Our Spring Has Sprung

Today we finished inspection and lubrication on the 308, so it's ready for revenue service. Stan Wdowikowski helped a lot, so thanks! In the morning Stan and Charlie ran the 160 off the pit and onto the car line so I could put the 308 over the pit. Stan did the motors and and some of the truck work while I inspected the electrical systems and various other things. This included testing the air system and adjusting the slack adjusters on each truck. We then switched places, putting the 160 back on the pit and the 308 outside, so Gerry and Stan could finish inspection on the 160 while I did the remaining lubrication.

Here's the trailer truck on the 308; I was too busy to take many pictures.

One problem we already knew about was that the return spring inside the 308's brake cylinder was broken. After lubrication was done, I looked at our collection of spare brake cylinders, and opened one up that looked like it might have been from the 318. Fortunately, it turned out to be exactly the right size. It's 5" in diameter and about 24" long, as seen here. It pushes the piston back into the cylinder when the brakes are released. I cleaned off all the rust and dirt, but we certainly didn't have time to install it today. I ran the 308 back into Barn 8 about ten minutes before the first of several thunderstorms passed through. I believe we should be able to replace the spring in the barn; we won't need the pit. It's really nice when we have spare parts like this. You'd never find a spring this size at your local home center! By the way, the trucks have return springs also so there should be no problem with operating the car this way.

Here's the work product from the inspection. This is page 3 of 4. Every item has to be either initialled or crossed out if it's irrelevant. For instance, our cars don't have any door motors or MG (motor-generator) fans. Oops, we missed one, but our calibrated gauge is broken.

After the rain started, and what seemed like half an hour to clean all the grease and dirt from my hands and arms, I painted a couple of parts from the 277 and sorted parts. We're hoping to do the 309 next week.