Holiday Greetings

This report will cover two days this week, Wednesday and Thursday, since I'm on break for a couple of weeks. First, let's look at some of the other things that were going on.

On Wednesday, the Kershaw ballast regulator was loaded onto a flatbed by a rented crane, as seen here. Nick Kallas supervises the rigging to lift the machine; at right it's suspended a couple of feet over the trailer before being let down.

Sorry, don't know where it was going or why.

As I was making a list of things to do, I realized that the steps and pilot for the #1 end of car 36, as well as its trolley bases, were still sitting outside on a pallet. That's not good. So I got some of the Wednesday guys to help move these parts to a container, where we have spare traction motors and seat frames. Here Gerry Dettloff lifts it with the skidder; John Faulhaber and Pete Galayda (not shown) helped with unloading it into the container. Thanks, guys!

Gerry also showed me the work they're doing on the interurban freight trailer 810. New truss rods have been fabricated and are being installed. Here's a view of part of one, now mounted and tightened, with a queen post.

On the other side the rods need to be bent so the turnbuckle can be installed. I thought this was quite impressive.

Over the course of two days I was able to finish stripping the letterboard and upper siding on the south side of the 36. The next step will be to sand it all down; I also need to do all of the window openings. For this step, wooden blanks are required. It's a lot of work, but I'm hoping to get it ready for painting one side in the spring.

I also started disassembling the reverser. The rocker arm is frozen, but I should be able to remove it so it can be cleaned and lubricated in the shop. We have at least one spare DB-20 on hand, and I had thought about replacing the whole mechanism, but it now appears I'd have to disassemble the original item first, so I'll just fix it. Everything appears to test out electrically. The reverser is the first part of the control system to be energized, in effect, so it needs to be working before the rest of the system can be tested.

On behalf of Rod Turner and the entire crew of the Car Dept., we wish everybody a joyous holiday season, and a safe and productive New Year! Remember we have a heated shop open year-round, so we can always find something for you to do!