Another Season on the Trans-Siberian

At least that's what it sometimes may seem like. It was extremely cold today with strong winds. At least there's no wind chill inside the barn. Here we see the 321 and 4001 now stored behind Barn 8 under their tarps. The only reason I went out back at all was because I realized I had left my lettering enamel in the 321 and had to retrieve it.

And I'll add some nice winter scenes to the scenery page.

Here's the result of all the switching that was done last weekend. We now have three open slots in Barn 8. One of them is currently occupied by three pairs of trucks, for the 319, 1100, and 141. And in the center aisle, we see the pilots and steps from the 321, and the Hicks Chair of Mathematics.

I decided one feasible project for a cold day was to finish lettering the 309, actually. The #2 vestibule had never gotten the warning on the train door for some reason. A space heater can easily bring the little vestibule up to a nice warm temperature, so it's a good place to work. As seen to the right, I applied a matrix of masking tape as a guide for lettering the door. Getting the heater and extension cord installed, making the measurements, getting the paint from the 321 and warming everything up took more time than the actual lettering.

So here I am part way through. I'm a little out of practice and decided to start over after the first two words. The second time went better after warming the paint some more. If you flub up, it's easy to just wipe it off with mineral spirits and redo.

And the final result.

The next winter project should be to letter the interior of the 308; in several places it's supposed to say "Please keep your feet off seats." But heating up an entire compartment is harder, so it can't be quite so cold outside.

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Oil and Water

My highest priority is to get the 309 into revenue service, so today I started by removing the excess oil from the #4 armature bearing with a siphon; I then cleaned the commutator with special solvent to remove the oil and gunk which had been deposited on it. I then tested the car by running it out to the road and back a couple of times. I didn't want to go any farther because I was by myself and didn't want to be stuck if something went wrong. The commutator was still clean after these brief runs, but that's not much of a test. We'll need to do a main line run before deciding the problem has been fixed. Thanks again to Stan for his help on this.

After that, I started installing the new piece of canvas for the 277 I purchased yesterday. First, I rolled it out on the grass and soaked it on both sides with the hose.

After a thorough soaking, I managed to get it up onto the roof of the car and started to stretch it in place as well as I could. It's not easy to do, since this is just a patch piece. My primary objective was not to fall off the car and die. Actually getting the canvas tight is relatively minor. I'm hoping it will shrink somewhat as it dries. To the right is a picture before I really started stretching it.

After that I turned to the inside of the 277. I removed a piece from the ceiling so I can get the ceiling paint matched. That will be the next step. Joel is helping by repainting the baggage racks, and I will need to roll the ceiling before they can be reinstalled. I then put another coat of white primer on all the parts already installed, as seen here. It's looking good, I think.

Tim Peters continues to make good progress on the 1268. Here he is painting the sides.

Finally, for this week's scenery on the IRM campus, we have a nice view of Schneider's Grove.

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Motor Issues

I went out to the museum on Sunday to try and finish up the 309's inspection in preparation for operations on Monday. Charlie Strong and Stan Wdowikowski had completed most of the inspection work on the car, leaving me with only the contactor boxes and controller to examine. I did this (more information on contactor operation can be found in the next post down), finding no real issues, and sequenced the car successfully with help from Tim Peters. (Sequencing involves visual inspection of all contactors in operation - obviously with the motors cut out - to ensure proper operation.) The work wasn't quite done, though; Stan had found that the #4 motor had some oil on the commutator, which if left alone can lead to a flashover. He had cleaned up all of the oil during the week, though, and we were planning on taking the 309 out on a test trip on the main line to see if the problem was solved when something else caught our attention.

CTA streetcar 3142, which is our standard service streetcar and sees use virtually seven days a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day, suffered a motor failure in service. The failure occurred at Car Line Junction, tying up operations out of Station Track 1 until IT 415 was able to push 3142 onto the tail track. This deals a tough blow to the museum's streetcar operations; stay tuned for information on plans to get the motor sent out for repair.

Anyway, following this incident we did actually take the 309 out on the line for a trip, even carrying a full load of passengers. Upon our return the #4 motor was inspected again and more oil was found on the commutator, meaning that the car shouldn't be put into service until the cause of the oil leakage is found and repaired. The timeline for this is unknown since we don't know exactly where the source of the oil is, but the motor has not had any electrical issues so the fix ought to be something we can do in-house. Outside of the Car Shop, there was a lot of interesting stuff happening. The Nebraska Zephyr made its celebrated return today; the Electroliner was on display on the west track of 50th Avenue Station; the Track Crew was hard at work tamping and leveling the east track (pictured, L-R: Frank DeVries, Adam Robillard, unknown (back to camera), Tom Hunter, Steve L., John Neglich); and the last two C&NW-painted diesels owned by the UP even made a cameo appearance in Steamland.

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Up in the Air

I took the day off of work and went out to the museum with the intention of finishing up the inspection on the 309. When I arrived I moved the car over to the inspection pit in Barn 4, but as it turned out a crew was gathering to replace the overhead wire on the west station leads and I joined them instead. Spending the day working with Adam Robillard, Charlie Strong, Stan Wdowikowski, and Henry Vincent to help Line Department Head Max Tyms was a change of pace and quite an education. It was also quite enjoyable since it was sunny, in the 80's, and breezy!

We started out by detaching the 1/0 round wire between the west end of Station Track 2 and the West Switch, about 1,000 feet to the west, and hanging it off to the side with rope. The hangers were replaced with "dollies," or pulleys, and a guide rope was threaded through these, taking the place of the old wire. (In the photo at left, taken by Adam Robillard, Max is replacing the round-wire hanger with a pulley and I'm about to hand him the guide rope.) When finished with this, we went and got a reel of new 3/0 grooved wire, which was connected to the end of the guide rope and pulled through the 1,000 foot's worth of pulleys.

I had to leave early, but later on the line crew connected the new grooved wire to the frog at the West Switch and started hooking it up to the hangers heading eastbound. The intention is to replace all of the 1/0 round wire on the west station leads, including installation of brand new frogs on the Station 1/2 switch and Station 1/West Wye switch. This will make it unnecessary to "hop" the pole over the wire gap at the Station 1/West Wye switch and will be a big improvement! More photos taken by Adam of this work can be seen here.

While I was out with the line crew, Gerry Dettloff (right) was back in the shop doing inspection work on the 309. He was able to get all of the motor and truck inspection work done on the car, which is some of the toughest and dirtiest work of the inspection process. Thanks, Gerry!!

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More of the Same

I forgot to bring my camera with me to the Museum today. Sorry, but at least you're not missing anything that hasn't already been pictured here. Apart from the thermometer bottoming out. Brrrrr!

I installed the newly-rebuilt trolley pole on the #1 end of the 308, and then removed the #2 pole. It looks to be in much better condition and won't need patching. It's still in Barn 8; next time I'm out on a Saturday we can start on replacing the hardware again. (It won't be this Saturday; I have a concert to go to.)

Most of the rest of the time was occupied by completing the assembly of a seat frame for the 309 and installing it. This is harder than it looks. For one thing, all of the holes in the wooden side wall where the frame is attached were worn, so I had to drill them out and install hardwood dowels, then re-drill them for the screws. And the frame itself needs some work to get it to operate properly after the end castings have been replaced. And then the arm rest didn't fit quite right, and so on.

One of the spring clips that holds the side doors open on the 309 had broken, so I removed a replacement from the 321 and took it to the shop. I wire-wheeled it and painted it with primer. Little things like that can be a real nuisance while operating. Tim was working in the shop on the 1268 project, and is making good progress. He hopes to have the car operational by Member's Day this year. Let's hope!

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309 Report

It appears both my camera batteries are going bad, so there's only one picture today. Sorry.

I reassembled both seat frames I had removed -- shown is a complete one on the workbench in the 321. This is not easy to do with only two hands. I then reinstalled one of them. This required some more adjustments, and plugging up some of the holes in the wood. It's time consuming, but the end result is worth it.

I also installed the trolley pole with the new harp on the 309, tightened it down, reattached the rope, etc. It works for having lights in the car, that's all I was able to test today. Looks good!

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