Chipping Away

Frank writes…

Work is progressing on the 451, and the car was abuzz with activity Sunday.

In fact, it was so abuzz that you'd have been unwise to get too close to the car without hearing protection for much of the day. That's because there were usually two of us needle-chipping in the smoker. Greg, who has been spearheading much of this work, traded off with Jimmy and me. The above photo was taken after we'd been working maybe an hour...

...and here we are at the end of the day. There's plenty left to do, of course, and we haven't even started on the main compartment, but it's really moving along nicely. You'll notice I taped up signs to indicate which side of the car is the "L" side and which is the "R" side. Per normal CA&E practice, these are reversed from what you'd expect: if you're the motorman at the #1 end, the "L" side is to your right and the "R" side to your left. But I digress.

Here's the view looking the other way. More than half of the smoker ceiling is done, which is good, because working over your head is always annoying. We also did a few miscellaneous tasks like taking down more interior light fixtures and tracing the "451" off the bulkhead. Greg removed more wooden trim pieces and started working on removing the partition door so it can be taken into the shop, stripped, and repainted on the bench.

Outside the car, Ashtin worked tirelessly on wire-wheeling baggage racks, which is a time-consuming but important task. Close inspection revealed that these baggage racks were painted blue, same as the rest of the interior. That will be a difference from the 460, which kept its blue interior until the end but had its baggage racks repainted silver at some point. Zach, Greg, and I removed a couple more racks from the car because Ashtin was making such rapid progress that he was about to run out of work!

On Saturday, Dan spent a while honing the cylinders in the 451's DH-25 air compressor, shown here. There's one valve that won't come apart, and we need to make a gasket for this thing, but the compressor is close to having a clean bill of health.

The 451 wasn't even the only CA&E curve-sider being worked on. On Saturday, a couple of the guys took the train door my father rebuilt over to the 460 and installed it. I tried it myself on Sunday; it works like a charm and doesn't scrape on the threshold at all. The guys then brought the 460's other train door, which sticks badly, back to the car shop for repair work.

In other news, don't get used to that brown and orange on the end of the 1268. As you can see, Tim has been painting the car with a fresh, shiny coat of Pullman green. With its semi-convertible windows, it's really going to be a unique and enjoyable car to ride in at the museum.

Here's something I didn't expect to see at the museum. This overgrown beetle-looking thing is a remote-controlled car mover, a battery-powered (I think?) critter that can move a car back and forth at low speed. It's essentially a hy-rail vehicle, so it can drive onto the tracks, lower its railroad wheels, and couple up. We got it for a song from government surplus because the FDA facility in Chicago is being closed and razed; the critter has a bad control module (or something) but is only a few years old and is supposedly quite fixable. The plan is to use this thing for moving cars around the car shop.

And in other shop news, the gantry inside the Track 41 East roll-up door is complete and the overhead wire troughs have been hung all the way to the door. The flip-up wire bridge isn't installed yet, but we're getting close to being able to re-hang wire all the way from the streetcar line to the inspection pit. That will be nice.

Brian and Will were working on rebuilding gauges and other things in the shop. Brian sent me the following three photos showing a peek into their work.

Brian was working on repairing air gauges for the 306. The one shown here had some damaged pieces, in addition to the bad rust, so was not repairable without extensive replacement of components.

Here's a view of the gauge showing the face.

And here's another gauge; I believe this was taken before rebuilding, but this one was repaired and tested. Will was working on repairs to a straight-air motorman's valve, including lapping the valve, as well as some other air-related projects.

Richard and Zach spent time over at the Electroliner helping that crew troubleshoot some wiring issues. They wanted to light up the A1 car, now that the entire ceiling is reassembled, just to identify any problems. Chasing down a disconnected wire took a bit of time, but afterward, voila! (Thanks to Zach for the below photos.)

In this photo of the end of the train, you may notice not just the new markers but also a white light in the center window. That light was a requirement of the 'L' system. On the standard cars, they'd hang a removable light from a chain, but that didn't work on the 'Liners. So, someone from Harrison Street went to Gimbel's and bought a quartet of desk lamps, which were duly affixed to metal brackets inside the end window. These disappeared when the trains when to SEPTA in 1964, but the 'Liner restoration crew has sourced lamps that match the originals and the first has now been installed.

Another milestone on the 'Liner is that the complete restoration of the A1 cab is just about complete. It looks every bit as good as new, and probably better. Kevin on the 'Liner team has been in charge of this work and he has really outdone himself. Hey, no spitting!

Here, we're looking over the controller at the center window. You can see the new white 'L' light to the left of the voltage meter for the battery system. Underneath the window is the emergency headlight, which could be flipped 180 degrees up to shine through the center window in the event that the main headlight overhead failed.

A look overhead shows snap switches for the emergency headlight and the rear white 'L' light, with the ammeter and air gauge to the right. The 'Liners ran a 110-pound brake pipe, because obviously more is better.

We're looking left over the emergency headlight through a little window that afforded a bit of a sightline to the left. The red box holds the changeover switch from trolley to third rail.

You know how the rulebook is written in blood? This sign is written in snapped hand brake chains.

The motorman's-eye view out the front window. Zach was telling us about the brakes on the train: "handle off" is the release position; then there's a quadrant that runs the electropneumatic self-lapping brake; then you get to the "normal" air portion, which is your backup in case your batteries are dead or your EP brake has some other issue. First is lap, then apply, then emergency.

There's even more, because there was a big switch move on Saturday and a couple of our fearless freelance photographers were there to take photos of the excitement, so stay tuned!