More Roof Work

Today I did a lot more work clearing off the section of the 277's roof that needs to be rebuilt. To the right we see nearly all of the tongue and groove roof boards removed. Several of the carlines are in bad shape and need to be sistered. About half of them have wood bolted to steel, and the others are just wood. You may be able to see how bad a couple of them are, due to a combination of fire and rot. I now have all the dimensions I need to purchase new wood for the carlines and roof boards. In the distance, there is a sheet of plywood which I lifted onto the roof to serve as a platform from which to work. It was cold and damp outside, but up on the roof it's not too bad. Max's new lights give off heat as well as light.

After that was done, I received three sets of brand new harps for use on the 308 and 309 (so we still need one more) thanks to Bob Bruneau. The current trolley shoes are worn out, and welding them up did not help much, so we would like to change them to the style used on the North Shore cars with inserts that can easily be changed. These shoes are relatively maintenance-free. The new harp castings need some machining to fit together properly, but this should not be too hard.

I decided to start by removing one trolley pole and rebuilding it. I was unable to loosen the bolts on the 308; this has me worried. In any case, after a while I gave up and removed a pole from the 309, helped by Stan W. and Joe Stupar. I ground off the rivet that holds the harp to the pole. It still would not come loose, so Rich Block fired up the torch and heated it; it then could be removed easily. Here we have a couple of pictures of what a harp looks like when not attached to a pole. These parts were donated to Bob Heinlein for use on the 4000's. Thanks to Rich and Bob for their help. I also wire-wheeled the ends of the pole for better electrical conductivity when it is reassembled. All in all, a productive day.