A Sunday in the Country

Frank writes...

Sunday afternoon was a beautiful day, perfect for spending time out at IRM.  My first priority was to work on the latest grid box rebuild for the 36 - for those keeping score, this is the fourth out of five grid boxes under the car.  The first three experienced failures in rapid succession and this one already had some patches in it so it really needed attention.  The plan is to also rebuild the fifth box before it fails and we have to do the job on short notice.

Anyway, I procured a complete new set of #6 grid elements from storage; wire-wheeled the contact surfaces on them; straightened the copper washers salvaged from the box; and sand-blasted and primed the box frame, as seen above.  With help from Richard Schauer I also cleaned up the taps and repaired or replaced the hardware on them.  Next up will be a couple of coats of black paint on the box frame, cutting some new mica tubing to length, and reassembly and reinstallation of the grid box.  We're getting this down to a science!

And speaking of science projects, Richard, Greg and Joel were working on the roof of Shaker Heights 63 to do some trouble-shooting.  They needed to swap out some lugs; above Greg (left) holds the torch while Richard holds the lug up against the cable and feeds solder into it.  The goal, soon achieved, was to permanently disconnect the 600-volt bus sockets which are conveniently (but dangerously) located about 3' above the ground at each end of the car.

And other progress was being made on the property, too.  The Michigan duo of Norm and Jeff were hard at work, as usual, on car 28, test-fitting new steel pieces at the front end of the car.  And above can be seen some recent progress on Lake Shore Electric freight trailer 810.  A week ago the whole car had been touch-sanded; now it bears a shiny coat of Traction Orange and appears just about ready for lettering.  Replacement arch bar trucks for this car have recently seen some repair work and it looks like this restoration project, which has been active for over 15 years, is getting quite close to completion.  Once done, I believe that this will be the only restored interurban freight trailer in the country.