Sunday, September 12, 2010

Switching Season

At IRM, now that summer is over, we go right into Mega-Switchmove season. On Saturday we switched out most of tracks 61 and 81, and part of 82. I was pretty busy and only took a few pictures. The main goals were to move our South Shore line car 1100 to barn 6, where there's more overhead clearance, and bring the IT train up to the door on 81. Among other things, this move required the use of four different locomotives.

Here are the IC MU cars sitting on the tail track.


And the North Shore and South Shore line cars sitting next to each other temporarily.





MD cars 213 and 229 moved over to
track 81 to join the 218.

I don't know, maybe these switch move posts get a little repetitive.

I also ran the 319 back and forth a couple of times for testing, and it seemed to be operating OK. So I made up the three-car train we plan to run next Saturday for Showcase Weekend and tested the brakes. The excitement is building. Car Dept. personnel also tested the brakes on the IT train, and the 277 was later taken over to the pit for inspection.

9 comments:

Adam Robillard said...

These post certainly don't get repetitive. Please, for those who can't be there, keep up the great work!

Randall Hicks said...

OK, thanks.

I should have added that Joel and I got to ride the top platform of the 1100 and lift the energized overhead as needed so it didn't snag on the car, which is much larger than any of our other electric fleet. That was fun and scary at the same time.

Tim Lesniak said...

Been there, done that. The problem at Warehouse Point is that most of the overhead by the shop is lower than the boxcars, interurbans, and the line car so anytime those types of cars are moved out back, the overhead has to be lifted.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of barns, what about another new one?

Anonymous said...

I want to second the motion of Mr. Robillard who suggested you not give up your blog. You are the first one I go to each evening.

One question, though. Sometimes I can click on the photos you take and they expand, but other times nothing happens. Is there something you do to make that possible?

Randall Hicks said...

1) I wasn't planning to stop posting altogether, just asking about descriptions of switch moves. I'll give up this blog when they pry my cold dead fingers...

2) I generated this post trying out a new browser (Chrome) and the pictures would not expand. I believe that's been fixed; I'll investigate further when I have more time.

Thanks for the comments.

Edward J. Maurath said...

What are the numbers of the IT consist?

Randall Hicks said...

Ed:
Class B 1565, 277, 518, and 234.

David Wilkins said...

If the size of regular CSS&SB equipment does not underscore the scale of the railroad, the line car does. It makes "normal" interuban equipment look tiny in comparison. Even though it did run in some streets, the South Shore was obviously built to steam-road scale.