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Tuesday, February 21. 2012
CTS 4223 Update - February 18, 2012 Posted by Robert Kutella
in Cleveland Transit System 4223 at
17:31
Comments (0) CTS 4223 Update - February 18, 2012Apologies since it seems the volunteers doing the work can accomplish results faster than I can post entries here. 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. 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, 2011Buzz 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. With much of the cleaning behind him, Buzz is ready to add the final coat of gray interior paint to the windows. 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. Dan Fenlaciki helped glue and square up two more new windows for Illinois Central 3996 Diner. Six are now so assembled. 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. Sunday, February 19. 2012Steam Department Update 2-18-2012Two weeks of steady progress in the Steam shop. Whilst I was on my travels last week Collin and Glenn brought the super heater flues back from Astro Blast. Apparently the cold had some pretty disastrous effects on the air brakes of the flat bed but Glenn thankfully has a lifetime of experience in plant maintenance so the brakes were released and the trip was accomplished while the flat bed may now be more reliable in cold weather. Jason and others did a great job in sheeting over 1630 to protect against the dust coming from the sand blasting while Dennis started on rebuilding the smoke box of the Shay. This week the main activity was sandblasting the boiler interior on 1630. Progress was very good. Collin managed to clean nearly half of the boiler interior. While the sealing and ducting is reasonably effective there is still far too much dust for other work to be done around the locomotive while this is in progress. Below a small team feeds material to the sandblaster in center under cover of a haze of dust So it was late afternoon before Mike could start further work in the firebox where he is preparing the rivet holes for the firebox patch. There was a possibility of the specialist who will do the thickness testing on the boiler starting next weekend. However, this cannot be done at the same time as sandblasting so we decided to hold off on this for a couple of weeks. If we can maintain the rate of progress achieved yesterday, it should be possible to complete the sand blasting in another one or two working days. The equipment has now been moved to the smoke box end and next weekend we will aim to seal the tube plate and target to clean that and the front boiler section (the rear barrel section was done yesterday). The unease growing in the sand blasting team as we happily feed 50lb bags of material into the machine is that all this material has to be removed when we are finished !!. We used about 400lbs of material yesterday alone so it is becoming apparent that we face another substantial task to clean it all out before the process is really complete. The progress made can be seen in the picture below as large areas now show bare metal rather than the rusty covering. But all the black "sand" must be removed. After a few hours inside, Collin extracts himself from the boiler. Not much chance of me getting in there!!. Bob made good progress on "painting" (actually it is a specialized interior boiler coating called Apexior) the super heater flues that were brought back last week. The ends of these were rough cut when being removed from the boiler and now need to be cleanly cut in preparation for a specialist to weld additional material at one end to bring them back to the required length (a process called "safe ending"). Phil and others made a lot of progress in cleaning out and needle chipping the spring carrier of the Shay's truck. This now looks a great deal better than the same area as it appeared in the 12/3 update. The brake linkage was also removed and cleaned. We do however have a big decision on how to proceed with this truck. The best way to thoroughly clean and inspect it would undoubtedly be steam cleaning. However, that cannot be done in the shop so would require a major shunt to pull 428 out over the wheel drop to allow the truck out of the South door. A good deal of machining work continued, primarily on the axle boxes and other parts for 428 but also on the super heater flue expanders that we will need to install the tubes back into 1630. I really look forward to being able to report that those are in use!. As an aside, during my trip to the UK I was able to spend a day at the Severn Valley Railway It is amazing the level of interest in steam railways in the UK and therefore the level of business. Even in mid February they were running 4 trains of about 7 cars each way over a 15 mile line and seemed to have at around 50% loadings. 3 locomotives were in operation with several others usable. At Kidderminster GWR prairie tank 5164 comes on to the train that it will take to Bridgenorth. At the Bridgenorth depot 5164 shunts LMS mogul 43106, which is being steamed for a later train, before taking its own train back to Kidderminster. Notice the genuine antique heating system for the water crane!!. It was well below freezing that weekend. A couple of hours later and the Ivatt mogul is not only steamed but has brought a train the 15 miles to Kidderminster. Nigel Bennett Thursday, February 16. 2012Wood Shop Update - February 11-15, 2011Call me all about lazy, or all about easy. But this time I will put all project work under the Wood Shop category. Let's start out with Cleveland Transit System 4223. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Dave Rogan who is a new volunteer at IRM. He walked in in the morning and by afternoon was hard at work on doing the window sash restoration work on CTS 4223. Al Reinschmidt is a long time member and volunteer but he made a fairly rare Wednesday appearance and also joined in the fray, here shown cleaning some of the tracks for the windows. Lorne Tweed is a regular worker on the 4223 project and as usual it was hard to distract him with corny jokes. Very committed to the work at hand. Not in these pics was Simon Harrison - yes - working on more sash. The good news is that the stack of completed parts and sash is looking much larger than the stack of items remaining. Buzz Morrisette is on the home stretch for the large batch of new windows for ATSF 1400 caboose. We caught him mitering and cutting to length the many small strips of quarter round to retain the glazing. Tim Peters is 'back in the saddle' or in this case making a set of new saddles for the roof of Chicago Rapid Transit 1797. There is something about the smell of white oak sawdust early in the morning. John Faulhaber is sighting along two pieces destined to become new windows for Illinois Central diner 3996. We try to mass produce parts exactly the same for each new 'order' or group of windows, but the last step is to match and custom fit the pieces before gluing. Victor Humphreys, Simon Harrison, and I took two of the completed frame sets and got them permanently glued and in the press to set up while being held square and true. Pete Galayda just keeps plugging along on the Charles City Western 300 locomotive. He is working to restore a headlight resistance box and it sits beside a newly refinished controller cover. Tuesday, February 14. 2012
CTS 4223 Update - February11, 2012 Posted by Robert Kutella
in Cleveland Transit System 4223 at
05:20
Comments (0) CTS 4223 Update - February11, 2012Steady work equals steady progress. Alex Randow just will not give up, and continues to clean and restore aluminum sash for this car. Note that he is wearing a NY GIANTS hat! Alex hails from the New Jersey area and it gives one pause to gain such insight into the character of your workmates. Is it a good move to wear that in the Midwest? Just kidding, Alex. It is no less attractive to remove crud, bend the tracks straight, and clean the tracks needed for these windows. Many surfaces, grooves and folds in the metal. Lorne Tweed grits his teeth and continues the process. He is nothing if not persistent. Meanwhile, Bill Wulfert (above) located a headlight lens while Eric Lorenz proceeded to fabricate a reflector, install socket, wiring and bulb. In short order a temporary power supply was rigged up and THERE WAS LIGHT! This car looks to be ready to leave at any time if we have a long enough extension cord. Sunday, February 12. 2012
Rock Island Commuter Coach Update, ... Posted by Roger Kramer
in Passenger Car Department at
15:01
Comment (1) Rock Island Commuter Coach Update, 2-12-12I thought I would update progress on RI coaches for Lincoln's birthday. The Steam Passenger Coach Department has been upgrading the interiors of the cars as time and dollars permits. The progress has been happening slowly over the last few years. First, couple of pics show Shelly and Wayne repairing the ceiling in 2582. Mike and Ray assisted. The old ceiling panels were removed and new ones installed because of a constant roof leak that had developed years ago. That project happened in May 2009. The following year I repaired a number of loose screws from the seat brackets. Mark Hoffman took the pics. That same year I decided to scrape off loose paint in one of the cars. Peeling paint does not create a good impression especially for the Thomas customers. I sanded the questionable areas, primed then painted them. That same year I installed advertising car cards on both sides of the car. They were given to me by the late Julie Johnson. April 20 2011 found myself again working on RI 2571. This time I was sanding, priming and topcoating the exterior window sills. I painted the entire length of the car. The last pic shows the finished product. The coach was ready for service. The last project has taken a long time to complete. It was started in the middle 80's by the late Jim Blower. He began scraping and priming the standee grabs but never finished painting them. The 2571 was placed in service before a coat of paint could be applied . I finally decided to take the time resand the 4 grabs and paint them. After replacing some screws and sandblasting a few small parts the results are pictured! Other accomplishments on the Thomas coaches are left to Mike and Ray who diligently, every Spring, inspect and test the running gear, ie the brake system to make sure they are functioning properly. If you would like to help us just drop by some Saturday or Sunday for a chat. We will be glad to show you around. |
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Comments
Wed, 04-11-2018 11:28
You mention in the header that you would like to have the Electroliner operational by its birthday. Was it?
Sun, 04-08-2018 20:03
As a child, IRM was always my favorite place to visit. Well, other than grandma's house next to the Geneva Sub. It's been many years since I now [...]
Wed, 04-04-2018 16:01
Those temporary walls could be constructed in a way that allows their reuse after the phase is done to close off the new phases.
Tue, 03-27-2018 03:08
Why did the smoke box cover on the shay need to be replace Do?
Mon, 03-26-2018 16:29
It never ceases to amaze me of the diligence and passion of the current mix of volunteers associated with IRM in 2018. Back when I was a active [...]
Mon, 03-26-2018 11:10
Awesome paint job Jamie!!! I never would of thought with the Rock Island history this locomotive in this scheme would of been preserved. Thanks for [...]
Sun, 03-25-2018 23:56
The Hick's blog lists it as Fruit Grower's Express FGEX #55407. Arrived in Union June 2016.
Sun, 03-25-2018 20:51
Good job on the diesel update 2018. Sincere, Ethan A.
Sun, 03-25-2018 20:45
Good job on the steam update 2018. Sincere, Ethan A.
Sun, 03-25-2018 00:12
Bill, The 1990 Roster has the PFE #68428; this may be the reefer that we saw moved. It is a rare car and deserves a paint job. Ted Miles, [...]
Fri, 03-16-2018 11:10
It would be rather difficult to operate an 11,000 Volt AC locomotive on our 600 Volt DC wire.
Thu, 03-15-2018 05:57
Good job steam update. Sincerely, Ethan A.