Checking Clearances

Since I'll be busy this weekend, Friday was an opportunity to do some more work.   The first interesting project was to help Tim with checking clearances with car 24 at the 50th Avenue station.   So we pulled it out and ran over to the station.

The result is that it's a matter of inches, but the car fits alongside both the canopy and the station itself.   As long as they don't raise or adjust the track without telling us.  

The 24 should be running at least part of the time on Showcase Weekend, so you'll want to be there.  Otherwise, watch this space!

Our next subject of interest is girder rail.  I'll be posting a map of where the streetcar line will run, but for now let's look over near the intersection of Central and Railroad, where girder rail is being stacked up for use in building the streetcar tracks.

The contractors were busy safe-ending our stock of girder rail, as seen above.   Here is the big saw used for cutting through the rails:

Meanwhile, back in the material yard, the rails are being sorted out, and girder rail is being stacked up for use on the streetcar line.

Just to be clear, I think you can see from the above photos that girder rail is different from ordinary railroad rails (called "T rail") and was designed for use in street trackage.  These girder rails were intended for streetcars that have smaller flanges and narrower wheel treads than steam railroad rolling stock, or most interurban cars.  Our double-track street trackage will have one line of each type.   I'll have more about this soon.

And here's the ballast train on its way out to Yard 15 to dump another two loads.  Most of this major track work is being financed by car rental income, and we want to have as much trackage as possible ready in case we can get more car storage this winter.

The rest of the time I was cleaning the cars, sorting parts, and checking hand rails on the wood cars.  A couple needed new screws, and I would like to repaint all of them next week if possible.

Finally, I noticed that one of the flat cars used for the B-71 had this big electromagnet sitting on it:

It's labeled "Scrapmaster" and is obviously used for picking up scrap metal.  As it happens, I have exactly the same type of magnet, although mine is somewhat smaller.  But it's at least as old, and still works.  Maybe sometime I could post a video of it loading scrap metal into the gon.