Yet More Grids

Frank writes...

I was back to working on grids Sunday.  The current round is due to the 308 grid failure last week; although the box with the faulty grid has had a temporary repair installed that will permit the car to operate normally, in the long term it is better to replace the failed grid element.  So, rather than take the box off of the car for disassembly, I decided to build a new box that we can swap with the one on the car in short order.  This way the 308 won't be out of service while we're putting together the new box.

I started with the above box, which had been removed from the 309 back in 2013.  This box had had a couple of different failures and fixes and it had been replaced by a box built new in the shop from parts and had been stored in Barn 8 since.

The old 309 box came apart fairly easily.  In addition to the box frame and grid elements there's a lot of mica insulation in these; the mica washers are plentiful in our storage car but the same is not true of the mica tubes.  On this box, one of the three mica tubes was good, one was pretty bad and one was marginal, so either way we'll need to try and locate at least one or two.  The Charles City Western guys found a source for this a couple of years ago so we'll see if we can put in an order.  Anyway, I needle-chipped and wire wheeled the end castings and through rods for the frame but I didn't have any primer handy so they were left in the Lean-Three next to our third rail beams.  I also found the necessary grids in our grid storage area and cleaned up the contact faces on those.  Once the box components are primed and painted black - and once we can find another mica tube or two - the new box will be assembled and put on the 308.

There was plenty of other work going on.  Norm and Jeff (shown above) were working on the Michigan car as usual.  Here they are fitting new rain gutters for the rear platform side doors; later Jeff was in the shop working on making up a set of drawings for replacement door posts for the baggage doors.  Work on the roof is rapidly coming to a close and moving to the front platform, where a good deal of steel work needs to be done.

And then there was the crew working on pulling one of the trucks out from under Sand Springs 68.  Above, Joel (red shirt), Richard (white shirt) and Greg (blue shirt) wheel the truck out from under the car, later to be replaced by a Taylor shop truck.  Rod was also there running the forklift.  I'm not sure exactly what the plan is for the 68 but its wheels need work of some sort.

Ready for Service

After some more inspection, lubrication, and repair of minor issues, the 308 and 319 are now ready for regular service.  Our first service day will be Monday, May 25, Memorial Day.

 In the morning I fixed a leak in the glad hands, then pulled the cars outside to lubricate the 319.  The armature bearings are a hundred times easier to check than on the older cars, mostly because the GE 254 is a much better design than the old 66's.  And then the car doesn't have the exposed side sills, and the trucks have smaller wheels and a lower profile.  So compared to the other cars, doing the armatures is a pleasure.   

And I inspected all of the controllers, the roofs, and a few leftover items on the checklist.  I think we've shown you before what the inspection checklist looks like.

 Look in vain for holes in the floor, broken glass, windows that won't open or stay up, tripping hazards, missing seats, and so on.

And no wooden benches along the walls of the car, either.

Later, while checking the 319's roof one more time, I brought along a rattle can and painted all of the leather straps black, so they don't stand out.  And did some cleaning and straightening.  We need to keep an eye on the 308's patched grid box, but otherwise everything seems ready for service.

And then I had a couple of hours to mount the roll sign box on the front of the 150.  It looks pretty authentic, if I may say so myself.  The parts in white primer will be painted orange next time.  And thanks again to Buzz Morrisette for doing the artwork.  I'm afraid this doesn't do anything to get the car ready to run by Member's Day, but it does look much more like it did in service on the LSE.

And lots of other things were going on.  RPO Days are this weekend; the RPO train was in operation, but I never got a chance to get that far today.  The North Shore train was running, the 4391 and 3142 were running on the car line, and a switching class was being conducted.

The 1268 and 1797 were being inspected by Joel.

Eric Lorenz continues making progress on the Cleveland car; he has started installing the bulls eye lights, as seen here.

Mike Stauber is painting the interior of Newark PCC #4.  Some of the control parts are getting an excellent shade of blue, it appears to me.

Trolley buses were running today, and on my way out, I noticed that a number of guys had collected to wash one of them down.  Kids nowadays, you never know what they'll be up to next.

Steam Dept. Benefit - June 28

Dave Calendine writes:

 

The Fifth Annual Steam Department Benefit at the Sanfilippo Estate will be held on Sunday, June 28, 2015 at 1:00pm.  The event will feature a concert and silent film with live accompaniment in the Estate's Music Theater on the world's largest restored theatre pipe organ.  The original theater organ, a 1927 Wurlitzer from the Omaha Theater in Nebraska, has been expanded and now controls over 8,000 pipes, percussions and sound effects.

 

Two special raffle drawings will be held during the event this year.  The grand prize drawing will be for “throttle time” on 1630, the museum’s steam train.  The winner will be given time at the controls to run the historic steam engine on the museum’s main line, under the guidance of museum personnel.  The second place drawing will be for a cab ride on 1630.  The winner will be able to ride up front and watch how the engine is operated while riding on the museum’s main line.

 

The Sanfilippo Estate, nicknamed “Place de la Musique,” is a 44,000 square foot private residence filled with magnificent collections of beautifully restored antique music machines, phonographs, arcade and gambling machines, chandeliers, art glass, the world's largest theatre pipe organ, street and clock towers, steam engines and other functional mechanical antiques, displayed within a breathtaking French Second Empire setting.  The Estate, owned by Jasper Sanfilippo, former CEO of the parent company of Fisher Nuts, hosts charities holding fundraisers through the Sanfilippo Foundation.

 

Doors will open at 1:00 pm on Sunday, June 28, at which time guests will be able to tour the residence and its collections.  The concert on the Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ will begin at 2:30 pm.  The artist will be Dave Calendine, house organist and organ curator at the famed Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan.  This year’s organ concert will be completely by request from attendees.  A silent movie featuring Buster Keaton in “The Blacksmith” will also be presented with live accompaniment on the theatre pipe organ.  During intermission, there will be a 50/50 drawing, door prizes, and the raffles for a cab ride and “throttle time” on 1630.  In addition, brochures from the Estate will be available for purchase, with 50% of the proceeds being donated to the IRM.  After the concert, the doors to the Carousel House will be open, with many of the large European fairground organs being played.  The Eden Palais Salon Carousel will be available for rides, and the steam engine building will be open for viewing. 

 

Tickets, which must be purchased in advance, are $69.99 per person.  No tickets will be available at the door.  Proceeds will benefit the Illinois Railway Museum Steam Department.  Directions to the Private Estate will be included with your tickets, which will be mailed in mid June.  The Estate is about 45 minutes from Downtown Chicago.

 

IRM is a not-for-profit, educational corporation that was organized in 1953.  The mission of the Illinois Railway Museum is to demonstrate the vital role railroads have played in the growth of the Chicago area as well as the United States through the preservation and operation of railroad and mass transit rolling stock in a realistic setting.  The museum is supported primarily by contributions and revenues derived from the visiting public and run mainly by volunteers.

 

For more information about the Steam Department Benefit Concert or the Illinois Railway Museum, or to purchase tickets, please visit www.irm.org or call the Museum office at (815) 923-4391.

Another Tree

Joe Stupar writes:

Here is another tree photo for you, taken a few years ago at IRM. No, it didn't actually grow there. I don't remember where it came from, but I was helping Frank put the pole on the car, and the roof vents looked like flower pots.
 
Joe

(Ed.: This is Indiana RR car 205; it sure looks a lot better now!)

308 Inspection

 As Frank has mentioned, the 308 was inspected and lubed yesterday.  I didn't take many pictures of this process, as we've done that before.  We were left with a short list of items to fix prior to revenue service on Memorial Day.

But in the evening, it was a pleasant opportunity for a walk around the property.  Yard 13 has gotten an access road which will run alongside the barn, as I take it.

 

Yard 14 is empty, waiting for construction to begin.  

Grading has started for the next extension of the storage building.  Bays are sold to project leaders who have funds available, and these are a big improvement over anything we have now, such as the shipping containers.  I should probably plan to buy space in the new building.

And up on top of the berm at the south boundary, it looks like this.


Our Baldwin center-cab has been placed on display.

 


 And a panorama:

Today I spent fixing various minor issues, oiling seat frames, and so on.  A step on the 319 was loose and needed new bolts, there was a whistle cord missing, and the grid box Frank mentioned needed to be fixed.  There was a break in a grid element that had been patched previously, but the washers melted.  This is a slightly more permanent fix; two bolts are used instead of one to spread the load.  At least the car can move itself again.  Frank plans to start assembling a replacement box as a permanent repair.

Tim continues to make excellent progress on the ceiling of the 24.  He also manages to dry his laundry at the same time.   Very efficient.

And finally, we know you're hungry for tasty deep-fried food.   Who isn't?   That's why we have this spiffy new fryer that just arrived today.  Here Carl brings it in on the skid. 

 

And after installation, it looks like this.  Jerry Lynn is setting it up.  Be sure to stop in this summer for french fries, onion rings, who knows?    The sky's the limit!

Almost There

Frank writes...

I was able to take a day off work on Wednesday to head out to IRM and help my father with inspection duties.  The primary focus of our efforts was the 308, which along with the 319 will make up the service train for Memorial Day.  My father did much of the inspection work though I helped with some work on the contactors and with lubricating the motor armature bearings, which is always a challenge given their difficult-to-reach location.

Afterwards we needed to wye the 308 so we took it down to South Junction, pausing for a photo stop en route, and back up the connector track.  While traversing the junction we noticed that one of the grid boxes had an element that was arcing a bit.  We very nearly got the car back into the barn but the grid element opened up about 200' short of the door.  Fortunately we had a bright red tow truck in the form of the 319 waiting just inside the barn, so we ran it out and towed the 308 back in.  We should be able to install a temporary fix to the grid box to buy ourselves time to assemble a replacement box.  A few other minor things still need to be done but the 308 and 319 are very nearly ready for service.

There were others hard at work too.  Norm and Jeff were working on the Michigan Electric car, Rod was switching, and Gerry was working on the Milwaukee Electric dump motor shown above.  The roofs over both cabs have been rebuilt and now work is concentrating on restoring the car's original wiring.

Ventilator Rods, Type II

The new casting arrived in the mail today.   As you can see, it's larger than the original and somewhat different in shape, but a big improvement over the cup hooks used earlier.  Now I need to decide whether it's worthwhile buying more of them.  Our usual policy in such circumstances is to put off taking a decision until the parts are no longer in production.   That makes it easy.

Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of your mother, plant a tree or a flowering shrub in an unusual location, just for her.

She'll be thrilled!

Seats Repaired While You Wait

 Seat cushions in these old cars often need new covering material (agasote, naugahyde, whatever) but usually the rest of the structure is OK.  And it's not too hard to remove the old material and attach a new covering; I've done it quite often in my workshop.  But last year we discovered one in the 309 with a broken transverse slat that could not easily be fixed, and it was replaced with a spare.  Inspired by the example of Tim Peters rebuilding much longer seat backs and cushions for the 24, I hopefully decided to scrap it for parts, and see just how these Hale & Kilburn cushions were assembled.  It turns out to be a more complicated design than I had thought. 

Before we start, the underside of a cushion looks like this.  The far side is cracked in the middle, and there are some other defective crosspieces and springs.  But this gives you a good idea of the general structure.  Removing the new (c. 1985) naugahyde for reuse is simple though time-consuming.  Underneath that, there is a layer of felt and horsehair, easily removed.  After that it gets hairy.

Next the wooden frame is disassembled.  There are five spring assemblies with five springs each.  The springs along each edge are attached to the transverse slats with staples, and these have to be pried up to fold the slats back.  Now the wood pieces are held together only by two layers of canvas, nailed and glued.  Much of the canvas is pretty weak.

 The springs look like this (still upside down).  The end is bent over and goes into a hole in the slat, then stapled somehow.  I am not really sure how they attached all those staples to a completed frame.  The top end of the spring is riveted to a metal plate for each assembly. 

When the seat is turned over, we need to remove two layers of canvas with some more horsehair in between.  On top of each plate is a layer of burlap, and then along both sides there is a strange assembly of little pieces of wood glued to canvas, and held in place by the rivets to the tops of the springs. I'm amazed by how many steps there are to the construction, and how many man-hours it must have taken to make each one.

The inescapable conclusion is that it's a waste of time to scrap any of these seats for parts, because the whole frame would have to be disassembled just to replace something.  Luckily, we have a good supply of extra seat cushions (and backs), most of which, from car 300, we bought from Mid-Continent a couple of years ago.

Here we have a stationary corner seat from the 319 that obviously needs repair before we can put it back into service. It's one of those patched with duct tape back during the Red Green era.




Fortunately the structure appears to be fine; as usual, only the covering was failing.




So all the little tacks are removed.  The wood is basically good, but the corners often start to split a little, so I apply some epoxy to hold them together firmly for the new tacks or staples.  And the naugahyde from the walkover cushion above can be reused.




Since I have a nice new staple gun, and that's what the pros use nowadays, the material is stapled.  A few tacks are needed at the corners.  There's remarkably little material left over from cutting down a two-person walkover to a single corner seat.

And the finished product looks like this.

Inspection Season

 Where does the time go?  It's May already, and we have cars to get ready for revenue service this year.   I was able to spend two days out at the Museum "campus" now that classes at the real campus are over, so there was a lot of varied activity.

Tuesday

 I spent some time working on the roof of the 36, but no pictures.  Some of the cars needed minor repairs, such as to the window latches and lifts.

 

The 319 was still missing three spring latches, and two of these were installed as seen here.  That's the 309 in the background.

The 309 had one of its molding strips come loose, so it needs to be fastened more securely.  I need to check at home; my log book from 1985 will have the exact locations of the carlines, and then new nails can be inserted.  Before I left, I managed to wedge the wood back into place at least temporarily.  The car should not have to move any time soon.

And some of the windows in the 36 also needed new hardware.  And I worked on the 150 a little, but that's a low priority project.

Here you can see the progress Tim is making on the interior of the 24.

Lots of other projects were happening, but nothing I was able to photograph for you.  There are only so many hours in a day....

In the evening I went for a walk.   More gravel is being brought in to improve the roads at South Junction, as seen here.  Some of these crossings were very hazardous.

And the creek was flowing merrily along. 

Wednesday

It's inspection season, and the 319 gets to be first.

That box car was loaded with lumber, and much of it was being unloaded for use in making floors for the D-13, the 810, the 28, and I forget what else.  Meanwhile inspection went pretty well.  

The one unexpected problem was a broken brush spring on one of the traction motors.  I don't remember the last time I've had to deal with one.  We always check them, and make sure the brushes aren't jammed in the holder somehow, but this is the first time a problem appeared.

On the GE 254 they look like this.  The way the brush holder is mounted is much different from the earlier GE 66 design, and it took a little while to figure out how to remove the holder.  But that was educational.

As you may know, the 319 is currently running on the trucks and motors from the 321.  The 319's trucks were stored nearby, so Rod and I removed a brush holder from one of those motors and I installed it in the 319. 

 This is what the holder itself looks like.  It gets wedged in between two clamps....  sorry, words fail me.  Anyway, it's now been fixed.

I also fixed the safety valve and one of the whistle valves that had been leaking.   The only major thing remaining is lubrication.   Yuck!

While we are not open to the public on weekdays yet, there were charter trips both days, so a number of visitors were wandering around.  More signs that summer will be here soon.