PCC on the Pit

Friday and Saturday I got the opportunity to help out a bit with inspection work on Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority 63, a PCC car built for Minneapolis and later sold to the Shaker Heights line in Cleveland.  It was acquired by IRM from Trolleyville in 2010 and has had its interior refurbished by Frank Sirinek and Mike Stauber.  It was acquired complete, and had operated at Trolleyville, but had not been fully inspected at IRM.  However Jeff Hakner, an IRM member from Connecticut who also moonlights as Chairman of the Board at Branford among other duties at that museum, was visiting this weekend.  He has worked on PCC cars with GE control (all of the other PCC's at IRM, besides 63, have Westinghouse control) and agreed to help take a look at the car.

Above (L-R) Frank Sirinek, Jeff Hakner, and Eric Lorenz discuss the wiring on the 63.  We lack a wiring diagram for this car, which was built as a single-unit PCC and rebuilt for MU service at Shaker, so if any blog reader knows where we might be able to find one, we'd greatly appreciate it!












Above left, Dan Fenlaciki installs new batteries in the car; above right (L-R) Bill Wulfert, Eric Lorenz and Richard Schauer look over wiring diagrams for other GE PCC cars looking for points of comparison.  Eric and Richard are our two PCC experts and they took point on helping Jeff to diagnose car 63's issues.  By the time I left, at about 4pm Saturday, they were working on sequencing the car on low voltage but had encountered some issues with the mechanical pedal linkage and with the line switch.  With luck and more work, this car could be an addition to IRM's operating fleet.  This would make it the first PCC other than the 4391 to operate at IRM in about a quarter century.












I also helped a bit on the 36 project.  Above left, my father works on stripping more paint; above right, the rear of the Knutsen 5B retriever from the 36 that I needle-chipped.  I thought it was slightly interesting that the CA&E apparently assigned this one the number 70.

In other news, I was told that at the board meeting Saturday fundraising efforts for the next barn, to be built over Yard 14 I believe, were approved.  Several of the cars acquired from Trolleyville still don't have their track space money paid off, and until that is taken care of, cars like the 321 can't go back inside, so please be generous and donate to track space for the 319 or 36.  As always, all donations are tax deductible and are greatly appreciated!

UPDATE: Check the comments section on this post for "the rest of the story!"