More fascinating details from last weekend, provided by Steven:
Saturday Progress
Saturday was inspection class day here in the Car Shop. Joel spent the time going through what needs to be inspected on one of the many revenue streetcars. Mikey, Nathan, Jimmy, and I spent the day going through the car and checking various components.
First up for me was checking the grids for anything stuck between them and making sure all the nuts were tight. Over time, a few of the nuts start to get a bit loose after hundreds of miles in a circle around the car line. After that, it was time to take a look at all the journal boxes and make sure they were all lubricated correctly.
Next up was inspecting and cleaning each of the controllers. Jimmy worked on those while Mikey, Nathan, and I started taking a look at the motors. Checking the motors was a lot more involved than I had expected; luckily, we were able to work from both the top and bottom of the motors and sometimes wedged a bit inside, as Mikey demonstrated.
Due to the size of the pit in the shot, we had to pump up the car and shift it over half way through so we could access the motors on the other end of the car. While we had the car pumped up, we wanted to make sure the compressor was turning on and off at the correct time, among a few other things. Here is a short clip of the compressor pumping air to get us up to the 80 PSI needed for the compressor to stop running.
Sunday Progress
After a bit of a late-night Saturday, we return for some more work to be done Sunday. Within minutes of arriving, I had a project to work on: adding a few washers to the trolley wheel on the east end of 3142. Throughout the last operating season, it was noticed that the wheel on that end of the car had a bit more lateral play in it than it should. After getting up onto the car to take a look at the wheel, I had to get a quick shot from a vantage point that few get to see. The wheel took a bit of time to get apart and reassemble with an extra washer in there, but it did eventually get done. After the wheel was reassembled, it was time to help out with a bit of painting. The shop was busy with people cleaning off various parts and preparing them for painting with glyptal.
2 comments:
Paul Hough asks, How does one sign up for Inspection class? I would really like to learn more about control and direct air brake systems on any of the street cars and interurbans!
Just contact Joel through normal means. The inspection season will go through the end of October. Not every weekend, but there's a plan in place. We are always happy to teach how to do the necessary work to keep the cars in service.
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