American Queen Engines

Liam,

Check here for photos and here for a video. The engines are featured in the portrait video.

Carmen

AQ

Here is a video I just posted... its a long one (available in HD if your computer can handle it):

American Queen - Locking on the Ohio River 04-30-2012 - YouTube

Nice video, it was also nice to see the Belle of Louisville's very own Dan Lewis handling the engines on the AQ.

Well, now I know they sure have one darn good steam engineer onboard!

The engines were built by the Nordberg Manufacturing Co., which I believe was located in northern Indiana. Dad, who was a steamboat chief engineer, maintained that Nordberg machinery was the best there was, but due to their high cost not many boats had it. Those that did were mostly Government boats or had the Govenment involved in their construction. A couple of interesting design features are the high pressure cylinder is aft of the low and there is no spreader between the high and low pressure cylinders such as seen on the NATCHEZ's engines or the Marietta machinery that was on the MQ.

One disturbing thing is that the valve jacks were removed from the AQ's engines so they would fit in the engine spaces. Dad opined that the reason why she cracked her original shaft is because of not having the valve jacks. The shaft was torqued by not being able to take the live steam pressure off of the pistons while hndling the engines.

Frank, Nordberg Mfg. Co. was founded in Milwaukee, Wi. My Dad may have done some pattern work for them at the pattern shop he worked for here in Racine. They made patterns for a lot of heavy macinery manufacturers in Milwaukee and S.E. Wisconsin. I have some pictures of him with patterns I can't identify. I often wondered if some of them could be part of steam engines.

Thanks, Matt, for setting the record straight. After I posted that, I had second thoughts. When the AQ was being built The Delta Queen Steamboat Co. in a press release stated that the engines for the new AMERICAN QUEEN were being refurbished at the successor company to Nordberg which is in northern Indiana.