Motion Everywhere

Frank writes...

Sunday wasn't just the second day of Bunny Trolley Hop, it was a day of movement, including after the event ended.

What I spent a good part of my afternoon moving was third rail beams. The quartet of beams built by my father over the winter were taken over to Barn 8 for installation on the 460. Above is the one at the current northwest corner of the car...

...and here's the one at the northeast corner. A huge THANK YOU goes out to Greg and Good Nick, who helped install the beams. We also got the beam at the southwest corner of the car installed, but the fourth had fouled bolt holes, so that was left for remedial drilling and later installation. I strongly suspect the 460 hasn't worn third rail beams since 1962, so it's really nice to see these on the car again.

Another thing that got moved was the 453's coupler! Dan F dropped the coupler off the west end of the car and hauled it away, as shown here surrounded by the blocking used to ease it down off the car. Yours truly helped. This coupler is missing a few parts, but we have a plan to address this so that the 453 can be run in train service in the future.

And I finally remembered to test fit that 3D-printed height-adjustment plate template by trying to bolt it both to a truck frame and to one of our newly made third rail beams. I'm happy to say that it fit both perfectly, though I'll need to swap the hole positions left to right. The next step will be to send the 3D file to a couple of area foundries and fabricators to get quotes. That's the easy part - the hard part will be paying for it! And in other news, I got some more needle-chipping done on the ceiling in the 451, though it wasn't especially photogenic.

So, what else was happening? When I arrived, Norm, Jon, Dan and Jimmy (the latter two pictured here) were working on Michigan Electric 28. The 28 sits atop the trucks from long-gone North Shore combine 250, but the North Shore set the side bearings on its trucks further out from the car's center-line than was typical. Norm speculates that this may have been to reduce swaying on the 'L.' Anyway, Norm moved the side bearings on the front truck inward many years go to match the bearing plates on the car itself, but the rear truck never had this done. Until now!

Dan headed up the work to use the mag drill to drill new holes in the center bearing support brackets, then he and Greg (shown here on the left) bolted the side bearings into place in the new, correct location. The truck was then moved back under the 28 and the car was set back down, this time with all four side bearings correctly aligned.

You'll see more about this below, but Kansas City PCC 755 has shown up in Barn 4, and here we see Steve lying down on the job as he examines the steel work that will be needed at the right rear corner of the car.

Brian was hard at work on air brake stuff, as usual. Above is a completely rebuilt air gauge for the 306 that he just completed.

As part of his project to rebuild several S governors at once, he's had to fabricate a missing retainer clip for the internal filter on one governor. Above is how they're supposed to look.

And here's the replacement on the left with the original on the right. Both of those photos were taken by Brian LaKemper. In other shop news, Joel and Jimmy completed the inspection of Veracruz 19 and Joel was up to various other things, including moving spare parts out of the west end of Barn 4 and distributing first aid kits to the operating fleet.

And now, it's time for our ever-popular series, Switching Roundup! With the vast amount of equipment that is being moved around as part of the Barn 15 project, IRM is really living up to its "Museum in Motion" tagline. We start with an update from Saturday. The below photos were taken and submitted by our redoubtable roving reporter, Bill Wulfert.

Kansas City PCC 755 is the subject of a long-running restoration project, but only now is it being brought over to Barn 4 so that the crew has readier access to tools. Above, the car is seen on the tail track.

And here it is on Station Track 1 as part of a wye move. I don't think it's been to the depot since I painted the car in KCPS colors about 25 years ago, and for all I know, it's never been through the depot. As for my corn-broom paint job, I'm pleased to say that its mediocrity has held up nicely, and the quality is just as middling now as it was when the paint was fresh.

The switch crew extracted the Cleveland PCC from track 42.

The lettering and striping on this car isn't 100% done, but it's close.

And back into Barn 4 it went, but this time on track 43 instead of 42.

That opened up a new spot for the 755. Here, the diesel has run around the car and is pushing it down the west leg of the wye.

Next stop, Central Avenue! One of these years, the 755 will hopefully be calling at this same spot, but under its own power and full of passengers.

And into the work barn it goes.

Here's a very happy Steve next to the car.

The front of Barn 4 is now far too modern for my tastes, between two PCCs and a pair of Budd 'L' cars, but what can you do?

With that, let us progress to Sunday. Although I was on the property, I was busy messing around with third rail beams and couplers and neglected to get any photos of the fun. The focus for the day was extracting the AEM7 from the west end of track 52. The AEM7 was the recipient of enough donations to purchase it indoor storage space, so it's going into Barn 15.

Here's an unusual sight, courtesy of Brian LaKemper: a train of lightweight passenger cars in Yard 6.

This photo by Jeron Glander shows track 52 completely emptied out.

And the final result, in a photo by Brian LaKemper, has a pair of IC Highliners at the west end of track 52 in the spot formerly occupied by the AEM7. All four Highliners are lined up on this track, in fact, with the two most recently operational ones to the east, where they can more easily be extracted.