Helping out around the department

I went out to the museum without any particular projects on the CA&E cars planned, and ended up helping Joel Ahrendt and Joe Stupar on North Shore 714 again. This involved reattaching some heater covers (shown at left), re-securing some door latches and other fixtures in the vestibules that were starting to come a little loose, and assisting with sequencing the car as part of its annual inspection. North Shore cars use Westinghouse HLF control, which is electro-pneumatic, unlike the electro-magnetic General Electric Type M control used on our CA&E cars. Also pictured to the left is the switch group under the 714. The pneumatic magnet valves that activate the contactors are located along the bottom, with the arc chutes above them. This box is much more compact than the ones under the 309, which has GE DB-15 type contactors designed in 1901, but is comparable in size to the more modern contactor boxes under CA&E 321 or 431. It has undergone a great deal of preventative maintenance and rebuilding, though, so it is much cleaner than the contactor boxes under the CA&E cars.

In other news, we've started talking about options for moving the 321 into Barn 4 for the commencement of serious restoration work in a few months (for details, see the project info listing on the right side of the blog page). Stay tuned!