Spring Cleaning

Aristotle observed that "Nature abhors a vacuum."  I suppose that's why Nature never seems to clean up after herself, but we can't usually get away with that, so it's time to get out a nice shop vacuum and start cleaning in preparation for the operating season.

Today was the first car cleaning day, but it was rather cold and dreary.  Not too many people showed up for the festivities, I regret to say.

But here's my old friend John Myhre, whom I haven't seen for a while, cleaning the 415.

And in the 3142, Larry Stone is cleaning windows, with the careful supervision of Jim West.

I spent some time vacuuming up all four of the CA&E wood cars, plus putting away various tools and parts left over from previous projects, and sorting things out.  In the absence of working car heaters, it was cold enough that window cleaning seemed rather abhorescent.

The 309.

The 308.

The 36.

The 141 is over the pit, and a number of the regulars (Joel, Richard, Nick, Jeron, John Goon, and am I missing anybody?) were working on the control system.  Automatic acceleration systems are fine in theory, but they can fail in ways that are not easy to diagnose or fix.  So I decided to get out of the way and leave these problems to the experts.  But we're confident the problems will be fixed and the car will be operated more often this year.

The PC (pneumatic cam) system on the 141 is quite interesting to watch in action.  Maybe I should have tried to take some action videos, but didn't.  Sorry.

The reverser:

The line switch:

The contactors, with the motor for the cam shaft to the right:

I went over to the Steam Shop to talk to Tom Schneider, who graciously agreed to help us with getting new motor bearings made for the 309.  We'll have more details later, but there's no doubt this will be expensive, so you can expect more blegging in the future.  Heh heh.  Anyway, the Steam Dept. people were very busy; I didn't get any pictures, but the 1630 is being prepped for its hydro test in the near future, and the Shay was being put together towards the same end.  But I was also directed over to the south end of Barn 9.  The 4963 is now in the display line and looks much better.

Several of the other usual Car Dept. projects were being worked on.  But I happened to pass by the Cleveland PCC, where the finishing work on installing the electrical ducts is being completed.  They say they should be able to start pulling wires soon!

Eric is grinding down some welds:

And Ed is doing the welding:

In fact, operating season will be here before you know it.   Like a week from today, Saturday, March 31st.  The "Bunny Trolley Hop" is a new event for this year, and I'm told it's already essentially sold out, and the crew slots are already taken.  Wow!  But later in the season there will be plenty of opportunities for people to help out.  We'll let you know!