Diesel Department

On Tuesday, Jeron G and I made it out after work, with the goal of trimming the profile of the #4 axle on Milwaukee Road 760. Some years ago the #4 developed some flat spots. We started by removing the brake shoes and installing the cutting shoes. We used full tread and flange cutting shoes so the entire profile is taken down equally. The cost of the shoes was far less than I had expected, only $120 for a pair, so that was a pretty inexpensive way to deal with the problem. Although it was time consuming, it did address the issue. We then ran the loco over to the main line and went back and forth between the tower and the bridge. The first 30 to 40 minutes was just getting the shoes to wear in and seat so the full width was cutting. It was a lot of slow, boring, back and forth moves. We called it a night about 9:30pm. The flat spots were about half gone at that point.

On Thursday, Jeron G, Roger B, and I were out after work again. Jeron got to work with a few more hours of running the 760 back and forth. Meanwhile, Roger started disassembling and recovering some pipe fittings from the 9255. There is an air pipe under the cab floor that was rusted through in a few places, which will be replaced with new schedule 80 pipe, reusing a few of the old unions and such that are still in good shape.

I went and got the Joy 2 to drag the 8537 near an outlet to charge its batteries, and then dragged the BN1 to the nearest crossing to change out a bad battery. The BN1 uses eight 4-cell 25 plate per cell batteries. A few years ago, a bad one was changed out with one that was really old, but still holding a charge. Its all we had at the time, and no budget to fix it. It finally cracked its case and was completely open, literally and electrically. I picked up a like new used battery for $300, that was the same model as the other 7 batteries. Roger and I dragged the old cracked battery out of the box and shoved in the new one in, wired it, and put the loco on the charger after shoving it back in the yard.

We put the Joy 2 away, started the 8537 after its batteries charged enough to start it. We met up with Jeron to see how the truing shoes were going on the 760. The flat spot on the fireman's side was about gone, you couldn't measure it, but just a little visible. There was just a little bit left on the engineers side. Not sure if we'll live with it as it is or go for another few hours, its certainly A LOT better than it was when we started. We called it a night again, Jeron put the 760 away while Roger and I put the 8537 away.

I stayed another half hour to mask off the numbers on one side of Santa Fe 92, to spray some red so the numbers are readable on the sides of the cab once again. If you are a Santa Fe 92 or SD45/FP45 fan, come out on Sunday as the 92 will be leading, as a cab car, the WC 7525 and Coach Train. No pictures this time, actually, I did take one of the numbers being masked, but didn't upload it yet. We'll try to add more pics with this weekends work.

The annual Diesel Days parade of power is looking to be just as busy as previous years with almost 32,000 horsepower in the line up. We'll kick off the day at 10:00am with normal operations, the heavyweight coach train pulled by BN1, 2, 3, and 9908; the Nebraska Zephyr and CNW bilevels, both air conditioned trains, and a caboose train pulled by BN 5383. Later in the day we'll have a few freight train run-bys.

The parade will begin at 1:00pm each day and will have the following lineup:

- Joy Manufacturing Company 2 (Whitcomb 12DM38)
- DuPont 25Ton (Plymouth JDT25)
- United States Army 8537 (GE 45Ton)
- Nekoosa Paper 14 (ALCO S1)
- Commonwealth Edison 15 (EMD SW1)
- Milwaukee Road 760 (FM H10-44)
- Illinois Terminal 1605 (EMD GP7)
- Burlington Northern 1 (EMD F9A), 2 (EMD F9B), 3 (EMD E9AM) and 9908 (EMD E9AM) Coach Train
- Burlington Northern 5383 (GE U30C) Caboose Train
- Southern Pacific 1518 (EMD SD7)
- Santa Fe 92 (EMD FP45) and Wisconsin Central 7525 (EMD SD45MQ-3) Modern Freight Train
- Chicago Burlington & Quincy 9255 (EMD SW7)
- Chicago Burlington & Quincy 504 (EMD SD24) Freight Train
- Chicago Burlington & Quincy 9911A (EMC E5A) and Nebraska Zephyr
- Chicago & North Western 6847 (EMD SD40-2)
- Chicago & North Western 4160 (EMD GP7R) MoW/Crane Train
- Chicago & North Western 411 (EMD F7A) and Bilevels

Other equipment on display:
- Union Pacific CNW 1995 (SD70ACe)
- Chicago & North Western 8701 (C44-9W)
- Union Pacific UPY 667 (GP15-1)

We'll keep the usual disclaimer of All equipment and schedules subject to change without notice.

Saturday evening after operations we are planning on some photo ops with the CNW lineup, the 411, 4160, 6847, 8701 and 1995. Anyone staying for the photos must have a general admission ticket or a membership.

5383 electrical cabinet

"GE Quality Builds Jobs" is what was printed on a placard right above the work area on Burlington Northern 5383 this past Sunday, as the reverser was removed to be repaired. Early last year, the reverser failed during a load box test that we normally do after the locomotives inspection. The steel of the top rear of the electrical cabinet had deteriorated, with a change in rpm during the load box test, the intermittent vibration throughout the locomotive caused a large enough piece of rust to drop from the top of the cabinet into the reverser while it was under load.

5383 reverser

The loco was making about 1,800HP at the time based on the calculation done from the meter plugged into the multiplier card. The rust just happened to fall into the reverser on the center two lugs which are the main positive and negative feeds from the diode banks of the alternator. All the diodes were tested and all are in good shape. The damage was on the back side of the reverser as it was mounted and it was quickly determined that a repair wasn't going to be easy and not going to be done in place.

Tagged and disconnected cables and bus bars

After a very wet October, the weather finally cooperated enough to allow the 543 to be unloaded from the flat car it was shipped on.  An attempt was made on Friday, November 6th, however, the entrance to the job site was still a bit wet to get the large cranes in.  Today, we had help from IRM volunteers Gerry Dettloff, Jamie Kolanowski, Pete Pedersen, Charlie Strong, Stan Wdowikowski, Ray Weart, and Jim West; along with the 6 workers from Whitey's Crane Rental and Kinser Crane Service.

The Winton V12 gets unloaded

The day started around 7:00am with Jim, Ray and Pete getting the CE 15 started and ready, and Stan, Charlie and Gerry getting some tools and torches loaded into the shop truck.  We all made it out to the job site a little after 7:30am.  The 165ton crane from Whitey's was there already getting the crane setup, which consisted of several items, including getting the outrigger pads off the support semi and into place, then getting the counter balance weights off the semi and onto the crane, and changing blocks and reconfiguring to use a 10 line lift.  Setting up and tearing down the cranes was probably the longest part of the day.

Meanwhile, Stan and Jamie started removing the wire rope tie downs from the Winton V12 and once the 165ton crane was ready, we moved the Winton out of the way to the ground.  After that, Gerry, Charlie, Jim, and Stan started removing the wire rope tie downs from the 543.  The 165ton crane did a 20 point turn and turned itself around and positioned himself for the lift.  It is very impressive to see the turning radius of a large crane like that (weighing in at 137,000lbs), all wheel steering makes a huge difference, even when you have 10 large wheels.

The 200ton crane arrived about 8:45am, after setting off their boom dolly, they drove into the site and positioned themselves for the lift.  Their support semi started backing into the site and ended up getting stuck near the entrance where the bowl was.  The other semi could not pull it free, so brought the CE 15 over and pulled them backwards all the way in.  They began getting the outrigger pads, counter balance weights and a number of other things setup on the crane.  While the 200ton crane was being setup, a few of us started to torch the support pedestals that were placed under the jack pads of the 543.  This needed to be done so we could get the lifting cables around the lift points which double as jacking pads and cable loops for hoisting the locomotive.

rigging for lifting

543 in the air

The most difficult part of the entire day was getting the lift cables rigged around the lifting pads. The new 1-1/2" cables just didn't want to bend and stay in place.  Charlie, Stan, Ray and Jamie ended up using some 1" nylon pickup tie down straps to squeeze the cables around the radius of the pads, and then used another to hold the cables in the guides of the pads. It took a couple of trys on the first one to get the technique right. We repeated the process 3 more times on each of the other corners.

Once everything was sitting right, we took about 30,000lbs of tension to make sure all the cables would sit right in the guides of the lift points and make sure everything else was settling right.  We all met once more to make sure everyone was clear on the process, lift an inch or two, check some things, lift to clear everything on the flat car, pull the flat car out from under the loco, lower the loco within an inch or two of the rails, line up the flanges one end at a time and lower, checking the brasses and boxes as we set it down.  Then we actually did it all, just how it was talked about, the lift and lowering took less than 10 minutes, with a little extra time taken on the number 2 axle on the firemans side to line up a support plate that had shifted a 1/4" in that journal box. The lift cables were then freed from the 543 and lifted out of the way. There was a small crowd of people from some of the nearby businesses watching too.

Once everything on the journal boxes and trucks were inspected, the 543 and heavy flat car were moved over to the main line out of the way. IRM's DODX flat car was brought back to put the lift cables and spreader bars back onto it and also to temporarily store the Winton V12 on it. Both cranes started the reverse process for setup, with the 200ton getting out of there first since they had the longer drive to Addison.

543 on home rails

Meanwhile the CE 15 with Jim, Ray and Stan switched the flat cars and 543 over to station track 2 and brought the 15 back to the west end in case it was needed as a tow truck again, luckily it wasn't. The 165ton crane finished tearing down and tied down everything on the support semi at about 2:45pm.  The CE 15 was put away and we all headed to a late lunch right after.

It was a very busy day and a big job that went as perfect as one could have wanted. A big Thank You goes out to all the volunteers and to guys at Whitey's Crane and Kinser Crane for a job well done. A gallery album was setup with many photos from the days work, it can be viewed at this link. Please consider a donation to cover track space charges and offset the costs of the cranes to unload the 543.

Volunteers of the Illinois Railway Museum's Internal Combustion Department have been working for a number of years to acquire an EMD SD40-2 Diesel-Electric locomotive.  Just recently the Union Pacific Railroad has generously donated the UP 3028, originally Chicago and North Western 6847. 3028 is still in C&NW green and yellow paint and was patched to UP 3028 in February 2003.  3028 was retired in December 2008.

There were almost 4,000 SD40-2 locomotives built. The 3028 was built in March 1974, EMD builders number 74609-32, and was part of a 50 unit order.  The C&NW owned a total of 135 SD40-2 locomotives.  The SD40-2 is 68ft-10in long and weighs 368,000lbs, and rides on EMD HT-C trucks.

IRM is soliciting donations to pay for track space for the 3028.  At 68'-10", the cost will be $5,162.  Track space is a one time charge that every piece of equipment incurs, it is designed to pay for the track that the unit is stored upon.  Donations can be made via the IRM online store at this link.