Visit to Arden

Frank writes...

Work took me to Pittsburgh again this past weekend, and again I took the opportunity drop in on our friends at the Pennsylvania (nee Arden) Trolley Museum. Bruce Wells, his daughter Laura, and others were kind enough to show me some of the progress.

First and foremost is West Penn 832, the only curve-side car preserved complete (though Seashore has restored a curve-sider acquired as a body). The interior of the car has made remarkable progress, as shown above, since my last visit about a year ago. The seats are nearly all installed, as is the headlining, and currently work is focusing on the motorman's consoles at each end as well as creating some replacement seat parts where the originals were too deteriorated. Bruce himself has been working on reinstalling the car's hand brakes.

And alongside the 832 was Pittsburgh Railways derrick car M283. Eagle-eyed viewers will note it is missing its trucks; both trucks were recently sent out for complete rebuilding, and some final adjustments were being made prior to reinstallation under the car. This particular piece of equipment is intriguing to me because, if memory serves, it has an unusual electro-magnetic form of Westinghouse HL control rather than the common electro-pneumatic type.

And a third car in the shop was Red Arrow 78, which suffered an altercation recently with a pickup truck at the grade crossing next to the PTM main campus. Fortunately nobody was severely hurt but the truck was totaled and the 78 took some damage to its front dash and windows. You wouldn't know it now, following quite a bit of work on body repair, repainting, and relettering.

And then over in the display building at the other end of the line, Bruce showed me the interior of the "Toledo," where Bill Fronczek recently got the lights working. The difference is remarkable: the car's interior was totally refurbished by Trolleyville, which owned the car until PTM got it in 2010, and the woodwork is really gorgeous. The car is a body but PTM has enough parts on hand to get it operating at some point. If and when that happens it will be an incredible showpiece.

But the museum's big project this past year has been the Wexford depot from the Pittsburgh Harmony Butler & New Castle interurban line. Restoration of the depot, which has been placed next to the display building, was completed this fall. It was too dark to get a good photo of the outside but the interior is very nice and is decorated with PHB&NC photos. The bench is from the P&LE Pittsburgh station, now known as Station Square.

One of the fascinating artifacts on display in the depot is the interurban line's original dispatching board, shown here mounted over a door. This isn't CTC: cars were tracked by putting little pegs into the holes to show their location! Wexford is towards the right (Pittsburgh) end. As always, many thanks to Bruce and the other PTM volunteers for showing me around!

UP M-35 Update

Gregg Wolfersheim sends us the most recent news from the Cretney barn on the UP doodlebug:

On Wednesday I worked on removing old paint on the water tank in M-35. This tank is about the size of your hot water heater at home, only a little taller. Luckily we can only get to one side of it!

Another view of the lower end of the tank. It's almost ready for primer.

On Thursday, the first carline was installed. It has been many years since something occupied this spot!

A different view of the new carline. This one is attached to the firewall, and only serves to support the roof. Other carlines behind this one will be sandwiched between the roof ribs of steel.

Looking up from inside of the car. Next will be the carlines recently made for the area over the engine room.

Bob Bruneau and the 309

His son Chris sent us this picture of a young Bob Bruneau, probably at North Chicago.  He was instrumental in providing encouragement, guidance, and expert advice over the years on this project.

Making Gladhands Tight

Is it spring yet?  The Electroliner (actually just a quarter Liner) pokes its nose out the door to see.

Meanwhile, in the shop, a DH-25 compressor is slated for use on the 451.  If the armature resistance is too low, an easy thing to do is to put a light bulb inside to drive out the moisture.   So keep your fingers crossed.   

Now for some vocational instruction, in case you ever want to make brakes hoses for a living.  Gerry Dettloff demonstrates how to use our banding machine for attaching gladhands and fittings to  the hoses.  Here's the device with a new band in place, ready to tighten down.

Helped by Bob Olson, he puts the hose into the band, and then the gladhand is put into the hose.

Then he starts cranking to tighten the band until it refuses to move any more.

Now Jeron also lends a hand, and shows how the band is crimped and cut in one motion.

And when it's done, it looks like this.  This will be used on the 810.

And here's a before and after shot of the two hoses for the car.

And here's another mystery photo contest: what exactly is this?  It's a clamp of some sort, with handles for manipulating it, but what is it used for?  Send in your suggestions.  I have dibs on the medieval torture device theory.

Tim continues to produce new doors and windows, as seen here.

This is a motorman's door for the 1754.   Tim points out that this door was reversed by moving both the hinges and the door latch from one side to the other when the Northwestern Elevated switched from left-hand to right-hand running.

And several new window frames are in the big press.

As for me, I was mostly working in the 319's vestibule again. 

 Some more sanding and scraping, but it's getting close to completion.  Surface prep is followed by a first coat of white primer, which is usually enough.

Then there were several parts of the vestibule that were ready for a first coat of finish red.  Brilliant!

The red does not cover very well, and two or three coats will be required.

And then I put the second new clerestory window in place in the 150 (on the left).  

And I spent some time looking for a replacement brake cutout for the 309.  The original is the black one at lower left.  I tested three from the Museum's supply of these things, but so far without success.  The flunkers are tagged and put back into storage.  But I'll keep looking.

No Tailgating!

I really dislike tailgaters.  Don't you?  It's very irksome to have someone following too close behind you, especially after dark.  And that's even more true when you're running a train.   That's why we have big red tail lights for use at night.

Bob Heinlein recently gave me a tail light from the CTA that is badly rusted, but should be very useful after some cleaning.  A couple of years ago I cleaned up and repainted a tail light of the same type from the CA&E as seen here.  And the goal is to make the next one look just as good.

Unfortunately it's very rusty, but not rusted through anywhere.  I plan to take it out to the Museum and sandblast it.

Of course, more modern L cars don't need separate lights like this, so in later years this one was evidently used at an office on the structure somewhere:

It took some work, but I finally got the rear door open.

The kerosene reservoir is very rusty, but the brass mechanism still works, and just needs to be oiled.

On the top, you can barely make out a tag reading "CRT".  Compare this to the CA&E one shown earlier.

And on the lid, we see that this is the "Non-Sweating" type.   Whew, that's a relief!

We may want to run two trains of wood cars at night this year, so this will be nice to have once it's been fixed up.  And all you other motormen out there, don't get too close!   

The Museum Never Sleeps

Even in the middle of winter, no matter how cold it may be outside, with our heated shop facilities we can keep working here at IRM.  A lot of progress is accomplished, and it's better than sitting at home watching TV, if you ask me.  (Not that I can say why you should....)

Anyway, let's start by looking at some of the other projects going on in the shop.  As always, Tim is hard at work.  Here he's making new window frames for CRT 1754.

Notice that he has the right cutters so that the rails fit into the stiles properly.  This is exactly the way it would be done for production runs back in the old days.

And the bottom metal channels for the doors have been made, and here he is checking the fit:

Frank Sirinek was painting the metal strips for the blinker doors on the Kansas City PCC: 

Lorne and Eric are checking out new parts for the ventilation system on the Cleveland PCC.  This will be almost entirely new construction when finished.

Dan Fenlaciki is an expert Mig welder, and he was fixing up a couple of parts for Tim (the steel channels seen above) and Roger Kramer (a seat bracket for one of the Rock Island cars.)  The arc is extremely bright, of course, so I didn't want to get too close.

Appearances notwithstanding, he survived the process just fine, I think.

Finally, although it's less exciting, we'll turn to what I was doing.  I finished up the truss rods on the 36 by attaching all of the brackets at each end, as seen here.  I'm thinking that the main reason for these is that if a pin were to break while the car was in motion, these keep the rod from hitting the ground or other stationary objects.  The rods aren't stiff enough to pole vault the car off the track, but there's no telling what they might hit or damage on the car itself, or its passengers.  I don't remember seeing these on cars from other lines, but they're easily overlooked.

I also want to complain that it was even colder inside the barn than outside.  Who do I talk to???

Inside the 319's vestibule, however, it got pretty toasty, so it was time for more sanding, and then painting.  Yes, I know, this looks a lot like Groundhog Day, same old stuff every day.  First primer on some sections:

And then first finish red on some other parts, mostly the ceiling:

And some second red: 

 That's all for today, but we have a couple of historical articles in the pipelines, so stay tuned!