Three to Get Ready

Frank writes...

One of the only tasks remaining on the annual inspection of the CA&E cars was motor armature bearing lubrication on the 36, 308, and 309. These cars all have GE 66 motors with pretty badly designed and hard-to-reach armature bearings, so I had volunteered to do this work myself since I haven't been around to help with anything else on the inspection. I'd hoped to get it done on the day of the annual meeting but it snowed all day and I had lost my coat so that didn't happen. Today it was 70 and sunny so I took a day off of work and headed to Union. Gerry Dettloff was able to arrange for Henry Vincent to help me, and with Henry's assistance the job went very quickly. Inside of an hour I was able to check and, where necessary, oil the armature bearings on all eight motors on the three blue cars. I didn't get any pictures, as it wasn't very photogenic, but it's done.

Afterwards I was able to wander around a little, given that it was my first visit of 2019 that wasn't in a snowstorm. Above can be seen the attractive new sign outside the Schroeder Store.

Across the street from the store, the old ticket booth has been moved to a new location where it can be used on busy days. Fencing has also been installed to make it easier to monitor access to the property through the front entrance. This is a big improvement and the setup really looks quite nice. The ticket booth is an old North Shore Line gate man's shanty, or something, so it's an historic structure in its own right.

The big news, of course, is the initial foundation work on the Model Railroad Building, more officially known as the Multi Purpose Building or MPB. This is the new building's northeast corner, looking southwest from the northwest corner of the Schroeder Store. Got it? Good!

Some concrete has already been poured. It's got a ways to go but exciting progress is being made.

Over in Yard 5, there's been some switching. The X5001, an old Milwaukee Road caboose that had been rebuilt as some kind of superintendent's car, has been replaced at the west end of track 53 by a different Milwaukee Road caboose. This one is an example of a standard off-the-shelf wide-vision caboose and was recently restored by the Freight Car Special Projects Group. It's an odd shade of yellow to be sure.

There was plenty happening in the car shop. Gerry and a couple of other guys were working on rearranging the pallet racks in the "lean-three" while Pete worked on parts I believe were for the 160 while Rich worked on windows for the Green Bay & Western coach. There were also a couple of other guys at work. Here we see the oven which is soon to be used for our bearing project. It's been wired up and has apparently been test-fired by Joel.

Over at the old entrance, by Spaulding Tower, the ticket booth seen earlier is obviously gone and in its place is the Rota-Gate that used to sit at the south end of the 50th Avenue west track. It's been restored and will now be available (I guess) for visitors wanting a short-cut from the depot back to their cars, which is pretty neat. Some sort of trench was being dug out to the tower but I'm not sure what precisely was being done.

And then there's the big event for Memorial Day Weekend: it will be the first time since 1999 that we've run two of our steam engines simultaneously. The two contenders were spotted on the steam leads for coaling and watering; the 1630 will run this coming weekend and then the Shay the following weekend, with a steam test Saturday the 25th followed by revenue operation the next two days on the schedule.

There was a final bit of exciting news: on my way out of the museum I ran into Gregg, who was firing up the 45-tonner to go do some switching. And it wasn't just any switching: Mark from the crane crew has gotten the CGW wrecker ready to move and Gregg was going to tow it off of track 131! This will make it possible to move Shaker Heights 18, put it under wire, and begin some electrical testing on the car this summer. Stay tuned!