Tri-City Railway & Light 483 platform knee repair

Thanks to Dan, who has sent along the following photos showing progress on the platform knee of our Rock Island streetcar over the past two months. I've done my best to insert captions, maybe even correct ones in some cases. -Frank

This is the platform knee at the southwest corner of the car, looking out from underneath the platform at where it attaches to the car's side sill. Everything is bolted together - this car seems to use bolts everywhere and rivets almost nowhere.

This is the view from underneath the west end of the body, basically over the outboard axle of the shop truck, looking out to the north. The platform knee at the northwest corner has fallen away from the car body as a result of the bolts failing, causing the platform to droop.

Here we are looking at the same thing, but standing next to the car looking in. The vertical portion of the platform knee should be inboard of the side sill, as shown in the first photo, but here it's dropped down. At this point the knee is reinforced with a piece of L-channel maybe 24" long or so.

This is a view of the side sheet of the car, looking under the tarp. This series of car was built with steel up to the belt rail, but the primary structure of the car is wood - it doesn't have girder sides like, say, the 141 or 3142. The steel apparently serves as sheathing and also as a stiffener, so the car doesn't need truss rods.

Here's where the bolts to hold the platform knee are supposed to go through the side sheets, and thence through the side sill of the car.

Another view of the dropped platform knee.

Here's the dropped platform knee after the L-channel reinforcing bracket has been removed. These two pieces were held together with huck bolts, I believe.

We're back under the car, looking out from directly over the outboard axle. Primer has been applied to the side sill of the car and to the dropped platform knee.

Again, basically the same view but looking in from outside the car. The platform knee now has primer on it.

Another view of the platform knee and the holes through the side sill. There are more holes in the platform knee because the huck bolts holding the L-bracket reinforcement plate in place don't go all they way through the side sill.

Nice shiny black paint on the platform knee.

And here we are on Saturday evening, after the platform knee has been jacked back into place. I skipped out to go get food once the first couple of bolts were in place, but Dan and Nathan stuck around to fight with the car and get all of the rest of the bolts in place. The bolts with hex nuts are the huck bolts holding the knee to the L-bracket, while the bolts with square nuts are the ones going all the way through the side sill and side sheet of the car.

Here we see new bolts replacing more that had sheared off, in this case holding a flange for part of the platform frame into the side sill and side sheet of the car.

This photo was taken at night and under the tarp, but you can see the 10 bolts holding the platform knee in place under the side sheet, plus three of the four bolts holding the platform frame piece to the side sheet on the right (the fourth bolt would require some wood disassembly to replace). And with this, TCR&L 483 is once again relatively solid and ready to be switched if needed.