Trucks and Motors

Update: the 36 and 319 left Brookpark at 9:10 AM Eastern.

First of all, here are the latest rumors about what's happening with the Trolleyville CA&E cars. We believe the two wood cars will depart Cleveland tomorrow (Monday) and arrive at the Museum some time Tuesday. I'll be going out there again to help unload them, and they will be placed in Barn 8 for storage. We're hoping the three steel cars will be moved to Brookpark later this week, and we'll go out to Cleveland to prepare them for shipment next weekend. This will be on short notice again; I'll try to post as much info as I can as soon as possible. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to be ahead of Hicks Car Works!

Today we worked on removing motors from the 319's trucks. The two pairs of trucks from the wood cars arrived on Tuesday, and here they are before we started. The GE 254's from the 319 are spares for the 409, 431, and 319. The two trucks from the 36 have no motors, yet.

Wintertime railroading is such fun!

The Joy kept getting stuck due to its light weight. Here Stan and Greg look on in frustration as Warren spins the wheels trying to get off the crossing.




After spending an hour or so accomplishing less than we hoped, it was decided only a real locomotive would do.
Here we are watching the Com Ed Diesel being hooked up to one of the 319 trucks.

These are the newly rebuilt motors (GE 66B) for car 36, now in storage in the barn. They will be going into the 36's motor truck sometime later this year, we hope.


After removing a lot of nuts, bolts, cotter pins, and so forth, here is the first motor being lifted out of the truck.

Thanks to all those who helped today: Stan, Greg, Warren, Frank S., Frank H., Joel, Joe, and myself.


Frank adds: Of the four motors in the 319's trucks, one is reputed to be unserviceable but the other three should be in working condition. One will go into the 409 to replace a bad motor under that car and the remaining two good motors, plus the bad one, will be used as spares. Seen below left are the 319 trucks after being brought into the shop; below right, Greg hauls on the chain hoist to raise the first motor while Stan watches the progress. The motor needs to be rotated up around the axle in order to lift it out of the truck. The red box highlights the brake beam, which is a different design on these cars than on the earlier 300's; on the Jewetts the brake beam was located near the truck bolster right over the inboard motor, meaning it had to be disconnected before the motor could be pulled.