Visit to Rockhill Furnace

On our way back, we stopped for the night in Rockhill Furnace, Pennsylvania, to pay a quick visit to the Rockhill Trolley Museum and the EBT.  The trolley museum wasn't open during the week, but I  was able to visit the shop and get some pictures of the outside.  The museum has an excellent website with information on the collection, current activities, and so on.

At the front of the museum, by the road, is their latest acquisition, this shiny new LRV from San Diego.

And here is the visitor center, offices, and behind that the shop building.

The storage barn is farther away, and I didn't get over to see it this time.  But due to a couple of recent acquisitions, it was no longer big enough to hold the entire collection, so it's being extended at one end.  While this work progresses, the Liberty Liner is being stored outside, but it will soon go back under cover.  Since the EBT is not running, it can be stored on the wye, a convenient place for photography.

 So let's look inside the shop building.   This big open car is getting its trucks rebuilt.

But naturally my main interest was CA&E car 315, the only preserved Kuhlman.  It is being completely rebuilt and restored to its as-built condition, as much as is humanly possible.  A lot of work has already been done, and it is currently the main focus of volunteer activity.  The target date for completion is 2019, not as far away as it might sound!

 A complete set of upper-sash windows from another car in this series will be installed on the outside.

This is really going to be nice when it's done.

And here are a couple of views of the shop itself.  It has one track with inspection pits and long enough for two cars, plus space for machinery and parts storage in the other half.  Frank Shoop kindly let us in and showed us what was being done.

Finally, I should point out that Orbisonia/Rockhill is in a very remote location, and finding a nice place to eat or sleep might be difficult.  Luckily, my friend David Brightbill and his wife run an excellent bed and breakfast inn right across the street from the EBT station, the EBT shops, and the trolley museum.  So if they have a room available, you're in luck!  Tell them Hicks Car Works sent you.  David is also a watchman for the EBT, so he gave me permission to wander about and take pictures, which will appear in our next post.

Where Am I?

You may have been wondering where I went.  I'm still here, though.  I think.  Just back from a nice long trip to the East Coast, so we'll have plenty of pictures soon.  Your patience is appreciated.

The travails of the interurban car

Frank writes...

Sunday was the second day of RPO Weekend and it was hot! The high was in the low 90s. Fortunately there was a stiff breeze for pretty much the entire weekend so it actually wasn't entirely unpleasant outside. I hadn't been on the property for very long before I got drafted to help with a switch move.

The job was to swap the order of the CA&E steel cars. It turns out that late on Saturday, the North Shore train (consisting of 100-year-old "Silverliner" combine 251 and 1928-vintage Pullman coach 749) had gone out of service with an overheated journal bearing on the 251. The bearing had been replaced Saturday evening by Car Department shop forces and all was thought well. Then Sunday morning, when the service train for the day (CA&E 431 and 409) was pulling out of the barn, a motor lead on the 431 had an insulation failure which resulted in a spectacular though not particularly harmful short. So the 251 and 749 were substituted in. But then the 251's bearing started running warm again so we did some switching, uncoupling the 431 and instead making up a train consisting of CA&E 409 and 460 to hold down service for the rest of the day. Let me tell you, it's a wonderful thing to have enough operating equipment that backup cars are available! So here's the 431 in Yard 6 along with the replacement service train, 409 and 460.

The 431 can motor on two motors for yard moves and it shouldn't be too bad of a job to replace that traction motor lead. But attention turned to the 251, which along with the 749 had been deposited on the pit lead. Here they are; the CTA 6600s were on the pit undergoing annual inspection (they'll be needed for the "History of the Electrified 'L'" pageant on July 1st) and that job was finished by the end of the day while repair work was being done on the North Shore cars a few feet to the east.

Here are Richard Schauer (L) and Joel Ahrendt jacking up the journal box on the 251. Apologies for the horrendous overexposure but the two workers were in direct sunlight while the journal box was in shadow. Anyhow, inside the journal box you can see the end of the axle, or the journal, with the brass bearing riding atop it. This bearing had developed some odd defects with the babbitt so it was replaced with a spare from stock. The journal surface was cleaned, the new bearing greased, and fresh journal oil put in the box. Then it was time for a test trip!

...and here we are about two hours in, during one of many stops to let the journal cool down. It's not clear why but the journal ran pretty cool for the first three miles or so headed east then started to heat up, and fast. The train ended up limping home at about 5mph with regular stops to air out the journal box. Fortunately this was after hours and on one of the longest days of the year - we didn't get back to the barn until about 8:30pm. Next weekend one of the tasks will be to try and sand down the journal, in an effort to smooth out any defects, and inspect and possibly scrape smooth a new bearing to go with it. Sometimes things like this happen; it's just the cost of doing business, as they say, with equipment that's a century old. Fortunately IRM has some of the most knowledgeable volunteers in the business and these things get addressed, fixed, and the cars get back on the railroad to be enjoyed by our visitors.

And speaking of our knowledgeable volunteers, here's evidence of another ongoing project: a modified resistor for Illinois Terminal 1565, the "Class B" boxcab locomotive. Its control resistors have been failing at an increasing rate so the decision was made to replace them wholesale. Unfortunately they're of an unusual size so Bob Sundelin, one of our resident machinists, designed nickel-plated aluminum end pieces that serve as adapters for commercially available resistors. Testing is now successfully concluded and the end pieces will soon be fabricated. Before long it's hoped that the 1565 will be back in service and more reliable than ever.

Sursee-Triengen Railway

Frank writes...

Our other big railfanning stop in Switzerland was at the Sursee-Triengen Railway or Sursee-Triengen-Bahn (STB), which runs between the two cities in its name some ways north of Lucerne. They only operate steam on the last Sunday of the month but, conveniently, we were in Switzerland on that date. And it was my birthday so my wife had to go along with it, albeit reluctantly.

The STB is about 5.5 miles long and runs from Triengen in the north, which is the end of the line, to Sursee in the south, where it interchanges with the national SBB system. The shops (left, behind that locomotive crane) and main depot and office (right) are in Triengen. We showed up about an hour before train time and had lunch at the outdoor cafe at the depot.

The locomotive in steam for the day was this 0-6-0WT, a class E 3/3 well tank locomotive built in Winterthur in 1913. Well tanks, which carry water in a tank slung under the locomotive between the drivers, are more rare in the U.S. than in Europe I believe.

Here the locomotive has pulled away from the shed to the switchback at the very northern end of the railroad and is returning to the platform to run around the train. The three-car train consisted of a dining/lounge car, a three-axle goods car with tables and chairs placed near the open baggage doors, and a 1st/2nd class coach. Yes, there was a guy sitting in the cafe playing the accordion.

Boarding the train, rather than step boxes they used these nifty little things that hooked onto the car steps.

They didn't care where you sat so we sat in first class, shown here, of course. The second class section of the car had more typical 2+2 seats.

We were also right behind the locomotive. They let kids (and their parents) ride on the front platform of the coach, which seemed a bit odd given that it was just an open-platform car and didn't have a railing or anything, but the kids sure enjoyed it. The ride was very pleasant and between Triengen and Sursee there were a couple of stops. The trip runs by a timetable and passengers can board or get off at any station along the route. At Sursee, we stopped short of the station to get authority from the SBB dispatcher to enter the platform. Then it was into the platform, unload quickly, and continue out the other end to a siding so that we didn't foul the main line! Using a second adjacent siding the locomotive then ran around the train. 

Afterwards it was back into the platform to quickly load and then back onto the STB proper for a more relaxed ride back to Triengen.

Back at Triengen, one of the volunteers was kind enough to show me around the shop and yard. The locomotive was cut off the train immediately after arrival and was switched over to the shop lead, where it was coaled and watered. One disadvantage of well tank locomotives is that they tend to have lower water capacity than saddle tank locomotives. The shop is a two-track affair probably some 100' long. One track was in use for the service locomotive while the other held a rather elaborate speeder and a second locomotive that is currently out of service.

The second locomotive, 8522, is shown above - but this one is an electric locomotive! Now stop your scoffing; I know what you're thinking. "Hey, idiot, that's a steam engine, not an electric locomotive." Well, in this case, it's both - and the proof was posted right on the wall of the workshop.

Your eyes aren't deceiving you - it's a steam engine with a pantograph on the cab roof. One of Switzerland's problems back in the days of steam was that they had no coal mines and had to buy all of their coal from other countries. That was one of the reasons they electrified so many lines so early: hydroelectric power was plentiful so electric railways were domestically sustainable. During World War II coal became extremely expensive so they converted two E 3/3 0-6-0s into steam/electrics by putting pantographs on the roof and electric heating elements in the boiler. They were used to switch a yard that was electrified but also had some short freight branches, which the locomotives were able to switch because they could operate for some 20 minutes out from under wire as "fireless cookers." The two engines were converted to electric in 1943 and 8522 wasn't converted back to pure coal operation until 1953 - and today it's preserved in Triengen, where it just needs new tires before it can run again. Pretty neat, eh?

Swiss Transport Museum

Frank writes...

My wife and I just returned from a visit to Europe and while there wasn't too much railfanning, of course there was some. Most of this was in Switzerland, one of our stops. We stopped in Lucerne at the Swiss Transport Museum, which is an extremely impressive publicly-funded place more comparable to the Smithsonian than to any private railway museum in the U.S.

The museum consists of four large halls arrayed around a central courtyard: one hall each for rail, road, water, and air transport. The railroad hall was, of course, the most interesting. It was impressively large, well-lit, and spacious. It also had quite a few displays and exhibits and nearly all signage was in German, French, Italian, and English. Here's a postal stagecoach alongside an 0-4-6T which according to steamlocomotive.info was built in 1858.

And it's Switzerland so of course you need a Krokodil. This one, number 13254, was built in 1920 by Oerlikon. Other than the GG1 - or perhaps including the GG1 - this is arguably the most famous electric locomotive design in the world.

One of the things that's always impressive about museums like this is when the tracks aren't jammed with equipment. At the STM there was quite a bit of empty track in the display hall which was taken up with various exhibits. That jagged wall in the foreground is a huge graphic representation of elevation changes on one of the Swiss lines, possibly the Gotthard Pass line but my memory fails me.

Some of the exhibits are interactive; here, one of the local kinder learns how valve gear and side rods work.

This two-unit shovel-nose electric locomotive was one of a few pieces open to walk through. It was built in 1939 for the Gotthard Tunnel line and was so powerful that it tended to pull couplers out of freight cars. Nevertheless it lasted in service until a major fire in one of the cars in 1970.

The cab of the two-unit electric locomotive, CFF 11852. The steering wheel looking thing is the throttle.

The locomotive interior (of one of the units) is open to walk through. The components are very well labeled and described on plaques mounted at eye level.

I was impressed with how specific the descriptions were; nothing seemed "dumbed down" and they even included some pretty technical information including some circuit diagrams.

Moving along, they had this steam dummy built in 1894 along with a matching trailer. Everything on display in the railroad hall was immaculately restored.

This piece of equipment caught my eye. Sure enough, it's effectively an interurban car, built in 1911 for the Altstatten-Gais Railway. It's meter gauge and ran on 1000 volts DC. But what's that underneath it?

Well sure enough, it's a D2-EG. I couldn't see the pump badge plate, just the one for the motor (all in English so it was imported, not built under license), but I know one of these when I see it. Neat!

And they had a sectioned steam engine, something that is popular with some of the larger government-funded museums. Steamtown in Pennsylvania and the National Railway Museum in York, England also have examples of this. This one is an 0-6-0 built in 1909.

I didn't write down the specifics but this is an unusual piece of equipment; basically an electric locomotive and coach trailer built for a cog railway, but the trailer is "hitched" to the locomotive on a shared frame, almost like a tractor-trailer arrangement.

Here's a variety of exhibits. In the left background is a four-cylinder 2-10-0, SBB 2965, built in Winterthur in 1916. In the right foreground is a crank axle of the type used on locomotives with inside cylinders; these are pretty common in Europe, I believe, but not so much in the U.S. Behind it is an electric locomotive that was basically a smaller version of the famous Krokodil.

The only real streetcar, or tram, in the museum was this very early car, dating to 1888, from the Vevey-Montreux-Chillon line. According to the sign, this line used double overhead and the car picked up current using a double-contact "sledge" rather than two separate trolley poles.

This 2-B-2 switcher used the PRR DD1 method of propulsion, namely one very large motor inside the carbody. According to the signage, the advantages of relative simplicity were offset by poor reliability.

But at least when you break down your tools will all be easy to find!

Next door to the railroad hall was the automobile hall, a three-story behemoth in which attention (and a whole lot of money) had been lavished on a stunning wall stocked with beautifully restored cars and trucks on removable steel pallets. The yellow thing to the left is a robotic mover, and on the first floor there was a small theater with space for one palletized car. Every so often that robot would zoom over to some car, extract it (and its pallet, or shelf) from the wall of cars, and move it down to the theater, where a brief movie would play describing that car's historical significance. Geez.

Most of the contents of the auto hall didn't interest me much, but I have to admit I wouldn't mind taking this thing for a spin. It's a steam tricycle built by Charles Brown, later of Brown-Boveri, in 1887.

And then there was this thing, which I guess was an improvement on the two-wheeled rickshaw. And I thought my job was rough.

Next to the auto hall is the marine hall, which wasn't as big (insert Swiss Navy joke here). This large ship plinthed out in front looked pretty impressive; it turns out it's the SS Rigi, the world's oldest flush-deck side-wheel paddle steamer. Photos online show it much less, er, stripped down, so it appears to be undergoing restoration rather than simply incomplete as this photo implies.

And last there was the air and space hall, which had a few small airplanes and space capsules (or replicas thereof) on display inside. Outside was this Swissair Convair CV-990 Coronado coming in for a landing.

The central courtyard that was ringed by the exhibit buildings included a number of interactive exhibits. There was a go-kart track, an area with child-sized construction equipment kids could play with, and this boat pond with electric boats. There were also some displays including some more rail equipment, a large rail tunnel section, and a bus or two.

And for the bus guys, this thing was sitting out front and apparently going for short trips around the block or something; no idea whether it was giving rides. I wasn't sure I wanted to ride a bus signed "extrafahrt" anyway.

All in all, the Swiss Transport Museum really was an impressive place. It did a great job of appealing to a very wide range of visitors, mixing interactive exhibits for kids and general-interest railroad displays with some pretty technical and specific descriptions of some of the equipment on display.