Another year finished

Frank writes...

I got out to IRM late on Sunday afternoon again, just in time to witness the close of another successful Day Out With Thomas event.  The weather was gorgeous, sunny and in the 70s, and it seemed like there was a great crowd.  From what I could tell, everything was going like clockwork under the soothing tones of our good friend Al Reinschmidt (subbing in for the indefatigable Harold Krewer) on the horn over at the Voice of Sodor.  I spent a little white putzing around, touching up some paint on the CA&E cars and generally watching others in the Car Department do actual work.

Such as here.  Richard Schauer (left) and Greg Kepka, assisted by Joel Ahrendt (not pictured), were troubleshooting CA&E 460 which has exhibited some strange motor-generator set behavior.  What's a motor-generator set, you ask?  I have no idea; as far as I know technology hit a dead end around 1915 so anything more complicated than that era's products is pure magic as far as I'm concerned

One thing I helped with was going through the barns looking at the collection to try and determine how things *might* get shuffled around once Barns 13 and 14 are open for business, hopefully sometime next year.  There are a number of cars currently stored outdoors that we will want to go inside.  Most will go into either 13 or 14 but a few are being eyed as potential candidates for operation and we'll want them to go into the barns currently under wire, so a few cars now on public display will probably be moved to 13 or 14.  No final decisions have been made, and it will all depend on how much time and how many people are available for switching.

So as part of this I took at trip down to the South Yards and gawked at the progress on Barn 13, shown above.  It's coming together!

East Union: Summer of 2015

 By now this shouldn't need much explanation: the last half of August is taken up with Thomas.  That means big crowds of happy people, so it's time to take a few pictures of them.

I was the conductor on the 4391 again.  There are many members who work all four days of Thomas each year, and they deserve a great round of applause from the rest of us.



And meanwhile, to the south...

 This makes me happy.  How about you?




Update:   Tony Gura sent in some pictures of the activity on Saturday.

Barn Raising

We'll start with some CA&E news, as usual.  I was able to install the rebuilt grid box on the 36 and connect it.  Then, with the help of Jon Fenlaciki, I tried putting power to the motors with the brakes set to check that there was no sparking.  The new box was OK, but Jon noticed some arcing in a box at the other end of the set.  That was rather discouraging, but I determined that the arcing was in the connection between the cable and a tap on the grid box, not the grids.  That's much easier to fix, and after a couple of tries, and borrowing a round file from Pete, the arcing went away.

That made it possible to switch the cars around, and set them up for Labor Day weekend.  We'll be running all three days, and I plan to have the 308-319 on Saturday, and the 36-309 on Sunday and Monday. If it rains or something breaks down, we can change plans easily.

The 36 and 309 should go well together.  We plan to be operating until 9:30 PM on Sunday, so come on out for some night railfanning and photography!

On the other hand, what's wrong with this picture?

 Among other things, Joel found me another control jumper, which I tested, and which we'll need for a four-car train for the convention.  And I did some straightening and cleaning and miscellaneous tasks.

But enough of this trivia.  Now for the news you've all been waiting for:

Barn 13 is under construction (L) and materials are being staged for Barn 14 (R).

 They make rapid progress, like they must have done this before.

Well, it's too tempting to just watch other guys work, when there are important things to be done.  On Saturday I'll be back on Thomas duty, and maybe I can have more pictures of the festivities this time.

Better Together

Frank writes...

I wasn't able to make it out to IRM on Sunday until 4:30 in the afternoon, so I missed most of the Thomas-related festivities, but it seemed like everything had gone swimmingly and that there had been strong ridership on the Sodor Light Railway.  As it was, I decided to turn my attention to putting the grid box from the 36 back together.

As previously shown, the brand new mica tubes and washers have arrived and I set to work putting them to good use.  Above the grid box is shown early in the assembly process, with the white mica tubes quite obvious.  From this point on, it's a trial-and-error game to make sure that everything fits together and that the box ends up square and that everything is solid once the bolts are tightened down.

And here's the finished product, all back together.  This is as close to a "new" grid box as any of our CA&E cars has, seeing as it was assembled using all new mica insulation and also uses "like new" resistance elements retrieved from storage.  All that needs to be done now is to touch up the black paint (admittedly, hardly anyone will see it either way, but we would still know that it wasn't quite right) and put the box back on the 36.  Then - if all goes well - we'll be back to four fully operational wood cars.

He's the One!

About twenty years ago, I happened to go to a Board meeting with a friend of mine, and a proposal was submitted that IRM should try hosting a Day Out With Thomas© event.  And there were the details on how much of the profits we would have to pay to the promoters, and all the services we would have to provide, and all the hoops we'd have to jump through, and so on, and my friend and I are looking at each other and whispering:  This is stupid!  We can't possibly make a profit under these conditions!  What a dumb idea!  For once, I decided to keep my big mouth shut, but my friend got up and objected loudly to this idiotic proposal.

Fortunately, of course, hotter heads prevailed, and Thomas© has been very good to us ever since.  Among other things, he provided the money to rebuild two traction motors and return the 309 to revenue service.  Thomas© is an annual reminder of just how wrong I can be, so I owe him a lot of gratitude.

Which I usually try to repay by helping out with all the many tasks that are essential to making this yearly festival a success.   Today I was the conductor on the 4391, with Paul Sprenger as the motorman most of the time, and everything went very well.  We had a great crowd, the trains seemed to run like clockwork, and everybody appeared to be having a great time.

I can't begin to name all the people who devote a lot more time and effort to this event than I do.   Thanks!!!   I saw Al Reinschmidt from a distance but didn't get a chance to talk to him.  He was at the central tent, as a back-up announcer to Harold Krewer, and had to listen to the recorded music over and over and over again.  I'd go nuts.  Thanks to Harold and Al, among all the rest, for putting up with it.  What a blast!

From Floor to Ceiling

 Time for a quick report on the last two days' worth of work.  There's lots of activity at the Museum, mostly with getting ready for Thomas, of course.

We received a shipment of new mica tubes and washers for rebuilding grid boxes.  They look good.  It's very fortunate that this cast-iron grid technology is evidently not yet obsolete. 

Gregg was out again, and doing yeoman service on repainting the heater covers for the 308.

I reinstalled a couple of trim pieces in the ceiling that had fallen out, and replaced one window shade that had come loose.   The window shades on the 308 and 36 are very difficult to deal with, since they're mounted up inside the walls.  The process seems to have been designed for people with smaller hands than mine.  The later cars, such as 309 and 319, have removable window shade boxes that make it much easier.  And we worked on tuning up the seats, mostly the walkovers, and I took a seat cushion home for recovering.

The heater covers are lined up for painting outside Barn 8.

When the heater covers are removed, the heaters look like this.  The sheet metal covers must get very hot.

Here Gregg is in the process of painting them with the finish brown color, same as the floor.

Bill showed me the progress being made on the Baldy.  In a couple of weeks, the contractor will be available to pour the Mastapave (sp?) material to patch the floor.

All of the metal reinforcements are in place.

The sun sets on Yard 5.

The temporary tent city. 

The nice heavyweights get brought out for Thomas.

This is what they look like when installed.  I admit, it certainly doesn't look like the covers are painted the floor color, but who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?!?

Tim showed me the work he's doing on the floor of the 24.  The flooring is laid at an angle, then longitudinal wooden strips were fastened with flat head screws.  What you see here is mostly the many layers of paint between the wooden strips.  These strips were never replaced, and over the years people's shoes wore the 3/4" strips down to nearly nothing, including wearing off the heads of the screws.  

Among other things, I finished putting windows shades in the 36.  If any are missing, it's a very obvious eyesore.  And due to the difficulty of replacing them, on these two cars screws are installed so the shades can't be pulled down.  

And in B&G news, the curb has been poured at the SW corner of Central and Railroad.  This is where the gas station will be.

We can always use more help for the next two weekends with Thomas.  Come on out if you can!

IRM Video

Chuck Amstein has posted ten minutes of great video of IRM action last Saturday, of the 65 and the trolley bus loop dedication, followed by the CA&E 409-431 and some Diesel action.   Enjoy!

ALSO.... 

Be sure to reserve now for the Zephyr Dinner Train for Labor Day Weekend.  Highly recommended by our professional reviewers on the staff. 

Visit to MOT

 Frank and I visited the Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood (near St. Louis) in 1995, and the photos from that trip recently came to light.  It's hard to believe that was twenty years ago.  (Note: these pictures are being published for historical interest.  MOT no longer looks like this, as several dramatic improvements have been made to the property and some of the equipment shown here has since been nicely restored.)   Enjoy!

The 952 has been restored.

The "Train of Tomorrow" has been sooo yesterday for a long time.

    

These ancient locomotives from the Purdue collection are some real jewels of steam history.

The Purdue test car.

(L) The only surviving P5a, and the Black Diamond inspection engine, which has been completely restored.

 The shop crew were working on the Lake St. engine.

 (R) Frisco 1621, another Russian decapod; behind it, the NYC Mohawk; behind that, the Gen. Pershing Zephyr.

 Of course, MOT has a lot of other interesting items that evidently didn't get snapped on this trip.  Some of them were still stored in the tunnel at that time.