Friday, November 6, 2015

Breaking News: Motors for the 24

Today the motors for our 1898 open-platform L car, 24 (1024), arrived at IRM.  Our friend Bob Olson sends us some pictures and reports:

The GE 55 motors, which came from a long since scrapped freight motor at MOT, are intended for the CRT 1024. Trucking was provided by Volkmann Railroad Builders of Menomonie Falls, WI. The trucks, which weigh approximately 10 tons each, were loaded at MOT Thursday and delivered to IRM Friday morning.





















6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randall,
I thought that the CTA 1024 already had a pair of motors. Does the Elevated Car need four motors?

Ted miles
IRM Member for 2015 and soon 2016.

Randall Hicks said...

No, it's a two motor car. We had two 55 motors for it, but they got flooded, and we were always missing the pinions. I think. As usual, somebody will correct me.

Anonymous said...

What freight motor at NMOT got scrapped? I seem to remember a St Louis Waterworks unit in a 1970s brochure, but do not have it on hand.

David Wilkins said...

NMOT has been MOT for nearly 25 years now. MOT has not scrapped a freight motor. The trucks in question came as "loose" trucks from St. Louis Car Company in the early 1960s. The trucks, I believe belonged to St. Louis Car Company #5, a homebuilt steeple cab locomotive with a wooden body. It was used to switch cars around the plant. If you ever see the publicity shots of Pacific Electric Hollywood cars being loaded up at SLCC for shipment west, you will see this locomotive in the background.

SLCC had several oddball locmotives used for in-plant movements, including a former Union Traction cab on flat. I believe these trucks came to MOT when the former IT Class B arrived, around 1963 or so.

Here are a couple of photos of the locomotive on Don Ross' Website:

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0106/slcc5.jpg

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0106/slcc9.jpg

The St. Louis Water Division railway never had a freight motor. They had a little 4 wheel Plymouth gas locomotive for freight shipments. It is ancient, dating from the 1920s. It is in MOT's collection. The Water Division did have a line car that was built from a passenger car. It was rather homely and ugly looking, but rotted in the weeds.

Anonymous said...

CRT 1024's motor issue was explained in Rail & Wire issue 237 (Dec 2013) on page 27. The original motors MAY have flashed over on the 4-20-1958 fundraiser fan trip. Those motors were traded back to the CTA for another set from a scrapped work car. Unfortunately those motors were designed for a different sized axle, and did not fit 1024. We hope to use the motor cases from the MOT motors along with the electrical equipment from the IRM motors to create two usable motors for (10)24. Bill Wulfert

Randall Hicks said...

Thanks to David and Bill for the additional info!