Frank and I were out today, naturally Frank was out Way before me though. Good thing because he installed the new radio in the Amtrak brushcutter where the old Amtrak one was mounted. Everything is installed ready to go minus the power to the unit. Nice work for sure.
I arrived after lunch with the intention of getting the wine car parts unloaded from the UP hopper from California... Nick asked nicely. Frank had gone over the Model 50 earlier topping off fluids and repairing a tranny leak he found coming off the main pump. seems a lock nut was loose and was leaking at high RPM's. gonna have to keep an eye on that one. Frank was today's crane operator and his luck doesn't seem to be improving when it comes to travel mode. He was able to get it to move one direction but not the other. He found that pivoting the boom one way or the other made it function which tells us the contacts on the swivel post are dirty or corroded... After a while it worked fine so Frank said he'll clean up the contacts and hope that solves the problem.
We picked up the UP hopper on station 2 and dragged it over to the steam leads where we picked out the 2 complete freight car trucks, coupler, diesel loco foot boards and steam loco firebox from the car. The car by the way, still has half a load of 20 year old coal in it. Thanks to Jim W and Dan M for running the USA8537 for the day. After lifting the trucks from the car, Jim W pulled the car out and Frank lowered the truck to the ground where Nick was ready with the forklift to move the trucks to Yard 10. Everything went smoothly including the unloading of the 1800's steam locomotive firebox that came along.
To wrap up the day Jim, Frank and I dug the EJ&E 529 caboose out from 100 track and put it in Yard 11 for us to use with the Burro crane. The heat does work and I imagine we'll use it this winter.
All in all it was a good day.
Adam Robillard
Comments
Wed, 04-16-2014 16:21
3007 would be primarily for outside excursions with help from LOTS of volunteers, funds, and class 1 support. lets pretend Iowa Interstate decides to [...]
Tue, 04-15-2014 16:44
Yep. IF there were ever to be incentive or funding to put one of the larger items of the steam collection into operation, my personal favorite would [...]
Tue, 04-15-2014 15:20
yes, i remember one of the guys in the steam shop telling me that the size of 1630's wheels make it difficult to navigate the modern railway. but if [...]
Tue, 04-15-2014 10:50
John, We are not intending to repaint the tender end and sides. No #1630 does not carry cab signaling. (She left Frisco service long before it [...]
Tue, 04-15-2014 10:43
Jeron, I do not think this is something we would seriously consider. The IC car is already part of the collection. It did run on passenger trains [...]
Mon, 04-14-2014 20:42
I don't see any stripping on the tender..will that be repainted too? Also, I'm not sure how relevant this is to the discussion, but does 1630 have [...]
Thu, 04-10-2014 01:58
Nigel, I know the auxiliary water tender for Frisco 1522 was for sale a year or two ago. I don't remember if it was sold, or is still for sale. I [...]
Wed, 04-09-2014 22:32
Yes. We are looking at what it would take to rig it like the existing one to use as a water back up for #1630. It currently lacks the [...]
Wed, 04-09-2014 10:34
It is interesting to see both the milk cars together. I had been wondering if the steam department would use the IC car. The Railway Express reefer [...]
Sun, 04-06-2014 17:53
Perhaps because it would be months of work to lift the tender from the trucks and then ship the trucks to a facility with a bath big enough to do [...]
Sun, 04-06-2014 17:51
Not to my knowledge
Sun, 04-06-2014 15:24
Would the passenger car department be interested in some donated "Pullmman Style" wool blankets and/or travel type pillows for display purposes in the [...]