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I stopped by Larry Goerges this morning to load up the rest of the parts he was donating; there was slightly too much to fit in the car last time.

After unloading at the Museum, I plugged up the pipe as mentioned last time and tested the air again. It's better; there is still a leak in the triple valve in release, and some through the stems of the cut-in valves, but otherwise the air system is OK.

It was just too hot and humid today to do very much. I sorted through parts in the 36. Here's a picture of what's left of the governor that failed; it has "SW" cast in the body, but I'm not familiar with this type. There was also a J governor in the car, which tested fine and is now installed in the 309. So I don't know exactly what was going on. But wait, there's more.

On all of the wood cars, the ground connections for the light circuits up in the ceiling are brought down and connected to the back of the controller. The controller frame is firmly connected to the main ground cable, since it provides a return for the control circuits throughout the train. However, somebody at Cleveland decided this wasn't good enough, and so on the 36 the light circuits were reconnected via a clamp (yellow arrow) to the piping beneath the motorman's brake valve. This basic idea works fine in house wiring, where the ground is typically made to a water pipe leading directly into the earth. But here, the air pipes lead through dozens of elbows, unions, and tees to the compressor, and there's no guarantee you'll have a reliable low-resistance electrical ground. And on a system that uses all-metal brake handles, this introduces the definite risk of zapping the motorman. Needless to say, this "feature" will be removed!

Julie gave me a nice print of a Stephenson builder's photo of CA&E car 46, identical to our 36 as built, and I've scanned it in and added it to the car history.

I also looked through parts in storage and sorted through the material we received from Larry. And that's about all for today. Everything is quickly being set up for Thomas, who will be here before you know it!