Shrink-wrapped to Preserve Freshness

Monday was another productive day at the old carbarn.  I'll tell you more about the 306 later.  Meanwhile, I started by installing some more screws to hold down the trolley boards, but that's not very photogenic.  I then modified the shims as needed and managed to attach both horns in a permanent fashion.  So that's a good step forward.  

Then I decided to attack the cables in the #1 attic with the chewed-up insulation.  There are two main power cables in this attic; one comes out from top of the electrical cabinet and goes up through the roof to the trolley bases.  This is the path of current when taking power from the poles.  In the picture below you can see where the cable is completely bare.   I used a light box to check that both cables were still insulated from the car.

Fortunately we had some large heat-shrink tubing on hand, and I only needed about 10" for this run.  I put the tubing over the bare spot, cut a hole in the canvas, and ran the cable up through the roof.

With the big casting installed, it looks like this.

Later, with a heat gun the tubing is shrunk onto the cable so it won't move.  And it's rated for 600V.

The other cable starts at the bus jumper, passes through the attic to another hole in the roof, and then along the trolley boards to the other end, where it connects with the other bus jumper.  We use the bus jumpers only in emergencies, but in any case we want it to be right.  This cable is somewhat smaller in diameter, but much longer.  We had some tubing of the right size, but not quite enough.

In the picture below, the cable starts at about the buzzer pull switch and goes up at 11:00.  There's a metal bracket holding it, and below that is rubber tubing, so that part is OK.  Beyond that almost all of the insulation was chewed.  There's a small bracket just out of sight at the top, but that will be easy to deal with.  Somebody tried wrapping the bare cable with electrical tape, but it just comes off when you handle it, so I removed it all later.  Once we have another 3' or so of tubing, the cable can be fixed permanently and passed up through the roof.

This high-voltage heat-shrink tubing is important for public health.  It keeps our power electrons nice and fresh and prevents them from contaminating our bodies and nervous systems with unwanted currents.

Then I attached another drip rail.  You've seen one, you've seen them all.

At the same time, John, Gerry, and Fred were hard at work on the 306.  Among other things, they have now started on a complete roof job, which the car needs.  I was too busy to get many pictures, but by the end of the day they had removed both poles, both trolley bases, and started on removing what's left of the trolley boards and saddles.  I even got to help briefly.  The trolley bases were lifted with block and tackle hooked to the rafters, then each base had to be pulled over with a guy line so it could be lifted down onto the aisle.  Since I was on the roof of the 453, it was the best location from which to pull the base over the aisle.  

They are carefully taking measurements and making sure the new roof will be an exact reproduction.

And Pete was working on the interior of the 160.

So that's it for Monday.  By the way, the new south wye switch sure looks nice!