Work on the workshop

Frank writes...

Sunday was a muggy, drizzly day. That was unfortunate because the steam guys put on quite a show for RPO days; all the way across the property I could hear the 1630 barking as it accelerated across Olson Road to hit the mail crane at speed for demonstration mail catches. What a show, and even more so with the humidity creating clouds of steam. But at least there were a lot of volunteers about!

Rather than ride golf carts back and forth to Barn 13 in the rain to work on the 18, I decided instead to make some progress on our extra-slow-motion project to complete the repainting of our workshop car, Lake Shore Electric 150. The side of the car visible to the public was painted and lettered back in 2005; finishing the other side has been a slightly slower project. But I managed to finish the last of the "tile red" painting that was required. Above, the belt rail before painting...

...and the belt rail after. The entire left side of the car's belt rail was painted thusly. Sorry for the poor photography!

I also did the belt rail across the back end of the car and the two visible end windows, which had been painted with brown primer previously. There are still a few spots that need white primer, then the last of the yellow can be applied. A second coat of orange is also needed on the left side and ends of the car.

But far more exciting things were happening elsewhere. The headline news for the weekend was the return to service of North Shore 160, shown here going through mechanical inspection on the pit. This car was taken out of service three or four years ago when one of its motors suffered a string banding failure (fortunately nothing more serious happened), but it really hasn't been in regular use since the 749's restoration was completed back in 2011. Last weekend the bad motor was swapped out and hooking everything back up was completed Saturday.

By the middle of the afternoon Zach, Good Nick, Thomas, Joel, and Richard had completed inspection work on the 160 and it got moved off the pit. The 68 was switched out of the way and the Electroliner A1 car brought to the pit from the west end of track 41 to have its articulated end jacked up. Between this and the motors in the foreground (the motor closest to the camera is the one removed from the 160; the other three are recently rebuilt) it's really Highwood Shops redux!

Here's what the articulation join on the 'Liner looks like, sorta. The 'L' car shop truck and tow bar are not normally part of the scenery at this point in the train.

The goal of the operation was to remove this brass bowl, which I believe sits in between the bolster "tongues" between the adjoining cars. It's cracked and will need to be repaired or replaced. After that project was done, the 'Liner car was put back in its normal spot and Sand Springs 68 was put over the pit so that Joel could get the door linkage working correctly. The 68 is scheduled to operate on Traction Weekend at the end of the month, since it qualifies for this year's theme of cars 100+ years of age. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the car; you'll just have to come out for that event and see it for yourself.

And then, as if the 160 and Electroliner weren't enough North Shore projects for the weekend, Zach, Thomas, and Nick did some more work on fiddling with the balky main journal bearing that's keeping the 251 out of the operating fleet. Here Nick tests out the laser thermometer while Zach puts some dye on the bearing after the most recent round of scraping so that high spots can be identified. Some progress was made but more remains to be done. On the right, Scott is working on rebuilding a Knutsen retriever.

Progress on other projects is being made too. Here the 65 is seen with its roof canvas recently removed. Some spot replacement of wood on the car's roof will be done and then it's time for new canvas and "lobster traps."

And despite his newfound affiliation with the political office, Tim Peters continues to barrel along with the 1754. It acquired an impressive amount of fresh paint over the past week, notably including "tile red" paint on the roof boards. It's really starting to look great! It appears that roof canvas may not be too terribly far in the future. This Chicago Elevated Railways livery that was in use between the early 1920s and late 1930s is really quite attractive.

And finally, many thanks to Dave Diamond and the Buildings & Grounds Department for putting up this memorial plaque in the wood shop to commemorate Bob Bruneau's contributions to the museum. It reprints the memorials that were published in Rail & Wire at the time of Bob's death in 2017. I'm grateful to Dave and his crew for creating this plaque and putting in place. Bob certainly is missed by a lot of us at the museum.