Sunday, November 9, 2014

In the Mail

I was out of town over the weekend, but loyal readers contributed some interesting material.  Bob Olson of the Track Dept. sent a couple of pictures he took of the finished product in Yard 13:



"Almost ready for barn construction!"





And Chuck Amstein sent a link to a photo of an inspection car similar to ours, in the process of being turned.  Ours is equipped with exactly this type of jack:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/15542525830/in/photostream/

The Flickr photostream includes several other pictures of this car.  I hadn't thought about the need to carry some additional blocking in the trunk, to serve as a base for rotating the car.  But this whole process looks a little worrisome to me, I must admit.

4 comments:

Brian J. Patterson. said...

Hello, Randy and all.

1. How much shoring you would need would depend on where you would need to spin the car, and the piston length of the jackset. You would want to use at least SOME shoring to protect the feet of the jackset. But you would need less shoring at a level crossing then you would need on open track.

2. With your Fluid Drive (with two reverse gears,) and the nature of the museum demonstration railway, you would only ever use the jackset to demonstrate it or otherwise use it to keep it from going bad (again) from lack of use.

3. Seeing the Copper Range used three people to spin a 46ish Ford Tudor Sedan, you would probably want at least five to spin a Dodge Limo.

Thanks.

Brian J. Patterson.

Chris said...

There are four guys either turning or spotting the car. Looks dangerous with one guy behind the car, almost under it in a weedy ditch.

The new yard track looks very nicely aligned and leveled.

Randall Hicks said...

Chris is right! I hadn't noticed that extra man back there either. That's what happens when you don't have "SAFETY FIRST" painted in big letters on the trunk lid, I guess.

Anonymous said...

Randy,
I have seen the four seat Model T car at jamestown 1897 and the six seat model T track car a the WW&F museums spin around. It is amazingly easy. In both cases they do it on wooden crossings. I hope you get to spin yours soon!

Ted Miles