Friday, August 9, 2013

Drill Baby Drill, or Pass the Cutting Oil

Al writes...

Well I celebrated the first part of my birthday Wednesday by heading
out to IRM. Randy was busy organizing the potential compressor swap out for the 36. So rather than getting his way I climbed into the Cleveland PCC to help Loren Tweed along with this project. I believe that this is the only non-Boston Pullman build PCC in preservation.Although the car made its public debut at the trolley parade it's interior has a long way to go.

The exterior is beautiful and nearing completion with the installation of most of the windows. However the interior is a  sharp contrast.
While Loren continued to install window tracks on the left side of the car I got to work drilling holes in the wainscoting to attach the panels to the window post caps, which did of course require generous portions of cutting oil.  When completed each window looked like this.
When finished each window panel had 6 additional screws and helped to make the interior more complete.

By the end of the day Loren had finished installing all of the window tracks and we had come close to placing screws in all the wainscoting panels (a couple required longer screws than we had with us).

Most of the wiring in the ceiling is complete so reinitialization of the those panels will begin soon.  This will go a long way to transform the interior into a more complete space.

Of course the campus was abuzz with preparations for the big Thomas event, lots of tent erection etc. Looking forward to helping with narration at this event as I did last year.

9 comments:

  1. Happy Bday Al! Hope it was a great day and a sincere thank you for all you do at IRM!

    Nick

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  2. FYI, there are at least 2 more non-Boston Pullman PCCs preserved. Baltimore Streetcar Museum has a 1944 Baltimore air-electric car restored and operating and Pennsylvania Trolley Museum has a Shaker Heights car stored indoors for eventual restoration. I know of several other cars, but I am not up to date on their status.

    Artschwartz

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  3. The Baltimore Streetcar Museum operates Baltimore 7407 also built by Pullman. There are two ex-Cleveland PPC's at Halton County. And there are a LOT of ex-Shaker Heights Pullman PCC's in museums, but none are in great shape. Also the ex-Dallas car sitting at IRM. Bill Wulfert

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  4. Seashore has/had a gaggle of the ex Dallas cars as well, which later went to Boston. Last update I heard, they were trying to sell them as a lot to anyone interested in starting a heritage streetcar operation.

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  5. Thanks guys for the correction on that, the memory isn't what it used to be. Did any ex Birmingham examples get saved?

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  6. There are no Birmingham PCCs shown in Frank's list, so I would surmise that they are all gone.

    Most of the Shaker Heights and Cleveland PCCs left are in what I would call "rust in peace" status. Northern Ohio Railway Museum has 5 (3 SHRT, 2 Cleveland) and I believe plans to keep the best one of each group.

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  7. Forgot to sign the comment.

    Artschwartz

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  8. Toronto Pullman PCC 4704 (ex-Birmingham Electric Co. 804) was saved by the Heart of Dixie Railroad Club in Feb 1983. It was later scrapped. Bill Wulfert

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