Locomotive Testing

The most interesting activity today was testing out the Charles City Western electric locomotive #300.  Pete Galayda is the project manager and has been working on it for about 15 years.  We identified a couple of items that need to be fixed, but they are not major and perhaps next week we'll be able to try again.  Pete had several eager helpers today: Rod, Rich Schauer, John Faulhaber, and Gerry Dettloff.

The locomotive was placed over the pit to check lubrication of the armature bearings and so on.

While we're down here, this is a view of a traction motor... 

And the brake system.   Gerry and Rich are working on cleaning up the waste for the bearings.

Then the engine was pulled outside, using the Army Diesel.  First we tested the brakes.  There are some small leaks, the governor needs to be adjusted, but at least we can make the loco stop whenever we want to.  Then we tried getting it to move under its own power.  It turns out some of the wiring to the resistance grids needs to be redone, but we quickly figured out what needs to be changed.  Pete will take care of that.  And here are some pictures of the 300 on its way back onto track 43.

After that, it was back to work on the 36.  I cleaned up the various parts of the hand brake, and sanded down several more sections of woodwork in the #2 vestibule (the "solarium" end.)

It's kind of tiresome, so let's wander around.   Jeff and Norm continue to rebuild the front end of the Michigan car, as seen here.  

Back in Barn 8, by the end of the day, there's more brown primer on this side of the vestibule.  The door will be taken to the shop for repair over the winter.  Other than that, I should be able to have this side of the vestibule in blue by the end of the week.