Turnout in the Car Shop was low on Sunday: for much of the day there were only four of us out. When I arrived I was taken on a whirlwind tour of recent streetcar work courtesy of Frank Sirinek. This included updates on the Veracruz open car, for which he is refinishing seats; the West Towns car, which is nearly ready to have its control group sequenced; the Shaker Heights/Minneapolis PCC from Trolleyville, which has had its interior repainted and its windows replaced; and the Kansas City PCC, which is Frank's next big project. On the latter car he and his crew have replaced or rebuilt the windows and seat frames on the entire blind side of the car and will next proceed to the door side after some interior painting; below Frank is shown behind the operator's position. This car was given a "corn broom" paint job by yours truly about ten years ago and it's terrific to see all the work that Frank is putting into it!
Following this I turned my attention to the 205, right across the aisle from the KCPS PCC, where I did some more interior cleaning. All of the remaining aluminum drip rails have now been removed from the car and discussions are in the works about shipping them to Yakima, Washington to be reunited with the cars which (I think) they belong to. Among the last of the pieces that were stored atop the car's seats were some ~15' long planks which formed the "walls" over the side windows. Too large to slide underneath the seats easily, it appeared that the easiest place to store these would be in their original location. Greg Kepka (below) helped install the ones on the north side of the car; the ones on the south side of the car will wait until after the 205 is painted since removing the side windows will be much harder with these planks installed.
Below left, the interior of the car as it appears now with most of the materials off the seat backs. Note the wall planks installed on the left while the ones on the right are temporarily stored on the seat backs. My final project for the day was to complete chemically stripping the last of the paint off of the 205's final brass end window, shown below right upon completion of this project. This was taken over to the car for future installation.
Besides helping on the 205, Greg was working with Rod on repairing and reinstalling the motorman's signal whistle and valve in the 277 and Andy S. was working on the compressor for the 1100.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Streetcar tour
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4 comments:
I was a frequent customer of the Chicago & West Towns streetcars in the 40s and 50s and am anxiously awaiting the day when the 141 car moves out on its own.
What does "having its control group sequenced" mean? Is it getting closer to operational?
I believe Frank said at one point that the sequencing had already been done, but I may be mistaken about that.
Cars like the 141 are equipped with a control group under the car, which make and break the connections to the motors. The controllers inside the car use low current wiring to operate these switches. Sequencing a car involves cutting out the motors and moving the controller one point at a time, verifying that the proper contactors close in the proper order. It demonstrates that the controllers and control wiring are in proper working order. It also allows one to check that the contactors are opening and closing properly, and making good contact. It means that the two big things preventing the car from moving are connecting the motors, and installing the brake rigging. Fabricating the brake rigging is still a big step, but much easier with the proper trucks and motors under the car.
I remember seeing it being sequenced in the shop, before it went under the car. Don't know if it was sequenced under the car before now.
This is so exciting to see all these cars being restored to possible operation. These are the cars of our youth... (at least my youth).
I am especially excited about all the CA&E cars coming home and being able to ride them once again.
And it was so special to meet Julie at least once last year as she operated what must have been her Dream Train.
Thanks for all that you are doing.
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