Sunday Progress

Frank writes...

Sunday afternoon I was back out at the museum to take advantage of car 18 being over the pit. The big news, such as it is, is that we are going to place an order for new brake shoes for the car, which will be needed to put it into (eventual) public operation.

As shown previously, this car uses very unusual brake shoes held in with large cotter pins. Fortunately, we were able to get in contact with Don Curry of the Seashore Trolley Museum, who about 15 years ago made a pattern for these brake shoes and had a run cast for their identical car 1227. And it turned out that, as luck would have it, the foundry that made those shows 15 years ago 1) still has the pattern, and 2) is still willing to cast these shoes. Furthermore, Seashore loaned us one of the shoes they got 15 years ago to test-fit on the 18. Above, the new shoe is on the left with one of the car's old shoes on the right. The new shoe fit perfectly, so the next step is to wear it. Well, cast more and wear them.

And that's where you come in! We need to raise $1500 for a run of new brake shoes for the 18, and all contributions are appreciated. You can donate here or by mailing in a check. Make sure to mark checks for Shaker Heights 18 (as opposed to Union Pacific 18). No amount is too small to help!

So a good portion of my afternoon was taken up with an inspection of the 18's running gear, to identify any other issues that might affect our plans to put the car into public operation at some point. A couple of minor things were found, but nothing significant (nor particularly expensive to fix). So after that, I spent some time needle-chipping the paint off of the front corner post and front bumper, with the results shown above.

After dinner, Greg did some electrical testing on the marker light circuit, and confirmed Zach's suspicions from last year that the failure of the markers to light is due to a bad resistor. He removed the above assembly, which is pretty much just a tin can with the resistor inside of it that sits underneath the rear bench seat inside the car. We will need to try and figure out the value of this resistor and then order a new one, after which - hopefully - the rear markers will light.

Speaking of dinner, it was a very nice outdoor BBQ at the Central Avenue Pavilion in honor of Marcus' birthday. A good crowd of volunteers turned out, as shown here. Happy birthday, Marcus!

I pointed out to Joel that it was foolish to walk the long distance from the car shop to Central Avenue when we could take public transit instead, so he relented and a group of us took the 18 over to dinner instead. Nick, shown here, spent a while expounding upon the car's historic significance to our collection. Nathan and Mikey are in the cab.

And finally, though rewinding a bit, earlier in the day I again stopped by the bus barn on my way in. Richard and Jerry were back working on cleaning out and stabilizing the CTA articulated trolley bus. It hadn't really moved laterally since Saturday, but they had aired up the tires, so I guess it moved upwards slightly. In case you were curious, this is a pretty weird articulated because the articulation joint only moves vertically - the front and rear sections don't turn side-to-side at all, and both the front and rear axles "steer." It's definitely an oddball!