Wednesday Brief

 The first task on Wednesday was to put the original bearing back together on the 309 so it can be moved over the pit at some point.  On Sunday the heavy motor cap was lifted onto the platform, and after some effort I was able to get the two halves in place on the axle, as seen here:

And from there, it's relatively simple to bolt the assembly together, although it's rather cramped.

So I removed the red tags, and the car can be run under its own power whenever necessary.  And I worked on getting everything ready for operation with the 36 and 319 on Saturday.

Pete and Fritz are working on window and door frames for the latest Freight Dept. project (now that the bobber is finished), a Pennsylvania RR tool car.  One of these days we'll have to get some pictures of it.

And here Victor is running lumber through the jointer for the tool car siding:

And here are the folding doors for the 306:  

Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning

Since we're going to be having operations after dark on both Labor Day and Member's Day weekends, it's time for another exciting aspect of historical accuracy: oil-fired lanterns and marker lights!

Railroading started, of course, long before the invention of the electric light bulb, and oil lamps continued to be used for hand lanterns, switch stands, signals, and so on for many years afterwards because they were much more reliable.  It's impossible to predict when a battery is going to die or a light bulb will burn out.  But as long as you have an easily-checked supply of fuel, wicks, and matches, you can keep an oil lamp burning forever.  With modern technology, of course, electric lights are so reliable that no one on the railroads would think of going back to the hassle of maintaining oil lamps -- except us.

Luckily we have a good supply of authentic marker lights for use on our interurban cars, as seen here.  These are Adlake marker lamps designed to fit the brackets installed at each end of the cars.  (I also have an IC hand lantern that belonged to my uncle's father-in-law.)  Each marker has two Fresnel lenses, and each lens has two movable color filters, red and green.  Thus each light can show either white, red, or green.  Some of the mechanisms for moving the filters are jammed, however, but I have it arranged so each lamp shows red on one side and white on the other.  That's all we'll need for our operation.

Color filter control

The font and burner, with the control knob on the far right.

The top is hinged.  The chimney is in two parts, easily removable.

On the CA&E, for instance, the markers generally only had to be changed at an end of the line, where there was always a convenient platform and plenty of time to rearrange things.  For our operation, however, things are a little less convenient.  You do NOT want to get off the train in the dark at Kishwaukee Grove.  Anyway, the solution is to have marker lights at each end, and rotate them 90 degrees when changing ends.  We'll also have a headlight at each end.

For fuel, we generally use lamp oil which is readily available at hardware and home stores.  I really don't know what the difference is between this and kerosene, but they wouldn't be selling it if it wasn't safe.  And wicks are also available -- evidently there are plenty of people who like old kerosene lamps with glass globes, similar to railroad hand lanterns.

In operation, the main challenge is to keep the flame trimmed.  If it's too strong, it can set the residue on the inside surfaces on fire, which isn't good.  Even a small flame can be seen at a long distance with these Fresnel lenses, as long as you're near the axis.  Of course, you don't want the flame to go out, but these lamps are designed stay lit through a hurricane, I think.  And there were no hurricanes in the forecast for McHenry County last time I looked.

But as I've said before, nighttime operations are always a blast.  Be there and say hello!

Line Car Report

 Gregg Wolfersheim reports on recent progress on Illinois Terminal line car 1702:

Several weeks ago the roof of the line car was painted to seal it up.

And then, suddenly, the four lift posts disappeared. This will make it easier to apply the canvas.

The canvas was spread out on some pavement and thoroughly washed.

This past Sunday a system was designed and built to start stretching the canvas.

Here is the other end slowly coming up to the edge. Hopefully in another week it will extend past the edge. Then we'll be ready to start tacking it down.

Them's the Brakes

Frank writes...

Earlier this year, we took delivery of some new brake shoes for Shaker Heights 18. One of the shoes that came with the car was unusable for regular service and needed to be replaced, and as luck would have it, the car uses a design that seems to have been practically unique to Cleveland Railway. Fortunately, we were able to have a handful of new shoes cast, and on Sunday we were finally able to install one on the car.

Voila! The nice brand-new shoe is shown here during test fitting, with the cotter pin attachment method clearly visible. A huge thank you goes out to Jimmy and Bill, who worked with me on this at times three-man job, and to Joel, Mikey, Nathan, and the other guys who brought the car over to the inspection pit on Saturday evening. Joel pointed out that the 18 was the first car inside the newly built section of Barn 4, though of course it was only passing through on its way to the pit and was being pushed by a diesel, to boot. But hey, I'll take it.

After some work on brake adjustment and other pit tasks like checking pole piece clearance, we took the car around the car line once to make sure the brakes weren't binding. We concluded that they were pretty good, though the various pivot points on the truck rigging could use some oil. Here, the car shows off its nice red roof at Central Avenue, though of course I forgot to bring my line pole filter.

Another nice view of the car's newly painted roof is this shot, taken Saturday evening by Mikey M. Don't get too used to that section of old paint on the side of the car at the front of the drop section.

Following a successful test trip we put the 18 back in Barn 7 and headed to dinner. After dinner, I put some white primer on the bare metal (and bare Bondo) spots on the last unpainted section of the left side of the car below the belt rail.

The last unpainted section of the right side of the car below the belt rail, the panel in between the doors, also got white primer. Before heading home, I was also able to create a temporary bell cord hanger using a strip of leather. The 18 has been missing the hanger located over the conductor's station since we got the car; the loop that the bell cord passes through came with the car but not the fixture that attaches to the ceiling, so we'll need to find a replacement for that. In the meantime, I rigged up a temporary hanger, so now the conductor can signal the motorman. Thanks to Jimmy and Bill for removing the loop casting and to Matthew for helping install the new hanger.

So what else was happening? A few of the regulars were out of town (and, in some cases, out of the country) but when I first arrived the loop at Electric Park was veritably strewn with buses.

It turns out that this week, the Hoffman Bus Garage will be getting lights for the first time since it was built about two decades ago. So that's exciting. Here, you can see a demonstration of how you "switch" buses, with Richard in the backhoe and Steven at the wheel of our North Shore ACF bus.

Here's another view of the ACF bus. This is a neat piece, I'll admit, and a good candidate for turn-key off-site restoration (hint, hint to you North Shore fans). The bus guys recently sent out most, or maybe all, of the windows from this bus for re-glazing.

Hey, you like breakfast, right? Of course you do! It's the most important meal of the day. And what better way to enjoy your breakfast than in the historic dining car Ceres as you rocket down the IRM main line at speeds approaching 30mph? This has never before been possible, but it is now. Click here to find out more.

Saturday Operations

It's now just a week until Labor Day Weekend.  A lot will be happening over the weekend, which you can read all about on the IRM website, but in particular we'll be running the CA&E wood cars on Saturday evening until about 10 PM.  You won't want to miss it -- nighttime operations are always a blast.  I spent some time on Saturday getting things ready, checking the oil, and so on.  Nothing much to take a picture of.  But several other things were going on, as always:

In one of many current B&G projects, a new (antique) traffic signal is being installed on the northwest corner of Depot and Central, just like the one on the southeast corner.

But in railroad news, the Pennsy bobber was moved from Barn 10 over to Barn 9, where it will be on display.  It really looks great.  The brake system still needs some work, so it will not be used in service until that gets fixed, but otherwise it's a real gem.  

And the Mt. Harvard was being switched out:

The track department was replacing ties on this stretch of the car line alongside Barn 9:

Among other things, the upper part of the 1808 has been painted:

This would have been a nice picture, but somehow I got something on my camera, which was later cleaned off.  Anyway, the 1630 was pulling the coach train, the 431 and 460 were providing interurban service, and the Rock Island 4506 was in Diesel Take the Throttle service all day.

Finally, I haven't done anything on the Jewell Road shelter for a couple of months because it's been too hot and sunny.  But today was much better, so I did some more scraping.  A lot of the paint still won't come off, so the changes aren't obvious.  But I'll keep picking away at it.  I also have a couple of pictures of the interior, such as they are.

Beat the Heat

Frank writes...

We've had a pretty mild summer so far, all things considered, but Sunday was a bit different - the high was 94. That's not ideal for roof work, since it's probably 15 or 20 degrees warmer "upstairs" in the barn than at ground level. But I wanted to get that final coat of paint on the 18's roof so I got out to the museum early, before it got too hot.

So there you go - a freshly painted roof and the plastic taken down from around the car. Many thanks to Joel, Greg, and Matthew for their help with all of this! The masking tape didn't work perfectly, and there are some spots on the letterboard where the thin roof paint ran down behind the roof-edge bead strip, but I need to strip and repaint the letterboard at some point anyway so this isn't a big problem. Stay tuned to see how it looks out in the sunlight!

Quick Visit to Oregon

It's been several years since I last visited Oregon, so I took the opportunity to stop in briefly on a recent road trip.   Unfortunately, on a Monday morning there was no one around, and the depot was closed.  It still looks nice, of course, and the local preservation group keeps it open on weekends.

But the more interesting part was the Burlington dome-obs car Silver View, which arrived a couple of years ago.  It's privately owned, and the owner plans to make it available for charter trips eventually.  Before that happens, though, there's evidently a lot of restoration to be done.  Some lights were on inside the car, but there was no one around.  You can read about it at this link.

But as usual, there's no place like home!

Second Coat

Frank writes...

My priority for Sunday was putting a second coat of paint on the roof of the 18. A huge thank you goes out to Pete for mixing up more boiled linseed oil-based roof paint and to Joel for procuring the necessary supplies!

Sorry for the fuzzy pictures. This second coat makes a big difference. We have enough paint for a third coat, so I want to put that on, and then we'll bring the car outside and see how it looks. I also did a little more sanding on the sides; small areas on both the left and right sides still need grey paint below the belt rail, but the exterior repaint continues chugging along.

In other news, Zach brought out swatches of custom-made seat fabric that he was able to procure. One was for North Shore "diamond pattern" green plush while the other, shown here at the top, is the type of material used on the CA&E 450-series cars. It looks striped but it's really all the same color, just cut differently row by row - some looped over and some "shaved" off. We agreed that the color and "look" was about perfect (the original sample visible at the bottom of the frame is obviously worn and faded). The spacing is ever-so-slightly wider than original, and there is a bit too much of a "hill and dale" texture to the rows, so we'll ask the manufacturer about that. But watch this space for news on a potential project to reupholster the seats in one or more of the 450s.

In other news, there was a lot going on. Gregg was working on the 1702, and hopefully we'll soon have a more comprehensive update, but here you can see canvas hanging off the roof. So that's exciting! Doodlebug Bob was working on machining another armature for a DB-160 contactor for the 1565, while Norm and Zach were working on chasing down electrical gremlins in the Electroliner.

I also noticed that Frank, Mike, and Steve installed the first set of original-type blinker doors on our Kansas City PCC. I'm not sure whether these doors are permanently installed or whether this is a test installation, but this will certainly make a big difference in the car's appearance. The Philadelphia-area plywood doors, like what's to the left, make for quite a contrast.

The real focus of the day, of course, was Diesel Days. The property was abuzz, quite literally, all day with the thrum of prime movers, and almost everywhere you looked it seemed like there was another train movement happening. It looked like there was a good crowd, too, and I heard nothing but rave reviews of the event from the visitors I spoke with. I know we had visitors from the UK, the Netherlands, and Dubai who flew in for the event. The ED claimed that there were also signatures in the visitor logbook from Japan and Switzerland. This is becoming quite an international destination! And to top it all off, it sounds like things ran smoothly throughout the entire weekend, with virtually no operational hiccups or mechanical problems. Kudos to Jamie and all of the volunteers in the Diesel Department and Operations who pulled it off!

309 Bearing Update

 A couple of steps were required to prepare the new bearing castings:

The edges that were soldered need to be filed flat.  Also flashings on the drilled holes need to be filed off.  That wasn't too hard.

But the bearings also have little notches to allow oil to weep from the axle bearing surface to the face of the collar, which presses against the hub of the wheel.  Actually, when I removed this old bearing, all of the notches were plugged with oil and dirt, and I don't know what can be done about that in the long run.  But for now, I'll put notches in the new bearings and hope for the best.  Somebody must have thought they were important.

They're not evenly spaced or identical in size and shape, so they can be made with a hacksaw and file.

And when that's done, we have an old pair and a new pair, ready for installation.

Unfortunately, when time came to actually install the new bearings, I was unable to get the top half more than a couple of inches in.  I can't see where it is binding up, but I suspect the motor needs to be moved away from the axle a little.  I'm able to lift the motor easily enough, but not move it horizontally.   And in cases like this, 1/16" might as well be a mile.  I have one or two other things to try, but this may have to be done over the pit.  And that involves some delay.

Fortunately, the old top half can still be inserted, since it's so much thinner.  I left the car with the motor sitting on the old top half:

The 309 cannot be moved like this, of course, and it's been red-tagged.  But it will not be hard to put the old bearing back together when we have a chance to put it over the pit.

On the whole the bearing project is going well, and I'm planning to locate a foundry to produce more castings next week if I can.  If you have any constructive suggestions, you can PM me and we'll discuss it back-channel.