What's the Buzz?

Everywhere I go -- the office, the car shop, the inspection pit, any of the barns -- the air is buzzing with excitement. People are talking about only one thing: the upcoming Snowflake Special on March 27th. You too can be part of this exciting journey over the CTA, including various sections of track that are never used in regular service. You won't want to miss it! Go to the link above for more information.

Here's a brief update on the interrupter from the 319. If you look closely, you can see one of the stationary contacts for the interrupter mechanism; the other is missing. I should be able to make a replacement from brass stock. The frame which holds the movable contact appears to be OK. The two magnets which pull the contacts up are electrically good, which is important. They'd be hard to replace.

The 5K resistor which is installed in the long tubular part of the mechanism is open. However, I can wire around it and install a replacement resistor; power resistors like this are easy to order. This happened with the resistor on the 308's buzzer; I replaced it with a set of three 15K tubes in parallel, mounted to a board up in the attic. This works well, and I should have the buzzer circuit working again by the time the car enters service at the end of May.