Sunday journal entry

Frank writes...

I was out Sunday afternoon and, though I didn't arrive until a bit later than usual, it was quite a productive day in the end. The first thing I had to do was go over to the west end of Barn 4 and check out the newest resident:

CTA 41 was on the pit and Jack, Richard, and a newer volunteer whose name I didn't get were working on inspecting it for much of the afternoon. In the meantime, I dragooned Nick E and Greg into helping me out on the 18. First, we installed and wired in the two marker lights that were rebuilt over the winter. Unfortunately they still don't work, so there's some issue in the system - possibly a resistor - that we'll need to chase down. Then, since revenue service was ending, we decided to take the car for a few trips around the streetcar line to check journal bearing temperature.

In general the car performed well, and it's obvious that the fresh paint will make a real difference in its appearance. The two bearings we repacked last year were #2L and #4R. The former ran cool the entire time while the latter ran a bit warmer than the others, but never got more than 20-25 degrees warmer than the rough average of the other bearings. So I'm pretty happy with that. There are some other minor issues we'll want to look at and we need to clean out the air compressor valves and the master controller.

Here's a look at the newly-reinstalled markers at the back end of the car. While all of the journals ran just fine for several trips around the car line, when we were putting the car back in the barn one of them started "singing" just as we got up to the barn. This is the same thing that had happened previously - this car just doesn't like backing up! So at some point we will need to run it back and forth and figure out which bearing is doing that, and why.

As we were putting the 18 back in the barn, the 41 got moved back to Barn 8 and two other temporary residents of track 41, the 415 and the 160, also go moved out. Then the Electroliner, seen here in the background, was switched over to the pit. I think they're doing some quick inspection work and then it will be put back in Barn 7 as work on it continues to progress.

And finally, I primed three windows for the 18 that my father had left in the wood shop a few weeks ago. I kept forgetting to do this but these are now ready for cream paint and then installation. A fourth window in the wood shop is already painted and ready to go back on the car.