I was out at the museum for a few hours Sunday afternoon. Despite the big game there was a fair number of people working, but most of the work was concentrated in the heated shop - imagine that! It's a good time of year for "winter work" projects to be sure. The Michigan 28 guys were hard at work on that car's rear platform and baggage doors, Frank S. was working on seats for the open car, and Joe, Greg and Joel were going over paperwork for the CA&E steel cars.
I started out working on stripping paint off the flag box and flag tray from one end of the 319. All CA&E woods have a box and a tray mounted near the ceiling in each vestibule for storage of flags and other small items. Below left, the flag box seen before stripping; below right, it is partly stripped. The flag box may have been an original "factory-equipped" item, I'm not sure, but either way both it and the flag tray definitely date back to the AE&C Pullman green era.
Then, with help from a pop rivet gun Rod procured from the Coach Department, I installed the last two metal patches on the 205 corner posts. Pop rivets are definitely not used in any full restorations at IRM but, for a cosmetic restoration like this, it saved an awful lot of time and effort and will not notably effect the appearance of the car. Below left, the hole rusted in the car's corner post before patching; below right, the patch after installation. When the weather warms up this area will be touched up with body filler and primed.
Following this I did a bit of work to reassemble the second MU socket that Rod had modified a couple of years ago so that it will be ready to install on the east end of the car and then laid out plans for the wooden "donut" which is bolted in place between the socket and the car's dash panel.
Finally, here's an interesting bit of Illinois Terminal minutiae. When the IT converted the 277 to air conditioning they also installed truck-mounted brake cylinders. As part of this project, they apparently designed and built in their own shops an air valve assembly designed to isolate and cut out a single truck in the event of an air hose failure. That assembly, pictured above, was partly clogged with gunk which may have contributed to some of this car's brake problems while at IRM. It's kind of a Rube Goldberg device and may have never been serviced since the car left the IT, but Rod disassembled and cleaned it with help from Joe, Greg and Joel.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Cold weather work
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6 comments:
That is a pipefitter's dream!
Speaking of flag boxes, they also handily hold a blue MagLite flashlight I left in one of the blue cars a few years ago. Anyone ever see it?
Looking at the pictures, I can't understand how this system is supposed to work. First there is a T with a small pipe that branches and goes to the bottom of each valve, then the large pipe branches and goes into the side of each valve. So both the small and large pipes would appear to have the same pressure. What am I missing?
The pipe closest to the camera comes from the double check valve on the brake valve. Inside each of those parts is what appears to be part of an equalizing piston from an M22 brake valve, modified of course. The small pipes on the bottom are fitted with chokes so air enters and exits them slowly. When you apply the brakes, air enters the top of each of the large pieces, and goes out to the brake cylinders on each truck. This side has a higher pressure, so the piston remains in the down position. If one of the brake hoses leading to a truck were to rupture, the pressure in the upper half would drop rapidly, and the pressure in the lower half would cause the piston to go up and close off the open pipe. The system would re-equalize and brakes would be maintained on the other truck.
OK, that's interesting. Now what happens in quick release? The upper pressure drops rapidly, so doesn't that also drive the equalizing pistons up? And once up, do they stay up?
I assume that in release the air escapes back out through the choke in the small pipe. There is also a small pinhole in the piston which I assumes helps that equalize. The air being released from the pistons comes back through there, so there is a large flow of air through thte upper half.
Two other interesting details. The flow of air coming back from the cylinders helps recharge the system, and it's possible that this was effecting the performance of the brakes. All of the small choke holes were plugged, and one piston would not come out it was so dirty.
The other interesting detail is that the size of the chokes and holes in the equalizing piston were different in each valve. These holes were custom drilled, possibly to account for the different lengths of brake pipe, since the brake valve is closer to the front end. Really interesting stuff.
The pipe fitting salesman in Decatur must have driven a Cadillac....
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