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Tuesday, February 21. 2012TMS Project Update - February 18-19, 2012It really is amazing to witness the work on this project. It is significant on so many fronts - engineering, machining, metallurgy, and the massive amount of less than ordinary GRUNT WORK.  Assembly Jeff Brady is dry fitting and assembling some of the completed levers and rigging in the truck. That is correct - enough of the new bushings and pins have been fabricated and heat treated to see how it goes back together. He is inserting the new pin into a lever nicknamed a 'dog bone' due to its resemblance to such doggie snack treats.  The Dog Bones Here is a closer look at the dog bones and how they fit into the truck. There are two of these in each quadrant to next receive the brake head castings, which in turn hold the brake shoes.  Boring Each of the many parts in this truck receives attention. This once bent brake lever has been heated and straightened, as seen by the gray discoloration on the casting. The old deteriorated bushings have been removed with a hydraulic press. Here the lever is on the drill press table and about to get its holes reamed to receive the new bushings. As I said above it is truly amazing, doing this on a wish and prayer with old tools and a lot of hard work and commitment from the volunteers. Tuesday, February 21. 2012CTS 4223 Update - February 18, 2012Apologies since it seems the volunteers doing the work can accomplish results faster than I can post entries here.  Tracks Lorne Tweed is working on the smallest of the track parts, an insert with steel spring leaves behind it. Needless to say many of those are about destroyed by rusting, so here he is dong 'blacksmith' work to try to remove some bad ones.  Back in the Carbody The mild winter weather continued so Lorne Twee is assisting Eric Lorenz with installation of more of the new car interior wainscotting panels below the windows. Very nice! Tuesday, February 21. 2012Wood Shop Update - February 18-19, 2011 Glazing Buzz Morisette has glazed several of the new windows he built for ATSF 1400 caboose. They are a thing of beauty. Here he is wrestling with clean up of the gooey butyl rubber compound we use in place of traditional glazing putty. That old fashioned glazing putty hardens and shrinks, falls out and fails over time. This stuff has stood the test of time, maintaining a flexible watertight seal for several years. But it can be troublesome to work with.  Final Coat With much of the cleaning behind him, Buzz is ready to add the final coat of gray interior paint to the windows.  Steam Department Nick Kallas was visiting the shop, and Victor Humphreys is showing him the complicated joinery for a new window for Norfolk & Western 2050. The steel plate beside the new wood parts is a 'new' discovery in the past week. The finished wood window gets a fairly heavy sheet of metal placed over its exterior.  More Windows Dan Fenlaciki helped glue and square up two more new windows for Illinois Central 3996 Diner. Six are now so assembled.  Track Department Could that caption be wrong? No, Marcus Ruef delivered new lumber for the wood shop crew to make up new decking for two of our four wheel track cars. Those guys just do not like to work in comfort - it has to be either too cold or too hot for them to really enjoy themselves. So our wood shop sawdust guys will do the cutting. |
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Comments
Fri, 08-11-2017 00:05
Randy, The 543 was never in that paint scheme. It'll likely be restored to the zebra stripe scheme whenever it does get restored. Jamie
Thu, 08-10-2017 17:46
If you ever get the money to repaint this engine, I would hope you would repaint it to have the big letters Santa Fe instead of the small print. [...]
Thu, 08-10-2017 10:38
I would like to know if these MR #649 and #542 were part of FEVR excursion in Nebraska? Awesome to have them to be part of IRM collection!
Sat, 08-05-2017 23:30
They need to restore Milwaukee road 33 and 37c along with the 3 Milwaukee road f units hey have
Wed, 08-02-2017 20:01
It was supposed to be restored and sat behind the NS Altoona shops for the better part of two years, waiting for that to happen. We finally had it [...]
Tue, 08-01-2017 02:42
those 2 Milw cars would actually look good behind one of the Milw F7's or the E9's.
Sat, 07-29-2017 22:02
I just donated to the Save the 800 campaign. Should the campaign fail, I would like my donation re-directed to ATSF FP45 #92 please. Please tell the [...]
Sat, 07-29-2017 13:14
I see Conrail 4601 has finally arrived. I suspect a cosmetic restoration and getting donations to put it in a barn are in order?
Sat, 07-29-2017 01:51
It was restored at Altoona before coming to Union from the Essex, CT area. BTW, is or was it going to be restored as a Virginian engine? or kept as a [...]
Fri, 07-28-2017 11:54
It appears to be the E33 that IRM aqquired a year or two ago.
Thu, 07-27-2017 14:06
What is the 4601 locomotive parked in front of the diesel shop?
Wed, 07-26-2017 17:53
Since your archives list no E mail address or any other form of contact I am sending this here. Over the years I have been given a huge amount of [...]