Sunday miscellany

Frank writes...

I was a bit delayed getting out to the museum Sunday but still managed to get some stuff done. It turned out to be a day with a little bit of everything.

First up, I was tasked with turning the 4' long piece of steel that Joel obtained in Rockford for the 18 into two 2' pieces of steel. The results are shown here; these two pieces will be bent and then cut to length and drilled to create two more short brake rods. The originals that we are replicating are to the right on the work bench.

I also put more oil in the forklift per Joel's instructions. Then it was over to the "lean-three" to put a coat of aluminum paint on our trolley poles. The two poles for the 453 are in the foreground while beyond them is a slightly shorter pole earmarked for the 36. These are now all ready to go out to their respective cars and, later on, be installed.

By the time I was done with that, it was a bit after 4pm and time to get things prepped for the Holiday Lights Experience. The 19 had been parked at Barn 9 North as shown so that the wye remained clear, so I moved it over to Central Avenue and plugged in Jolly Polk Santa. Others including Richard and Joel got the 749 and the 4000s going and plugged in a lot of strings of lights.

Then the 251 caught my eye. Zach had been able to procure a less-worn journal wedge from a spare truck and installed it in the car. A couple of short test trips Saturday night suggested that the car's longstanding problem with a bad journal may be solved, but more testing was called for. So Zach, Greg, and Nick made a couple of low-speed trips down the main line with the car, stopping at regular intervals to "shoot" the bearings with a laser thermometer. I'm a fan of railfans taking pictures of railfans taking pictures, so I managed to get Abby taking a photo of Jack - home from college for the holidays - on the car's steps. I then went along on another test trip. It had been a while since I'd ridden in the 251 and the prospect of it rejoining the operating fleet is an exciting one.

Back at the barn, I helped Joel move some large jacks around and then the 68 got moved onto the inspection pit. It needs some brake work on one of its trucks so that will be among the planned wintertime projects. With luck, the car will be available for revenue service again next year.

And finally, at the end of the night, I helped Richard in trying to further disassemble the marker light from the 18. A week-long soak in Evapo-rust helped but some additional cajoling was needed in order to remove the red lens from the casting. But it did come out and is shown here. Richard tried a few rounds of heating the lens casting, which as shown is actually two castings that are currently painted/rusted together, but no luck yet in separating them. But we don't give up that easily. Stay tuned!

The other notable project that was underway was that Joel joined Andy Sunderland in patching a hole that had developed in the tarpaper roof on the Kankakee streetcar body. This is one of the few electric cars still stored outside so it's a priority to keep it somewhat watertight. Of course more was going on too. Steel was procured for brake parts for the 68; Zach, Nick, and Greg cleaned up governors that then got installed on the 409 and 251; and I dropped off the last of the Scalzo Collection 4x6's that got sorted and cataloged. But that's not the end of the project: Richard gave me a box of 5x7's to similarly sort through. So keep an eye out for more "mystery photos" coming up. And, of course, tell your friends about Happy Holiday Railway. It's been extended one more weekend, to the 26th-27th, so you still have a chance to see what the whole town is talking about!