Four for Four

It wasn't really planned this way, but attention was paid to all four of the CA&E wood cars today. At least those in the barn.

First up was the 319. There had always been a couple of minor problems with the so-called "trap door" at one corner. One of the bolts holding up this molding strip had broken off, so it hung down at an angle. It really doesn't have much structural function; there was no danger that the step would collapse or endanger anybody, but it looks like we don't care about appearances. And that's not true. After some work, I drilled a new hole and installed a screw to hold it in place.

Next was the trap itself. There's a coil spring which is supposed to lift the trap, but nothing was happening. You can lift the trap by brute force, but that annoys everybody, even me. (This is basically the same design as the North Shore cars or the CA&E steels.) Also, maybe you can see that the plate holding up the spring-loaded bearing is loose and falling away from the car. That's not good.


I was afraid that the spring was broken and would have to be replaced, but after some work I found that it was OK and just had to be adjusted. With some longer lag screws and new bolts, the plate is firmly attached to the car and the trap springs up as Jewett intended. Case closed, for now.

I meggered the compressor on the 308 and it still appears that the field coils are a dead short to ground. That's pretty grim. I really don't know where we go from here. So the 308 probably won't be in revenue service this year, although the rest of the brake system works and we could run it in the middle of a three-car train for the pageant and Members' Day.

And I spent some time disassembling the replacement seats for the 309 and sorting parts.

Like all of our wood cars, the window sills (aka belt rails) on the 36 have rotted-out places here and there. The section shown here was the worst, but the other cars have had far worse sections, so this is not bad at all. Bondo™ is the answer. I removed all of the window blanks on the (south) side, the one we're currently repainting, and filled all the cracks with body filler, and then sanded it all down. This could all be done from inside the car, which makes it much easier than dragging the scaffold or stairs back and forth. The entire sill now needs another coat of white primer, that'll happen next time.

Finally, during a break I caught Dave and Carl assembling more of the locomotive on Ray's new playground. Ray Bellock himself was supervising, as usual, but he must have moved out of the picture before I could snap. As you might have noticed, some of us are wanna-be celebrities, others aren't.