The Coach

Frank writes...

Saturday night I received some exciting news from the "second shift" guys, who were out at the museum working late. The 308 had been brought over to the pit to have its motor truck pulled!

Above is a picture taken during the switch move, which entailed the other three cars pulling the 308 out to the car line, where a diesel pushed it in on the pit track. The plan has been to pull both motors out of the car's motor truck - the bad motor, because it will need to be removed sooner or later anyway, and the good motor because we'd like to send it to the motor shop for a "dip and bake" i.e. general cleanup and repair but without full disassembly or rebuilding.

A crew consisting of Zach, Greg, Good Nick, Nathan, Mikey, Jimmy, Brian, Will, and Matt worked until something like 4:00 in the morning jacking the car up, removing both GE 66 motors, and putting it safely back down on its truck. A huge THANK YOU goes out to everyone who made this happen!! The two photos above are from Zach; the bottom one was sent at about 2:00am.

When I arrived out at the museum Sunday afternoon, Zach and several of the regulars were away picking up part of a North Shore car (more on that in a following post) while Joel, Greg, and Nick were pulling spam cans out of Barn 8. The 308 appeared as shown above. The CA&E called trailers "coaches" so that's what it is for the moment. One of our history-minded volunteers put post-it-note numbers over some of the numerals on the car, rechristening it a 200-series trailer.

Here are the two motors that were removed from the car. On the right is the blown #4 motor and on the left is the #3 motor, which is fully serviceable. Thanks to some significant donations that came in at the end of last year, we are hopeful - depending on how the quote comes back from the motor shop - that we will be able to send the #3 motor out for a "dip and bake" to keep it operating for a long time.

I spent much of the afternoon putting things back together on the car. Greg helped get the brake rigging back together, with Nick, Doodlebug Bob, and a rarely seen Doodlebug Dan helping to get one balky bolt and castle nut to go together properly. Joel and Jimmy helped get the air hoses put back on and the ground strap hooked back up. Then, a few of the guys pulled the 308 out of the barn and set it in Yard 6 with the diesel while I brought out the other three cars and coupled them up. And the result, in the above photo by Matt Kalnins, is our first four-car train in several years!

Boy, I miss the 308... it will be wonderful to have it back in service once the motor work is done. Just within the last couple of weeks, the motor shop has started tearing apart our spare motor to provide a quote on rewinding, so fingers crossed it isn't too high. As for the train, I tried running back into the barn from the 308 as a control trailer. The brakes worked fine, and the first time I took power that worked fine too, but after that the train wouldn't motor from that car. My guess is that we may need to adjust the C21 controller. We'll inspect the 308 and get it all ready for its debut as a "coach" on July 1st.

I finished up the day by tarping the good motor and stamping numbers (3L, 4R, etc) into the axle caps and bearings that had been removed. Our friend Jim Ward from Rio Vista was visiting, so he brought with him news from the west, in particular the fact that WRM now has the country's largest collection of light rail vehicles. We here at IRM are stuck with a grand total of zero LRVs. But I'll take Type M over chopper control any day!

Today's News Today

 Here's what was happening earlier today, Wednesday, Aug. 17.

As mentioned above, we're getting close to raising enough money to have a traction motor rewound, and put the 308 back into regular service.  The first thing to do will be to send a spare motor to the motor shop for evaluation and a quote.  I went to the container and started trying to rotate the armatures to check for any obvious problems with the commutators.  These armatures haven't rotated for a while, so it takes some torque to get them going.

The first one at the door is from the 309, and it didn't take long to find what I was looking for.  This comm has a big hole in it from a flashover here at IRM.  Ouch.

Numbers 2 and 3 were from the 318, and they may not have rotated since 1977.  I was able to rotate #3 about half-way, then it just stopped and wouldn't move.  Half of it looked fine, at least.  I could not get #2 to rotate at all.  Part of the problem is the way the motors are wedged together in the container; if we can bring them out, it will be much easier.  I have no reason to think either of these 318 motors had a flashover, but we don't know they're still good either.  So they need to be examined.

And you guessed it, #4, the farthest from the door, was the best of the lot.  The mark on the commutator is to show when I'd got it completely rotated.

So we have some work ahead of us, as expected.

Also, some of our spare motors are missing parts.  I went to the 321 and found a spare brush holder.  This one was somewhat rusted together, and put together wrong, so after some Kroil and so forth...

It looks a little better.  It still probably should be sand-blasted.

For something more amusing, Buzz showed me a window sill from the Milwaukee Road caboose he's been working on.  This sill was installed by the railroad shop when they rebuilt it most recently.

And it turns out they made it out of wood from a packing crate:

I'd call this "Cheap & Nothing Wasted", but that must be the slogan of some other railroad.

Then I went over to Barn 8 to check on a few things in the 308.  Gregg was hard at work on the IT line car again.

But while he's taking a break to work on the spray gun, we have a chance to tour the inside of the 1702.   Want to come along?   I know you do!

The interior has been carefully maintained and is close to its condition at the end of service in 1956.  The shelves and bins were used for storing parts.

Tools are stacked against the other wall.

The control position at the west (platform) end:

And at the other end.  These are C6 controllers.

The workbench:

And above it, fuses are stored by rating.

And when it gets cold, you just start burning scrap wood:

Looking out at the platform:

After Gregg had painted this side, it looks great.

Meanwhile, over in Barn 8, Tim was working as usual on the 1808.  He is applying the siding with a pneumatic nail gun.

Pete and Fritz were busy on the 160, as usual.  The #1 vestibule is basically finished and looks great.  They are very proud of the floor, among other things.

... such as the nicely repaired motorman's stool.  And the other vestibule is seeing great progress.

Finally, I should remember to thank Rick Marzec for help with the traction motors.  He was working in the model train building, but took some time to go over to the Steam Shop and let me borrow a couple of large wrenches for turning the armatures.  His help was much appreciated.

And when we're in the Steam Shop, it's nice to see a friendly smile.

In case you're wondering, this is the IC 3719.   You may recall that it was covered in the latest issue of Rail & Wire, along with a myriad of other fascinating subjects. What? You aren't subscribed to Rail & Wire as an IRM member? Well, what are you waiting for?

Thank You!

In the past few weeks we have received several generous contributions to the 308 motor fund, for which we are extremely grateful.  Of course, we will not mention your names here without permission, but you all deserve our thanks for help with this worthy project.  I would hope that we can get it going soon, so that the car can be back in regular service next year.  We plan to have it on display at 50th Avenue on Sunday, so stop by to check it out!

Spring is Here

Frank writes...

Well, spring might not quite be here, at least not for a few more days, but Sunday was a pretty nice day anyway. It was sunny and the high was 50 or so, not too bad for mid-March. As mentioned in my father's post it was nice enough for some painting.

Smiling Volunteers Part 1: here he is adding some fresh "Fleet Grey" to the 308 over in Barn 8. When I showed up he was already hard at work. I figured I'd try and finish what I started so I removed the air gauge from the #2 end of the 308 and took it to the shop for testing. This end of the 308 is rarely used, mainly because it has a unique (among our CA&E fleet) motorman's valve which only has two apply positions. Whereas most M-15 valves have three apply positions - slow, medium, and fast - the one at the #2 end of the 308 only has "fast" and "faster".  That makes it a bit trickier to run with. Why this is, we have no idea, only that it's what was on the car when it was in service so of course it's only proper to leave it in place.

Of course I neglected to get a decent photo of the #2 end gauge (oops) but it's fairly similar to this one, which we acquired as a spare a few years ago. Both are from a different maker, Star, than the Beacon gauge at the #1 end of the 308. Note these only go up to 160 lbs rather than up to 200 lbs like the Beacon gauge. Even this differs from the #2 end gauge in the 308, though, in arrangement of the lettering and attachment screws. But I digress.

The inside of the #2 end gauge was remarkably clean and only needed a little cleaning and oiling of the gear teeth to get it ready for service. Thanks again to Richard for his help and advice with this.

That didn't take long, so I left to help (or maybe I should say I went to "help") with the crew working on Milwaukee 972. This car was cleared for limited service last year but concerns about side bearing clearance on one truck had been raised. So raised it was, on Sunday, this time on jacks. Joel, Richard, Greg, Thomas, Nick, and myself all helped with this effort. Here Nick peers down the length of the car as this end sits raised a few inches on jacks. We just needed to get the car high enough to put some fresh grease "cookies" into the center bearing bowls and pull some shims from one of the side bearings.

Smiling Volunteers Part 2: Richard looks in on the center bearing. If you look closely (directly over the square nut with cotter pin in the very foreground) you'll see that the body half has been raised above the bowl, attached to the truck bolster, so that Joel can drop in the grease cookies from inside the car through the motor motor inspection hatches.

Won't you all give Joel a hand, ladies and gentlemen!

After this the car was pulled east and the other end jacked up to repeat the operation, though no shims needed removal at that end. After a test trip or two around the car line measurements were taken again and were satisfactory, so with the completion of annual inspection items the 972 should again be cleared for limited service. It's still in the "running-in" phase so the shop workers will be keeping a close eye on it for a while, but look for this car on the car line on a few days this coming season.

As usual, there were other projects being worked on as well. Bob Sundelin, our resident machinist, had an unusual bolt for an RPO (I think) on the lathe and had also been making parts for the grinding machine out in the barn, while Thomas and Nick were still slaving away at getting the 4410 ready for service, repairing more leaky air valves. And in other good news I ran into Mark Secco, who is working on repairing the CGW wrecker. Once that's done it can be moved and Shaker Heights 18 can be brought up to Barn 7.

Painting the 308

Usually I work at the Museum on Saturdays, but it was icy in the morning and Sunday was predicted to be better, so I went out there today.  It's time to start repainting the grey and the red on the 308. 

As we look back on it, these colors on the car's exterior probably haven't been repainted since 2002, and the grey in particular has become rather discolored with age.  None of the paint has started to peel, so it's just a matter of sanding it down and putting on another coat.  Or maybe two.

Before and after:

Removing the windows would be a time-consuming task, and it appears the railroad did this very seldom during the car's service history.  So we will just paint the windows and trim from a ladder, moving the windows up and down as necessary: 

And by the end of the day, about 2/3 of one side has been finished.

Of course, there were many other things taking place today, but I'll let Frank cover them.

Gauge your interest in this

Frank writes...

I had hoped that, given the nice weather, Sunday might be a good day to finish the switch move to put Shaker Heights 18 under wire. But it turns out that the crane parked outside the door on track 131 isn't moving anytime soon; it's missing some part (which is on order) so until that arrives it's static. I'm hoping that it's days or weeks until we can retrieve our stranded streetcar but it could be months. Only time will tell. So in the meantime Joel pointed out that a defect for the 308 had been noted on one of its car report cards indicating that the air gauges were sticking. On the advice of Richard I decided to try and tackle this.

The CA&E wood cars have a single duplex air gauge at each end which shows brake pipe pressure and main reservoir pressure (my father has always colloquially referred to these as the "clocks" but I'm guessing this is a Randy Hicks-ism and not a CA&E-ism). I removed the gauge from the #1 end, which is the end from which we usually run, and brought it into the shop. Our recently-repaired gauge tester has become very popular and Richard showed me some of the tricks to using it. Above, our gauge is at the top left while the calibrated gauge that stays with the tester is in the middle. Just behind it is a coil from the 3142's line switch, though more on that later.

After getting some baseline readings, proving the gauge was not only sticking but was a bit out of adjustment, it was time to disassemble the thing. The reverse side of the gauge face, shown above, suggests it was either built or last serviced in 1951.

And here's what the gauge looks like inside. It consists largely of a pair of curved Bourdon tubes, which as pressure increases are gradually "bent" outwards, pulling on a lever and turning a pinion which turns the needle on the gauge. The Bourdon tubes are concentric while the levers are mounted one in front of the other. A is the main reservoir Bourdon tube, B is the one for the brake pipe, C is the pinion for the brake pipe needle (the pinion for the main res is behind it on the same alignment), D is the sector gear for the brake pipe, E is the span adjustment screw for brake pipe lever, and F behind it is the same adjustment for the main res lever. These adjustment screws had to be loosened and the lever "throw" adjusted slightly. Once everything matched up with the calibrated gauge on the tester the gauge was reassembled.

While Richard was showing me how to conduct these tests and make the adjustments, Jeron was cleaning the "clock face" and Greg was spray-painting the main reservoir needle red, as the original red paint was completely gone. Once these were put back in place (but before the glass and housing frame were reinstalled) the gauge looked like this. Pretty sharp! Note that the builder referred to this not as a gauge but as a "gage." Regardless, Richard cut me a couple of small gaskets for where the gauge attaches to the piping and I reinstalled the gauge on the 308. Next time perhaps I'll tackle the gauge at the #2 end. Many thanks to Richard, Greg and Jeron for their help with this.

There were a lot of people in the car shop and a lot was happening. One big project was diagnosing and repairing an issue with the line switch on the 3142, which was on the pit for its annual inspection. Basically the line switch wasn't tripping out properly, but some cleaning up seemed to fix it. Greg and Richard were working on this with help from Bob and Joel. Nick and Thomas were working on the 4410, replacing a leaking angle cock with one from storage. Above are all of the spare angle cocks that were tested - and failed - before they finally found one that was airtight. Ugh!

Joel and Bob, shown above, were drilling holes in the floor to secure the lathe shown in the foreground. It is the latest component of Joel's long-running campaign to rearrange and clean up the car shop. In addition Tim was working on stripping wall panels for the 1754 over in the wood shop while Shelby continued working to organize and sort the department's technical library.

Meeting day

Frank writes...

Saturday was a day of meetings. Things started with the Rules Review meeting in the morning, which I missed, and continued with the Safety Meeting in the afternoon and Annual Membership Meeting in the evening, both of which I attended. In between some actual car work got done. But let's put the last things (i.e. the annual meeting) first and congratulate Nigel Bennett on his reelection to the board and Marcus Ruef and Frank DeVries to their election to the board. Nigel is, of course, museum treasurer and works in the Steam Department; Frank and Marcus both work in the Track Department and the latter also moonlights as editor of Rail & Wire.

Earlier in the day was the safety meeting, which went off without a hitch under the able direction of Harold Krewer, after which I adjourned to the property. Joel, Thomas, and Jeron had been doing some switching in Yard 13 in the morning to get a boxcar in position to have its contents unloaded into another boxcar (these things always outwardly appear to be "recreational switching" but there's typically a purpose, even if it seems esoteric or invisible). They finished with that in the afternoon and then I was able to help them with finishing some inspection items on the 308, seen below.

We were able to finish almost all of the remaining items on the inspection list except for oiling the motor armature bearings; there is also one side door which will need some repair work as well as a union over the #2 axle which is leaking and will need a bit of work. Joel and Jeron spent some time draining the oil out of the compressor, something which hadn't been done in a few years and was well overdue. We may want to drop the compressor at some point so that we can open the top access hatch and really clean it out, but for now it's been refilled with clean oil and we'll keep an eye on it. Below, Joel uses a makeshift funnel to empty the old oil into a can.

After this, Thomas and I ran the car back over to Barn 8 and called it a day. Thank you to everyone who helped with this! There were plenty of people around, as is typical on annual meeting day, and a few Car Department projects were being worked on. Tim Peters was working on parts for the 1754, Kirk Warner from visiting from the sunny south and giving Jeff Brady a hand with the 28, Zach Ehlers was painting trim pieces for North Shore 757, and Jon and Dan Fenlaciki were doing some air brake work on the Cornwall steeplecab.

Inspection #3

Today was the start of inspection on car 308.  Here it is before being moved into the barn.  Everything so far seems to be fine, and no inspection issues were discovered.

Fifteen years ago, I was doing the woodwork to put this end of the car back together.  It's held up well ever since, although at the time I was a little worried about the long-term stability of the body.

Speaking of inspection, did we ever talk about brake adjustment?  This is one of those jobs that is just so much fun, and yet I almost never have to share it with anybody else.  Usually I get to do it all by myself.  Let's see:

At the top is part of the truck suspension system, and below that is the turnbuckle that forms part of the brake rigging.  Below it are two hooks as a safety feature in case a pin broke, to keep the truck from pole-vaulting itself off the track.  On either side of the turnbuckle are two large lock nuts.

First you make sure the air brakes are in release, and loosen the lock nuts.  This requires a large wrench, and usually a long pipe for added leverage.  Then both turnbuckles are tightened until the shoes are against the wheels on both sides of the truck.  

Then the turnbuckle is turned to loosen each end 1 1/2 threads, or 9 flats.  And then the lock nuts are tightened onto the turnbuckles, which usually requires the use of both wrenches at a time.  It's a blast! 

Luckily I was able to complete all the work on the #2 truck before it started to rain, so that the car was already safely inside the barn.

Here's one of the DB-131 contactor boxes.  Some but not all of the arc chutes have been restored and repainted in past years.

And the standard DB-20 reverser.

Tim was working on various details on the 24.  Here's the motorman's compartment:

And the gold pinstriping is done:

And then, we have news of a couple of new projects.  I happened to run into my old friend Jack Biesterfeld.  He's pretty much done with the interior of the B&M diner, so he's started cleaning up Green Bay & Western coach 110, one of our few wooden passenger cars.  There is no decision yet on exactly what will be done with it.  This car has had a rough life, but at least some thought will be given as to long-term restoration prospects.

First, he had to remove all the gore.  The car was full of blood, severed limbs and human heads, and so on.  Pretty disgusting, but somebody's got to do it.  (These were left over from the Train of Terror, of course....)  Now, at least, it has some interior lights.

And all the comforts of home. 

This is one of the bay windows from when it was used as a caboose.

The one remaining washroom, now a closet.

I hadn't focused on this before, but I suppose this false ceiling also has to do with its use as a caboose on the GB&W, or perhaps M&HM.

Metal plates in the ceiling mark the locations of the original Pintsch gas light fixtures.

These baggage racks have castings that are similar, if not identical, to those in CA&E 36.  Here, the original wire rope netting has been replaced with perforated metal plates.

 And then, Henry Vincent has started cleaning up the interior of the North Shore caboose in Barn 6.  Many years ago it was open for visitors to walk through, and they're hoping to make that possible again.  Once the car is cleaned up and modern light fixtures and so on are removed, that may become a reality.

Norm shows the latest pieces on the Michigan car being installed.

And several of the usual projects, such as the Cleveland PCC, were in progress.

And I put another coat of paint on the 319's controller cover.  I noticed while working on the 308 that it's missing the motorman's window shades at each end, something I'd sort of forgotten about.  We have several spares for the numerous side windows, but the motorman's shades are rare.  I have a couple of spares, but they're too wide for the 308, which seems to be a different size from the other cars.  So I sorted through the available parts, and took home a kit so that I can put at least one usable shade together.   More on that when it happens.  Don't touch that mouse!