We Never Make Mistakes

Over breakfast, Frank and I were discussing various IRM matters, and the subject of running interurban cars on the girder rail track came up.  I expressed some doubt as to whether the flangeways were actually big enough for our flanges.  At the Western Railway Museum, I had seen some wheels where the flanges had been damaged by running over the wrong type of girder rail (in San Francisco, before they acquired the car), and it would be nice to be sure that wouldn't happen to our cars.

Being an experimentalist, I'm not going to take anybody's word for something, if there's any way I can test the hypothesis myself.  And what could be easier than this?  I got out my nice feeler gauge, usually used for woodworking, and made an impression of the flanges on the 309.  That was transferred to a piece of cardboard.   The lower piece was checked against the wheels.  The 308 and 309 have about the same profile; the 36 and 319 have slightly deeper flanges, by no more than 1/4".

I also marked the distance between flanges on a long stick; this was consistent between cars.

Now we go out to the street.  After pushing some debris out of the way, it's evident that there's enough room for the flanges, with a little to spare.  The marks on the stick indicate the center and both edges of the flange, and on the other rail the alignment is perfect.  So all is well.  Our Track and B&G guys obviously did their work carefully and correctly, which is good because it's set in concrete, so to speak.  I can only hope they're not offended by having an independent check of the results.  As a prospective user, I want to see what we're getting into.

I was planning to do some painting on the interior of the 319, but it was cold and damp, so I worked on the vestibule instead.  At the #1 end, brackets for one of the window shades had disappeared, so I went out to the 321 to look for spare parts.  On the way, a couple of steam engines have been switched out and were well suited for pictures.  The L&A 99 was cosmetically restored after acquisition, but has never operated at IRM.

The Com Ed 5 used to run back in the 70's, but it was not well suited for our passenger operations.  It was heavy and slow, hard on the track, and rode roughly, to say the least.  A cab ride gave me some empathy for a paint can in a mechanical shaker.

"5 74" is just a couple of months before I joined the Museum.  Last Sunday I saw a couple of guys washing the engine down, but I didn't have my camera along.

After finding the right brackets, probably from the 318, here's a test fit for the shade.  Even though we would probably never need this particular shade, it's good to have everything in its place.

Then I wire-wheeled all the old paint off:

And sprayed it with primer.  The advantage of spray paint is that it can be recoated almost immediately.

And it seems I didn't take a picture of the finished product, but there were several other parts of the #1 vestibule that needed more finish red.  As always, these pictures make it look more blinding than it is in real life.

And I finally got around to installing the relettered box for scrap fuses.

This is a trap door from the 318.  Although it went through a train wreck and had been stored under a box car for the last 30 years, the lettering is better than on any of the traps on the 319 or 321.  So we decided it should be moved into Barn 8 to keep it out of the weather.   At some point, we'll want to letter the bottom of the traps on the 319.

Tim spent most of the day getting a load of new lumber for the 1754, bringing it back to the property, and unloading it.  His arm is doing better, but he still can't lift any real weight with it, so John and I helped him with moving all the various pieces.

Among other things, he had the supplier run off a complete set of tongue and groove siding for the car.  It would take us nearly forever to run all this off in our shop, so the project can move ahead much more quickly.   This is only a little over half of the total supply of siding.

And then I spent some time cleaning and sorting parts.

Outside, the parking lot is being resurfaced and/or expanded.  In the distance a roller is packing it all down.

And as usual, Max is up in the air.  Our extensive power system requires constant maintenance.

And being a professional, Max works very carefully and never seems to make mistakes either.   If he did, we'd know in a flash.