Sunday Report

Frank writes...

Sunday was my first day at IRM of 2024, and the car shop was a beehive of activity. For my part, I spent much of my time on the fender for the 18. To keep the "fence" at the back of the fender from flopping down, it's held to the dash by a short piece of chain hooked to a little eye-bolt on the dash of the car. Trouble is, that was gone, so it had to be replaced. Joel found me the department's supply of hook-and-eye hardware, and lo and behold, one of them was pretty close to right! I was able to screw it in place and Richard helped by breaking out the torch to "heat and beat" it into a smaller loop so that it looks like what was originally there. Steven helped carry both pieces of the fender over to the car and test-fit them.

Voila! I may need to make a few adjustments so that the fender sits square, but right now I can't even step back a few feet to look at it because there's another car there, so the fine-tuning can wait until spring. We also need to replace the chains holding it up, because the chains in the photo, while original, are very rusty and I do not want one of them to break while in motion. Many thanks to Good Nick for helping to hunt down the correct hardware:

QUESTION: What we are looking for is supersized sash chain, with a link "frequency" of 1-3/8" (in other words, roughly 9 links per foot), material about 1/8" thick, link width 0.275", and link "length" (basically, the opening in each link) of about 0.84". This is roughly twice as big as the largest size McMaster-Carr offers, trade size #65. Anyone know of a source for large sash chain like this? Or is it extinct?

Anyway, here's the fender when held in the raised, or stowed, position. In other news about car 18, I inspected the air compressor for the first time since it flashed over in December. As hoped, there does not appear to be any damage, just a very small amount of copper spalling at the ends of the bars. We are going to see if we can raise the spring tension on the brushes slightly, in the hope that may reduce the arcing and ring fire, and we'll try it again when the weather warms up.

As I mentioned, there was a lot going on. Above, Richard is painting 4x4 posts that will hold up a display of historic rail he's been working on (more here). I believe this will go in the west end of Barn 8. Just past the posts are two replacement North Shore windows for the 749, which Zach and Steven were working on painting.

The weekday guys weren't out, but they've been hard at work building a new door for North Shore MD car 213. They built/rebuilt two doors for the car a couple of years ago, so now they're back to finish the job.

"Hey, bud! C'mere a minute... wanna paint a fender? All the cool kids are doin' it." The west end of the shop is now Fender Central, with the fender for Michigan Electric 28 - sitting upside down in the above photo - in the shop for a paint job while the "fence" for the 18's fender is leaned up against some stuff in the background.

Nathan and Good Nick were working on repairing the controller at the (currently) west end of the 3142, which had seen some reports of the line switch dropping out. This is mostly a standard K-35, but it has a ratchet device for opening the line switch as soon as the controller handle starts to be backed off. The ratchet, with its spring visible if you squint, is at the bottom of the controller drum next to Nathan's knee.

There were plenty of other things going on. Gregg, Brian, Mikey, Bob, and Jeron were working on the 1702, Joel was keeping busy stowing Christmas lights from the HHR event, Zach spent some time hunting down spare parts we need, and the Electroliner crew was hard at work over in Barn 7. A good time was had by all.