Entries by James Kolanowski

The Illinois Railway Museum will be hosting a night photo session the evening of Chicago and North Western Day on Saturday, May 20th. Tickets are required and they will be limited. Flash lighting will be provided by Kevin A. Sadowski. Proceeds from this night photo session will go towards the repainting of CNW 6847. You can reserve your spot here at the following link:

https://www3.irm.org/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=10&products_id=2134

Some of the featured equipment will be:

• CNW 1689 (Alco RSD5)
• CNW 1518 (EMD GP7)
• CNW 4160 (EMD GP7R)
• CNW 6847 (EMD SD40-2)
• CNW 8646 (GE C44-9W)
• CNW 8701 (GE C44-9W)
• CNW 411 (EMD F7A)
• CNW 151 (Cab car)
• Other equipment that may be available.

Some of the photo lineups will be announced at a later date.

All schedules and equipment subject to change without notice.

When the weather is perfect and between the mid 60's to low 70's, a lot gets done! And that was the case this weekend! On Saturday, the day started out with Nick D, Eric Z and myself moving a few locos around the shop to get setup for the weekends projects. Jeron G joined us half way through. We rearranged about eight locos between tracks 21, 22 and 23, and grabbed two from other yards.

Mark R was running the backhoe with the track department, he was able to break free from that for 10 minutes to help us dig out the old plow to 1605 from the material yard. We'll be putting it onto 6847 removing the UP plow that is on it now. Charlie S and Kevin S spend much of the day needle scaling the plow to prep it for primer and paint. There's still more work to do, a little more needle chipping, and we'll have to straighten the leading edge of the blade.



Jeron and I worked on watering, prelubing and inspecting some of the rotating equipment in WC 7525, and started that up. It is so nice to have new good batteries in the loco. When we last ran it with the old batteries, it would not start itself, and a couple years before that, you only had one chance on a warm day to get it started. We let it idle for the day to dry everything out.

Meanwhile, Colton V changed the oil and fuel filters in CNW 6847. After Jeron and I were done on 7525, we went over to 6847 and inspected the rotating equipment, then decided it was lunch time. When we got back, prelubed, watered, and attempted to start, but the turbo clutch was doing its thing again and wouldn't engage. We pulled the intake filters off, spun the turbo impeller a few times in one direction and forced it in the other direction until it stopped. Did that a couple of times and tried another attempt at starting, much better this time. Replaced the intake filters and didn't have any other problems the rest of the weekend. Again, having new batteries in this unit too was great!

Eric Z and Nick D spent the afternoon working on CNW 4160 inside the shop. The goal there was to change out a head with one of a few that we picked up from MOT a year ago. The number 6 cylinder head had a lot of blow by on one or more exhaust valves. To change out a head, the fuel lines, the rocker oil line, rocker shaft, injector linkage, injector crab, the injector, overspeed lockout, cylinder test cock, main crab nuts, and head to liner bolts all come off to be able to pull the head. Perform some cleanup and put all new seals in and gasket on the liner, same on the head, and put it all back together.









Unfortunately, there was a small water leak on the upper O ring of the head which forced us to remove it again and work on that a bit. Nick D and I stayed until about 1:30am had it all back apart, ready to go back together on Sunday.  On Sunday afternoon, Eric and Nick went through the reassembly process once more and no issues this time with any water leaks.



On Sunday, I moved the 6847 over to pump to engine oil into it as it was about 100 gallons low. Also topped off the water in it and also in 7525.



Eric and I switched the order of locos on track 22, placing the CNW 411 and ATSF 92 deep in the shop for more work, and moved the 4160 outside for prelubing and added some oil to it as well. Since 4160 doesn't have batteries, we jumped that one off the 7525. It sounds much better than it did for the last 9 years. It'll still need the fuel rack set and go through and set all the lash adjusters, but it is getting better and better, closer to a reliable running loco.

It was a very productive weekend getting three locos running and a getting a few other projects going and well on their way to completion. Thanks to all you guys for helping out this weekend!

From this point forward I'm going to start summarizing the updates by week instead of by day like we've done in the past. That might make it easier to post a little more info with my limited time. Also, I'll be making separate blog posts for the progress on 92 starting next week.

Anyway, earlier in the week Dan and I made it out to the shop one evening to work on the 7525 and 92. While Dan focused on testing the electrical system of 92 and making a list of work that it will be needing, I crawled under the 7525's number 3 traction motor to perform some cleanup. A few weeks ago, Dan had meggered all the motors and we also knew that the number 3 had flashed and needed some work. The armature was reading .1 megohms, which is not good at all.



There were obvious signs with freshly melted bronze on the brush holders and zaps from the end of the armature to the motor case. I spent a few hours slotting the entire commutator, using a lining bar to move the loco an inch or two at a time to rotate the motor and wiped everything down that I could reach with some motor cleaner to remove any carbon tracks that might be present. Slotting is where you take a file designed to fit in between the bars of the commutator and essentially file out anything that is in the slots, copper balls from flashing, carbon, dirt, etc., anything that'll conduct from bar to bar. While cleaning and inspecting the bottom of the motor, I noticed two broken springs on the same spring pack on the back holder. Made a note that it'll have to come out to be repaired. After the cleaning and slotting, megging again brought it up to .6 megohms, better.

On Saturday morning, Erik and Nick continued sanding in the cab of 411. They spent much of the day making a huge amount of progress getting most of it ready for primer.



I worked on getting the holder out of the motor on 7525 to replace the bad springs. Little did I know I would find a hole blown in the bottom of it, which is what burned through the springs. I cleaned it up, removed and cleaned all the insulators before putting it back together and reinstalling in the motor. Megged again and not it's showing just over 1 megohms, much better. We'll give it a try this season and see how it performs.





There were a number of people working on the 92, including Dan, Laddie, Nick, Erik, Brian, Colton and myself. There was a lot of paint scraping going on inside, more work on the electrical system, and some work on the air system.

Erik and I also installed a fitting on the 7525 to make prelubing the engine far easier than what we were doing.



Thanks to all these guys for all their hard work!

Today we spend a few hours working on CNW 411 to reconnect the HEP radiator piping, temperature probes and various other clamps. The piping consisted of 4 flat gasketed connections, one to each radiator header, one hose coupling, one dresser coupling and two marmon couplings. The two temperature probes are for the fans, low speed and high speed. All the shrouds and air flow deflectors will be reinstalled after we verify there are no leaks later in the spring. Here are a few photos.

Today was a short day in the shop due to a museum planning meeting taking place in the morning. The plan was to repair the hot water cab heaters in the Illinois Terminal 1605. We're not sure how longs it's been since they've been used since we primarily operate in warm weather. Last year while moving one of the unit coal trains, it would have been nice to have in mid April. Anyway, Mark R and I started on replacing the bad hose couplings between the bottom of the heater cores and the supply and return pipes that run through the floor. The conductors side had one replaced while the engineers side had both replaced.

After replacing the hoses, we checked the motors and found the conductors side not even wired in place and loose bolts holding the motor in place. Dan C joined for a bit to figure out why we didn't have power to the heater breaker, but as it turns out, this GP7 has that wired to the aux gen, so it'll only get power to the cab heat fan motors if the locomotive is running. Jumpering from the battery knife switch temporarily, the motors and switches worked normally.

Next up was to replace a 10 inch section of 1 inch pipe on the cab heat supply pipe that had been removed and plugged. Mark worked on removing the plug and union while I cut and threaded the pipe nipple. The rest went together very easily. While showing Mark where the drains were located, we noticed a 1-1/4 inch union that was disconnected near the rear of the locomotive where the cab heat return line goes back into the engine room. The threads on the union were damaged, so it was removed. We did not have a replacement in stock, so that will be finished in a few days.

Sunday a few of us plan on reconnecting a number of items to the CNW 411 HEP radiator hatch. If anyone wants to lend a hand, we'll be at the shop by 10:30am.

Jamie

Just a quick update from last night on Wednesday evening...the batteries recently installed into 7525 were cabled up and everything tested successfully, so that project is complete. Next up on this loco is to go through a very thorough cleaning of the traction motors to improve their megger readings.

Last Sunday, Nick D was able to trim the front corner of the 33C's nose that had been previously torch cut and ground everything smooth so the supports and patch can be welded in place very soon.

Gregg W was also in the shop yesterday painting many parts for the Union Pacific M-35 doodlebug. While those were drying in other areas, he was sanding some wood pieces for another car he is also working on.

This coming Saturday is a meeting day for half the day in the morning, but we still plan on working on some projects in the afternoon and on Sunday. If you would like to volunteer in the shop and help out on the current projects being 7525, 1605, 411 and 33C, let us know!