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Reporter Reporter
the Boilermaker
Vol. 46 No. 3
Jul Sep 2007
The Official Publication of the
International Brotherhood of
Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders,
Blacksmiths, Forgers,
and Helpers, AFL-CIO
http://capwiz.com/boilermaker
http://www.boilermakers.org
Non-Profit Org.
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Long Prairie, MN
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L-73 will
help build
cruise ship
Vessel will be first cruise ship
constructed in Canada since 1930s
BOILERMAKERS AT LOCAL 73 (Halifax, Nova Sco-
tia) will soon begin work on a new cruise ship a
project some say has not been undertaken in Canada
since the 1930s.
Irving Shipbuilding Inc., which builds and
maintains tugs and offshore supply ships at the
Halifax Shipyard, has the contract. The new cruise
liner will be small by todays standards, measur-
ing just 88 meters (about 290 feet) in length, with a
capacity for 165 passengers. Pearl Seas Cruises LLC
of Guildford, Conn., an affiliate of American Cruise
Lines, will own and operate the new ship. Pearl Seas
says it is building a brand new fleet of high-end lux-
ury cruise ships that are smaller, faster, and offer the
latest technology.
The first of these ships is scheduled to be completed
in May 2008. Irving Shipbuilding has an option for a
second vessel.
Jean-Ives Poirier, BM-ST for Local 73, says approxi-
mately 30 Boilermakers will be involved in construct-
ing the above-deck portion of the ship, performing
steel fabrication and erection. An estimated 20,000
man-hours of work will be required.
We are excited about this contract, because of its
historical nature, he said, especially since there
has not been a cruise ship built in Canada in some 70
years. We are also hopeful that this is only the first of
many such smaller cruise ships to be built by Irving.
We understand that there is substantial interest in
this market.
Local 73 is a construction and shop lodge chartered
in 1973. Canadian apprentices compete
. . . . . . . . . . .
6
Blacksmiths keep the T rolling
. . . . . . .
2
L-73 members are building this new luxury cruise
ship in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Bull Run is just one of TVAs 11
coal-fired plants that must meet
new clean-air standards
MEMBERS OF LOCAL 453, Knoxville, Tenn., are
working hard to clean up the air by erecting a new
absorber and ductwork for CBI Services Inc. at the
Tennessee Valley Authoritys (TVA) Bull Run Fossil
Power Plant, near Knoxville.
On behalf of TVA, CBI contracted with Advatech to
perform the work. The job includes the absorber, five
medium-to-large absorber buildings, and the associ-
ated large ductwork. The project will bring the plant
into compliance with recent federal clean-air man-
dates that regulate allowable emission levels from
existing fossil fuel power plants in the United States.
CBIs portion of the work started in Oct. 2006 and
was scheduled to be completed in July. Local 453
members are erecting the multiple-alloy absorber
vessel box that is 73-feet wide, 107-feet long, and
approximately 100-feet high. They are also erecting
about 300 feet of 19-foot-wide by 42-foot-high ASTM
A588 Grade B duct, with structural supports.
L-453 erects absorber, ductwork
at Knoxville power plant
L-453 Boilermakers will need 125 truckloads of
structural components to complete work at TVAs Bull
Run fossil-fuel power plant near Knoxville, Tenn.
See L-453 CLEANS AIR page 13
Retiree makes dollars from scents
. .
14 2 - the Boilermaker Reporter





Jul Sep 2007
Article by Mac Daniel; photos by David L.
Ryan; © Copyright 2007, Globe Newspaper
Company. Republished by permission.
W O R K I N G A M I D R O A R I N G
furnaces and rusty anvils, blacksmiths
forge hot steel into switch sticks, pole
clamps, shepherd sticks, and other
spare parts that long ago stopped
being manufactured.
But these are not shipbuilders or
ironworkers. These are some of the
MBTAs [Massachusetts Bay Trans-
portation Authoritys] six blacksmiths
[members of Local 651, Somerville,
Mass.], all working harder than ever to
keep Bostons aging trains, trolleys, and
buses running.
Things are getting crazy around
here, said Michael DiClemente,
39, of Medford, whose father was also
a smith.
As the T fixes the ancient Mattapan
trolley line, its Presidents Conference
Committee cars, delivered in 1945 and
1946, are getting new parts, many made
and hammered by hand in the black-
smith and metal shops.
You just cant buy them, so we have
to make them, said Fred Rooney, sec-
tion chief of the Ts Everett Main Repair
Facility, a modern brick building the
size of an airplane hangar.
Traction motors from the aging
Red and Orange Line cars are spread
through the warehouse. The facility
rebuilt 357 such motors in the last three
years; the blacksmiths crafted the cru-
cial mounts to link motor to chassis.
As the T prepared for winter, when
aging motors often clog with ice, the
shop received an order to rebuild 34
Orange Line traction motors in a
week. This month, the blacksmiths are
rebuilding 53 motors for the Red Line.
Tell me what you want built it
doesnt matter and I will have it built
out of the Everett shops in three days,
said Daniel A. Grabauskas, the Ts gen-
eral manager. Some of the basic, cen-
turies-old skills are still needed to keep
the MBTA running.
Most other big-city transit sys-
tems dont have blacksmiths, sending
the work to outside firms or using
newer equipment that requires few
major repairs.
In 1995, the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority got rid of its
blacksmiths while trying to save costs.
Over the following five years, however,
they were hired back, their jobs too
important to the health of the 110-year-
old system.
They continue to use equipment
that hasnt changed much in centuries.
Their desks are blast furnaces that can
reach 2,300 degrees. The shops air-
power hammer, which can flatten hot
steel, dates from the 1950s. At one point
there was a metal press from the 1890s,
complete with a dangerous and unpre-
dictable flywheel that could make a
safety inspector faint.
Its a living organism out there,
Rooney said, [who works] in a grave-
yard of bent and broken trolley
pantographs, the wire and metal appa-
ratus that connects a trolley to overhead
power lines.
The rails move, the metal expands
and contracts. Things break. Its like
running a train on a dinosaurs back.
And we can repair it all, said Buddy
Pickman, his foreman and blacksmith.
T officials say the blacksmiths work
is also a way to cut costs.
Switch sticks, long metal poles used
to manually shift track switches, are
continually lost or broken by workers.
Rather than spending thousands to
have them manufactured and delivered
from elsewhere, the T can do it with
spare metal rods and the blacksmiths,
Rooney said.
The blacksmiths also make shep-
herd sticks, used to pry bus tires off
their rims, so the T doesnt have to
buy them.
A wheel scissor hoist that can lift
600-pound rail wheels? Made by
the blacksmiths.
Other tools used in daily mainte-
nance at the T but never given formal
names? Blacksmiths.
If you walk through this place, we
touch every part thats in here, said
DiClemente, as Peter Genna, 29, of
Bradford, finished pressing metal rect-
angles into pole brackets unique to the
Blue Line.
Pickman and Rooney supervise two
young welders who are learning the
trade, but theres some concern that no
one else is coming forward.
Its kind of a lost art, said Thomas
Long, a supervisor at the shop.
The T blacksmiths are members of
the International Brotherhood of Boil-
ermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Black-
smiths, Forgers, and Helpers, who
in the mid-1980s represented 33,850
[blacksmith] workers. But much of the
work has since gone overseas.
When we had our 2001 convention,
that number was down to 1,800 [black-
smiths], said Jim Pressley, assistant to
the International president.
At the last union convention DiCle-
mente attended last summer, he said he
met no one representing blacksmiths.
People still think blacksmiths
only shoe horses, DiClemente said.
We dont. Were metal draftsmen.
Were unique. Jul Sep 2007

Vol. 46 No. 3
Newton B. Jones
,
International President


and
Editor-in-Chief
William T. Creeden
,
Intl. Secretary-Treasurer
International Vice Presidents
Lawrence
McManamon,
Great Lakes
Sean
Murphy,
Northeast
Sam
May,
Southeast
George
Rogers,
Central
Tom
Baca,
Western States
Joe
Maloney,
Western Canada
Ed
Power,
Eastern Canada
Othal Smith Jr.,
At-Large
Editorial staff
Donald
Caswell,
Managing Editor
Carol
Almond,
Asst. to the Managing Editor
Mike
Linderer,
Writer and Editor
The Boilermaker Reporter is the official pub-
lication of the International Brotherhood of
Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths,
Forgers, and Helpers, AFL-CIO. It is published
quarterly to disseminate information of use
an