Today involved preparation for swapping trucks for the 36, operating the 319, painting the 409, and lettering the cars.The first thing to do was to make sure everything we needed had been loaded and was on its way to Connecticut. More about that later.
On the roof of the 319, I bolted down the second trolley base and made the connections to the cables, so it's ready to install poles when we get a chance. I did some cleaning inside the car. I talked to Nick about lettering and gave him the stencils we have used for the blue cars. More about that later, too. Finally, I sanded down another window and painted two of them.
Over at Barn 2, work is nearly complete on preparing the 409 for painting. It looks to me like they're doing a very thorough and careful job.
At some point while it was in Cleveland, all of the brass lift tabs for the 319's windows disappeared. I've taken a sample to a foundry to have new ones made, but they don't seem to take us too seriously. In the meantime, if the car is going to operate, we need some way to raise the windows. So I bought a few bags of these little wooden knobs at a hobby store for $3. They're not meant to look like anything, but they will be useful until the correct fittings can be installed.
And if you're interested, here are the trucks we got from East Troy. These are the two I mentioned last time, with wooden bolsters. They have GE 74 motors. The bolster on the left has pretty much rotted away, but it could be replaced easily.I forgot to mention that in order to load these trucks, our guys had to bring their own locomotive, since there's no trolley wire where the trucks were stored. So the Joy 2 was loaded onto a flatbed and taken up to East Troy. It's now safely back at IRM. And many thanks to Norm Carlson and our friends at East Troy for the trucks and electrical equipment!
And here's a truck that was under the L5. The L5 is of interest because the TM created a steeplecab on top of a Hicks-built flat car. Unfortunately, it was scrapped many years ago. These trucks are also a TM design. This one lost its motors, and also its brasses. So it now has wooden bearings. Wood -- what can't it do?
7 comments:
L5 (nee E80) was retired sometime in the early/mid 50s, and probably lost its motors at that time.
I used to have an incomplete C-74A controller "kit", that I was told probably came from the L5. Gave it to IRM late last year.
Might those GE 74's be destined for the D16, which is missing its motors of the same type? Or do we already have GE 74's allocated to the D16?
Randy:
If you need a bronze foundry, I can put you in contact with the one that we use. They do very good work and can do the small odd jobs. We have a lot of parts that we do small orders on. The foundry is located in Mansfield Ohio, very close to the old Ohio Brass facility.
Cheers,
Randy Anderson
IMPulse NC, LLC
randerson@impulsenc.com
We already have the motors for the D16. They were removed by the Milwaukee Road before they would ship it to TWERHS, as they incorrectly thought the traction motors in the D15 and D16 were causing them to derail in their yards.
They were loaded in the bed of the D15 and were still there when it came down from East Troy.
What about 451?
What's going on with 451, if 409 is taking cuts in line in front of it? Wasn't it down to bare metal and ready for spraying along with 319?
Randy:
Thanks for the info. For now, I think we'll give the Rockford foundry some more time, it's more convenient to deal with somebody within driving distance. But I'll keep that in mind.
Anon: I believe the plan was to finish work on the roof before the 451 is painted, so it may be last. Nearly all of the prep work is done, I believe, so it shouldn't take long.
I haven't had a chance to get over to barn 2 lately, but I believe more steel work has been going on with 451 besides the roof work. I think just last weekend they were doing more welding work. The 409 was in great shape body wise, since it had a significant amount of work done before the end of service. The curvesiders had a lot of rust and rot, especially on the ends of the cars. When we opened the signboxes, they had no bottom steel left, and in some cases the top steel was so bad light bulbs were dangling. It is best to get all this fixed before painting.
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