Brake work

Frank writes...

Sunday saw more progress on the new brake parts for the 18. The first task was to drill the holes into the new brake bars (these two pieces actually serve as something of a split brake rod, albeit a very short one). This was a multi-step process but it went pretty quickly.

Thanks to Zach for grabbing a photo of me using the drill press in the shop. I hadn't realized this, but this drill press came to us from the CTA. So there you go. After the holes were drilled (many thanks to Richard for his help with this), it was over to the lean-three to cut down the length a little bit on the big band saw. Joel and Tom Schneider, who was passing through, helped get the band saw set up properly. And then finally I used an angle grinder to put a radius onto one corner of each bar. At the end of the day the parts above got a quick coat of paint to protect them a bit. Next time I'm out, they'll be installed on the 18 and the car's brake system will be up to par.

During the week the guys made some progress on setting up to make new "tin can" housings for the 18's tail lights, so that's exciting. Above are the inner and outer castings in primer. At some point I'll have to bring in the Bankers Grey paint and put a coat of paint on these. Then reassembly can begin.

Of course there was a lot happening, as always. Joel and the guys are making progress on the 415 step repair project. Some of the progress is shown above, with the gear installed back on the step. It's not visible in this photo but the step support was also welded up. Next the gearbox gets reassembled.

Here's what Zach was working on for much of the weekend: the smoker bulkhead door for the 757. Unfortunately this door was removed some years back and the spring-loaded door closer was lost, so a new one had to be procured. It can be seen at the nearest corner of the door. The door got a fresh coat of light green on both sides during the weekend.

Unfortunately the new door closer is just slightly different than the old one, so the small metal plate that covers it will have to be created anew. Here's a wooden form that will be used to shape some sheet metal to create this cover. Zach spent much of Sunday "hooveling" with a chisel and rasp. Richard helped quite a bit with this project too.

And there was more going on. Tim was working on his ticket booth while Jack and Joel worked to repair the whistle valves on Sand Springs 68. Greg and Good Nick were out on the bucket truck doing line work. This was a lot tougher than last week because of the recent snow and ice, which made getting the bucket truck rail-borne an odyssey and then made it necessary to heat up the west switch so that it would throw. But they made some progress in switching feeder cables over to new poles on the Karstens curve.

And finally, our "bird house" hand-activated signal from Trolleyville is done and nicely painted up. With a light bulb and a couple of wires it could even be lit. I'm not certain who (if anyone) is running the Barn 4 Signal Display these days, but this could be mounted outside the barn or we could just hang it from the wall inside one of the barns at some point.