contractor's schedule for Friday and Saturday. Also, lubrication had to be provided for dozens of moving parts -- not only for the axles of Jupiter and its tender, but also for Jupiter's pistons and cylinders, intricate "valve gear" -- the complex system of mechanical linkages hidden within the engine's frame -- and for the engine's suspension and spring rigging.

A chief concern was rolling the engine on its own wheels. Unlike Pioneer, the larger size and weight of Jupiter precluded the contractor from making a steel cradle that could carry the whole locomotive on rollers or slings. Jupiter had to roll -- albeit slowly -- at certain critical stages in the loading process.

The kerosene headlight, smokestack, and "cowcatcher" ("pilot" in railroad usage) needed to come off. Smaller parts that might interfere with the planned movement or were vulnerable to damage, such as the whistle mounted high atop the boiler's steam dome, the steam pressure gauge in the cab, and the two sand pipes in front of the driving wheels, also required removal.

Bright and early Thursday morning, January 28, Jones and Withuhn, assisted by Ray Hutt and NMAH staff member Stan Nelson, began the various disassembly jobs. At the same time, Jeff Grooms and his United Rigging crew began setting up four "gantries" -- large hydraulic jacks for vertical lifting from about six feet to more than 20 feet above the floor -- and their electrical power cables. NMAH's Peter Liebhold documented the steps with a digital camera.

The gantries move along the floor under radio control. Each one rests on a wide base, with heavy, hard rubber rollers underneath. Two gantries have an electric motor powering a drive wheel. Each of these motorized gantries can pull another unmotorized gantry, connected by chains. Hence the gantries are mobile and work in pairs when carrying heavy loads across the floor.

Grooms' plan was, first, to raise the tender on two slings held aloft by the four gantries and then to move the tender by itself toward A&I's capacious east doors. The gantries carried two steel I-beams high above the tender and spanning across it; heavy nylon slings dangled from the I-beams. The crew passed the slings under the tender's frame.

With Grooms' assistant foreman, Robert Jackson, controlling the vertical lift of the gantries, Jupiter's 4-1/2-ton tender began its own journey. As the sling straps tightened, Jackson took care not to damage the painted, wooden trim around the bottom edge of the tender. The tender's wheels left their rails. When the tender's wheels were about six inches in the air, Jackson directed the gantries' patient movement toward the doors. The display track underneath the tender was now free of weight, allowing other United crew members to pull the track section to one side. When the tender had been carried as close as possible to the east doors - about 40 feet from its original location - Jackson set it down to rest on oak timbers under the wheels.

While all this was going on, NMAH staff completed their work on Jupiter proper. Lubrication, begun on Tuesday, took two whole cans of WD-40 penetrant and innumerable doses from a squirt oil can. Remarkably, very little of this fluid ended up on A&I's floor; the old iron surfaces of cylinder interiors, axle bearings, rod bearings, valve-gear, and other moving parts soaked up the oil. Inspection disclosed these bearing surfaces to be, for the most part, in good shape. Although the valve gear was free, Jones and Withuhn decided to remove Jupiter's "valve rods," which would immobilize the steam valves over the engine's two cylinders. This removal would reduce stress on the valve-gear as Jupiter moved and would eliminate any damage to its ancient steam valves.

But that was now the question for both NMAH staff and the riggers: could Jupiter be towed on its own wheels? With the tender out of the way, NMAH staff agreed it was time to try.

United's forklift moved into position behind Jupiter, took a hitch on stout straps the crew had tied near the engine's rear drawbar pocket, and slowly pulled. At first the engine refused to budge. Old, dry bearings put up a tenacious resistance. Finally, with the pulling straps fully stretched and visibly taut, Jupiter reluctantly inched back, just a bit. There was no sound. The forklift pulled again, and Jupiter, now obedient, moved backward with markedly less strain, its connecting rods and valve gear quietly turning - for the first time in almost a quarter century.

The rest of Thursday was spent in completing the disassembly jobs. The forklift carried the cowcatcher off to an out-of-the-way corner of the room. Removing the smokestack -- with its top 13 feet above the floor -- was trickier. The forklift placed its elevated forks high up, under the wide part of the stack. Pads protected the stack, while riggers tied the forks together to prevent the stack from tipping or slipping. Then, NMAH staff removed the stack bolts from within the front of the boiler. Now free, the stack came safely off and down to rest.

Friday morning, January 29 -- "Moving Day 2" -- saw the 20-1/2-ton Jupiter readied for its own gantry-lift-and-move operation. There was not enough track to roll the engine. Jupiter had to be lifted up five feet and onto the bed of a heavy truck trailer. So the gantries would do the job.

At the front, two gantries carried an I-beam aloft, from which a heavy lifting sling made of Kevlar was suspended. Riggers wrapped the sling around the front of Jupiter's boiler.

At the rear, Jupiter has no safe points to lift from above. There is no place for direct attachment of a sling to the back end of the engine's frame without risking instability or endangering Jupiter's walnut cab. A "lifting beam" was the answer: a steel beam that could be placed crosswise under the engine's frame, between the large driving wheels. The beam could then be lifted, by cables from above (one cable attached to each end of the beam). But even this idea presented problems. The crosswise beam had to carry the locomotive's weight on an unstable part of the driving-wheels' spring-supported suspension. Furthermore, there was not enough space underneath the engine, yet over the rails, to slide an adequately strong beam into place.

With two big, manual "railroad jacks" -- one at each corner under the back end of Jupiter's frame -- the riggers strong-armed the back of the engine up almost a foot. A "preventer" -- a cinched-tight chain -- anchored one of Jupiter's front axles firmly to the track, to prevent the locomotive from falling off the jacks. Withuhn strategically placed oak blocks in the driving-wheels' spring suspension, to keep the unstable suspension tightly in check. With the back of the engine elevated, there was then enough room to put the lifting beam into position. Jupiter was eased down onto the beam and the manual jacks removed.

Jackson now brought his other two gantries into position, with their I-beam carried high up and over Jupiter's cab. From the ends of the I-beam hung braided steel cables, an inch thick. Using pre-arranged shackles, these steel cables were hooked to the lifting beam below.

Now Jupiter rose up. Or rather, the Kevlar sling at the front and the cables at the back slowly tightened, as Jackson operated the gantries' hydraulic lifts. The sling groaned slightly as its slack was taken up. Then Jupiter dangled, about a foot in the air.

As the tender had done the previous day, the engine traveled eastward, the whole rigging crew watching like hawks for any imbalance or instability. The gantries crawled along, and crew members moved sheets of Masonite ahead to protect the floor. Occasionally the locomotive swung slightly, like some enormous pendulum. Before long, Jupiter was as far toward the doors as it could go. Jackson lowered the engine for the night, oak timbers underneath.

Saturday, January 30 -- "Day 3" -- began at 7 a.m. To everyone's relief, the day was cold, but sunny -- there was no rain to cause delay. Two United flatbed trailer-trucks pulled up on Independence Avenue alongside the old Arts & Industries Building. The first flatbed, for the tender, backed into the cleared parking lot at A&I's east end. Adroitly, the driver threaded his trailer backward 90 degrees and through the doorway. There was little more than a foot to spare on either side.

With the trailer just inside and tractor-truck outside, the rigging team positioned the four gantries and lifted the tender up on straps as before, but this time high enough to clear the trailer. Then, on signal, the driver eased his flatbed further backward, beneath the tender, finally setting his brakes at the right spot. The tender could then come down, onto oak planks. Riggers cinched the tender to the trailer with chains.

After the first trailer pulled away, it was Jupiter's turn. A much heavier flatbed backed into A&I this time. The loading was more demanding, since overhead clearances through the doorway were tight. Grooms estimated that, with all of Jupiter's eight wheels resting on the trailer, there would be a scant four inches of room beneath A&I's doorway.

Jupiter's back end faced the end of the trailer. The gantries were relocated and Jupiter rose the planned five feet, kept level all the while. As was done for the tender, the trailer backed carefully into A&I, following Grooms' signals. Jupiter was lowered a bit to bring its rearmost pair of levitated wheels into solid contact with the flatbed. Then the lifting beam was removed and a pair of gantries taken away. A manual winch pulled the locomotive the rest of the way onto the trailer. Riggers -- and Susan Tolbert -- spelled each other on the winch. The next pair of Jupiter's wheels and then the four "pilot wheels" at last made contact. Planks served as temporary "rails." With the whole engine on the trailer and the last two gantries pulled aside, Jupiter seemed to regain a certain lost dignity.

Then it was on to the National Museum of American History. But first the doorway at A&I. A rigger climbed up to eyeball the overhead clearance as the flatbed's driver gingerly pulled forward. Four inches it was -- with the engine's over-20 tons squashing the trailer's multiple tires down about half that amount. "That's all we needed," said rigger Lyndon "L. B." Gross.

The trip, led by the tender, took about an hour: westward on Independence, northward on 14th Street past the Washington Monument, and eastward on Constitution Avenue -- past the Commerce Department and the museum -- to the driveway at NMAH's east end. In the bright sun of a warming afternoon, few passers-by noticed the tender. When Jupiter itself, chained down to the second flatbed trailer, came along the same route somewhat later, it carried a little trio of American flags on its pilot beam. United Rigging trucks rode ahead and behind as escort.

This time people noticed, especially when the locomotive paused on 14th Street for photographs by the Smithsonian's Jeff Tinsley and Hugh Talman. Jupiter gleamed in the brilliant sun. United's manager, Bill Park, helped with traffic. Another pause for photos was made directly across from NMAH's Constitution Avenue entrance. Jupiter's little flags fluttered, and a street musician, an adept cornet player, played "Stars & Stripes Forever."

Security officers oversaw Jupiter's arrival into the NMAH lot and opened the museum's huge east doors into the Railroad Hall. Grooms and his crew repositioned their gantries and other equipment inside the hall. Then the trailer carrying the tender backed across the lawn. Getting the tender into the hall was the easy part. Once inside, both the tender and engine would have to be rotated almost 90 degrees to line up with the hall and with the display track on which they would rest.

Jackson and crew arrayed the gantries around the four corners of the first trailer and positioned the overhead I-beams and lifting straps. Jackson lifted the tender, the trailer pulled out, and Jackson lowered the tender to within a foot of the floor. Then began an exacting, patient pirouette.

When the tender could be carried straight in-line with the hall, Jackson and his gantries carried it northward far enough to clear space for entry and positioning of the locomotive. In the meantime, riggers had brought and reassembled the track sections from A&I and located them on NMAH's floor exactly in line with Susan Tolbert's floor marks. The tender came down on the track, later to be rolled into final position.

Now it was Jupiter's turn. Its heavy trailer backed down across the lawn. The locomotive jutted its nose into Railroad Hall. Riggers moved the gantries to surround the locomotive and reinstalled the Kevlar sling at the front of the boiler. The gantries at Jupiter's back end were useless, however, until the big steel lifting beam could again be put crosswise underneath the engine, ahead of the rearmost pair of wheels. With Jupiter down, on either floor or flatbed, there was not enough space underneath the locomotive to fit the beam in.

So, with Jupiter lifted up slightly by the sling at the front, Grooms had his driver pull the flatbed slowly ahead, Jupiter hanging stationary. Grooms had to get three of the four pairs of wheels out in mid-air, in order to get his lifting beam in place. Withuhn rechecked the wooden blocks jammed into Jupiter's suspension, to be sure the suspension wouldn't tilt and cause the engine to become unstable.

As before at A&I, it was a curious sight: Jupiter's wheels turned as the trailer moved gently ahead. Then all but one pair of wheels were airborne. Even though one pair of the large driving wheels dangled well above the floor, they turned anyway, thanks to the connecting rods.

When he had enough room for the lifting beam, Grooms halted the driver. Jackson brought the back gantries into place and maneuvered the beam, carried on its steel cables, into position under Jupiter. Then he lifted up the engine's back end, just enough to clear the flatbed. The truck driver pulled his rig away. Jupiter was now safely in the hall. Security officers closed the hall's great doors. Jupiter slowly descended on its sling and cables to repose for the night.

Sunday, January 31, was "Day 4." The tasks ahead were now to lift and rotate Jupiter, exactly align the track and its crossties, place the tender and engine into precise position, and reinstall Jupiter's removed parts.

Jackson and Grooms lifted Jupiter a foot high with the gantries and began the same painstaking procedure they had done with the tender the day before: picking it up, moving the gantries to get about ten degrees of rotation on the locomotive, setting it down, placing the gantries in new positions, and repeating. Not only do the mobile gantries move only in straight lines, but the gantries can't lean without danger of toppling. In rotating the gantries' load, the suspending cables and sling would begin to pull out of vertical. Jackson carefully observed the direction of pull on these cables; when the angle on them became only slightly out of vertical, he put Jupiter back down on the floor and reset the gantries. The 20-ton engine weighs four times what the tender does, so each set-up of the gantries for each incremental rotation took even more care - and more time.

As Jeff Grooms told Smithsonian magazine's writer Michael Kernan, "You have to be watching every second. You can't make even the first mistake."

When Jupiter had passed through almost 90 degrees, it was at last in line with the display track laid in the hall. Carried back by the gantries to the point where the track began, the engine was ready to be set down. But the problem of getting the lifting beam out from under the engine still remained. First, Jackson and crew set Jupiter down with the crosswise lifting beam trapped under the engine. Then riggers used two big manual jacks again at Jupiter's rear corners, bearing up in unison on the engine's frame under the cab. With Jupiter thus raised in back, the beam could be pulled out. Again in careful unison so as not to tip the locomotive laterally, the jacks brought the rear driving wheels down firmly to the rails. The crew pushed the two rear gantries aside; their work was done.

Now the two gantries at Jupiter's front, with their sling still on the boiler, were used both to carry the locomotive's weight at the front and to move Jupiter backward along the short track. From one pair of wheels on the track, it was soon two pair, then three, and finally four. The track didn't budge out of position, as some had feared. Museum staff applauded the riggers. Jupiter was in place, and beautifully so.

The cowcatcher, smokestack, and headlight now needed to go back on. A forklift brought the cowcatcher over and set it into position; NMAH staff put in the bolts, together with the long, front coupling bar. Next the forklift carried the stack up high on its padded "forks." With Withuhn inside the boiler to secure the stack bolts, Larry Jones and Ray Hutt aligned the stack -- which turned out to be no easy thing.

Hutt and Jones reinstalled Jupiter's headlight, and the engine looked complete once again. There was one last touch. To Grooms went the honor of "topping off," an old tradition among ironworkers. Assisted by rigger L. B. Gross, Grooms took Jupiter's whistle and a ladder and climbed up on the cab roof. At the highest point of the boiler, he screwed in the whistle atop the boiler's steam dome.

Monday morning, February 1 -- "Day 5" -- was for wrap-up. The riggers rolled the tender back a bit, so that the drawbar between engine and tender could be inserted properly. Then the tender was pulled ahead to final location, tightly up against the engine. NMAH staff reinstalled the last few parts: two valve rods and keys, four cylinder cocks, two sand pipes, steam pressure gauge in the cab. The steel railing that had surrounded Jupiter at A&I needed to be put up again and anchored to the display track's crossties. This turned out to be more difficult than expected, since dozens of the railing's sections had to fit together exactly, with no tolerance for misalignment at any point. Quite a lot of adjusting by Jones, Hutt, and the riggers together was needed before everything fit together. Finally, about noon, it was done.

NMAH's Railroad Hall looks different now: the big, green, 189-ton steam locomotive No. 1401 has a new stablemate. They are classics together, the 1876 Jupiter and the 1926 No. 1401, fifty years apart. Since the bigger engine pulled trains daily until the early 1950s, the two locomotives served four generations of travelers. In that span of time, the United States changed in thousands of ways.

Our mobility -- both physical and social -- was a crucial part of those changes. When the new exhibition, "America On The Move," opens in 2003, those themes will be apparent. Jupiter and the 1401 will then become not just classics, but centerpieces in a fresh context.

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