Pit Stop

I took a day off work and headed out to IRM today to help my father with the annual inspection on the 319, which was especially thorough since this will be its debut in regular operations at IRM. On Monday the car had been moved over to the inspection pit by my father, who had then finished much of the inspection. But today we were mostly working on the control and air components. We started off by inspecting the contactor box (photos of many of these components are shown later in the post), where one of the interlocks was found to not be closing correctly and was fixed. My father nailed some upper deck tack molding on the roof back into place (at a later date the car will have to have its canvas and tack molding replaced) and then he went out to the 321 to procure a replacement for the 319's air strainer, which had damage to its cast cap and retainer ring. It had also been held in place by hardware store pipe straps, so we tightened up the piping and removed the pipe straps.

A bigger project was repairing the car's safety valve, which was sticking, and calibrating the air gauges in the cabs. Rod Turner was instrumental in both of these projects, lending us his calibrated air gauge and drilling a hole in the safety valve cap to allow built up air pressure to vent. After this was complete, we ran the car outside; checked (and added to as necessary) the oil in the motor armature bearings, pump, axle caps and main journal bearings; and ran the car back to Barn 8. Other than some painting that still needs to be done, the 319 is now ready for service.

And now, friends, allow me to introduce to you the underside of CA&E 319. Though identical to the 321, the car's equipment is considerably different than either the 308 or 309. First, the contactor box. The car has DB-260 contactors, which GE evidently developed in the early/mid-teens. Only a single contactor box is required for a four-motor car, as opposed to two boxes for the c1904 DB-131's like the 308 has or six boxes for the c1901 DB-15's that the 309 has. Below left, the front of the box showing how compact the contactors are; John Nelligan is taking photos as reference for work on the Charles City steeplecab, which also has DB-260’s. Behind the contactor box are the grid boxes. Below right, a portion of the back of the box: (1) these interlocks make and break electrical contacts when the contactor to which they’re attached closes, moving the interlock shaft (2). Some contactors don’t have interlocks, and many of the control resistors (3) are attached to the back of these.









Then there’s also the reverser, shown below. It’s a DB-409 type, but is generally similar to the earlier DB-20 type found under the 308 and 309. One difference is in the handle (4), which sticks out the front of the reverser box when it is closed so that the reverser can be thrown by hand. This is important because the reverser must be thrown in the direction the car is going when it’s being towed, which is not true of the 308 or 309. The reverser is basically a big rotary switch with contacts for forward and reverse as shown (5).
Below is the D3-F air compressor, a more modern type than the D3-EG pumps used under the 308 and 309 and the same type as used under the earlier CA&E steel cars. In the upper-right foreground, the air strainer has been removed for cleaning.
Then there is the below photo, which shows a few different electrical components. On the left, (6) is the headlight resistor box; (7) is a box mounted to the underside of the floor which is a part of the lightning arrestor system. The other wood cars don’t have anything like this. At right, (8) is the main fuse box and (9) is the end of the contactor box.
Finally, in the photo below of the two main reservoir tanks, (10) is the safety valve which had to be repaired.