Grid System

Unfortunately I wasn't able to take the day and go along on the "Back to the '60s" CTA fan trip, but I was able to make it out to IRM for a few hours on Sunday afternoon.  The first order of the day was to resume work on a replacement grid box for the 309.  This replacement box will replace the one with damaged grids shown here.  We had previously found two grid boxes in outdoor storage along Bruneau Drive to be parts donors (the box on the 309 we need to replace has two different types of grid elements, #6 and #8) and my father disassembled one last weekend.  I brought the second into the shop and took it apart; below is the "before" shot.

I'm not sure where this box came from but it has extra angle brackets which I believe were designed so that the boxes could be stacked vertically.  With help from Dan Mulvihill and Bob Sundelin I took this one apart and set aside all of the components that we'll want to reuse for the box to go under the 309.  This included eight #6 grids from this box, 10 #8 grids from the box previously disassembled, the end castings and the five rods.  The disassembled box, minus one end casting, is shown below.

I spent a while wire-wheeling the contact surfaces on all of the grid elements, and also cleaning up the "outside" tie rods, while Dan spent quite a while at the sand blasting cabinet cleaning up the end castings.  Once Dan was done we sprayed them with primer, though I managed to forget to get a photo of the finished (as of yet) product.  Next time I'm out I'll paint them black, then after that we can assemble the box and put it under the car.  We also sorted out usable mica washers and cleaned up the copper washers used to ensure good connectivity between grid elements.  Finally, the extra grid elements and the unused grid box frame were placed into secure storage.

It was a pretty quiet day at the museum; it seemed like a lot of people were on the charter (which, I understand, went very well and raised over $4,000 towards acquisition of a pair of CTA 2200s!).  Norm and Jeff were working on the roof of the Michigan car and Andy Sunderland was monkeying around with South Shore 1100, shown below.  He and Rod were working on getting the pantograph to operate with the correct tension.  I also took a brief break to couple the 308 and 309 back together and make up the two-car blue train so that it will be ready for service on Saturday.  Looking for an excuse to come out to Union this weekend?  Look no further!  Where else will you see a matching wooden interurban train to brighten your weekend?