Electric Car Department

Here is another look at projects that are ongoing, but are seldom seen or reported upon, and with detail views, rare in themselves.  We are indebted to Steve Iverson for these, and he has been working on this car as reported in recent BLOG ENTRIES here.

Kansas City Public Service 755 is a single ended PCC car, all electric, built by St Louis Car Company in 1946, and seats 51.  It arrived at IRM in 1986 via SEPTA as number 2267.  The car is stored inside our barns and lighting for images can be most charitably put as 'challenging'.  But any picture is better than none, so here goes.

KCPS 755

The car as it sits now in all its glory as Frank Sirinek contemplates the next task.  Frank Hicks worked on this car to redecorate it in KC colors and graphics, even if only a cosmetic paint job.  Looks good, especially in light of what the car looked like in peeling Septa and grafiti.

Interior

With work lights providing the only illumination this is the interior, looking to the rear of the car.

Interior

And also the interior looking toward the front of the car.  You will easily see the TWO and ONE seating plan in the front half of the car, something foreign to us Chicagoans.  Of course the Chicago PCC cars were the widest of those models made, if I am not mistaken.

Cab

The operator's position, of course, in the left hand front corner.

Roof Work

Mike Stauber is on the roof, which was the object of the recent work blitz.

Roof Forward

Looking forward you will see the roof vent restored and installed, and nearer to us, the trolley pole shrouds.  Little of this did not receive attention.  Frank is on the ladder and seems to be looking down toward his next step.

Roof Rear

Looking back over the business end of the roof, there are the shrouds, trolley pole, hook, essentially everything completed in this area.

As with most projects at IRM there are small groups of dedicated volunteers working to bring the equipment back to life.  This car has been emptied of stored materials, the exterior repainted, and a LOT of work done to replace the all but opaque windows and get them working.  The work is getting to the stage where more funds will be needed, so here again, please consider a donation to fund R755.

With Easter Sunday on the calendar, the shop was quite full yesterday.  We had all the regular Saturday folks, and a lot of the Sunday workers who came out a day early to have tomorrow off with family.

Traps

Ray Schmid continued on the restoration of trap plates for the stair wells on the rear of the car.  Many steps of sanding and painting will result in these looking like new.

Mats

After painting the plates, the final step is to install rubber matting on the top or wear surface.  The mats are cut and fitted and then the tricky part is to install them and adhere the matting to the top.

Molding

Meanwhile, Jeff Brady was working to set up jigs and fixtures on the table saw to produce some very small cross section moldings.

I do not get as much a chance to post updates on this project, since our schedules do not mesh very well.  But yesterday the crew on the 28 was out in force, so here are a few views.

Traps

Ray Schmid was continuing the many steps to finish the step well traps prior to installing them on the car.  They have been painted, sanded and touched up.  Later in the day new rubber matting was being cut and fitted for the top sides.

The Caul

A caul is a sort of form or bending jig needed to make specialty parts.  Jeff Brady constructed this large one for bending the new sheets of roofing for the 28.  Here, he is modifying it to be able to bend some runners for the roof mats.  It is a tricky process and one that is more art than science, largely disappeared from our society today.