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Sunday, December 5. 2010Track Department Report, December 5, 2010
Again, today's primary function is to protect the Santa Trains. Again, Today's cast of track department characters, was again, Me, Myself, and I. Tom Arrived around 1400 but was engaged in conversation for the duration of his visit.
Since mother nature finished with the white stuff yesterday, and the snow wasn't really drifting. So a quick sweep of the snow, and the switches were in service. Since there wasn't much to keeping the trains running, it was off to the barn where, as always, there is a plethora of work to do. This wasn't such a bad thing as the temps were hovering in the teens for the duration of the day. To start with, I replaced handles on a couple of spike mauls, and a sledge that all had met an untimely fate. Next up was to continue working on our hanger queen - the switch tamper. When last we left our heroes the switch tamper had a motor fail, as well as a power cable to another motor. There was also a hydraulic leak due to a failed crimp on one of the new hoses. Only on track machines can you do a 100% hose replacement, and still get failed hoses!!!!! So I found the old hose,and re-installed it to take care of the leak. Next up, was to re-wire the cable. The old cable was held into it's mount with some caulk and some press fittings. Fortunately we had replacement SOOW cable on the shelf, as well as the mounting lugs, so a repair was in order. All was going well until I went to wire the cable back on the machine. Apparently when the cable was taken off, one of the screws was lost. A small search was mounted and a suitable replacement was found. Next up was to remove the failed motor. Four bolts and a few minutes later, a small push and the motor was on the ground. About this time, it was time for a thaw break. Off towards the silver cars I went, when I was told of the festivities in barn 4. So some chit chat, some food and some awesome apple cider. Of course that about did it for work for the day. A tour of the KC PCC car by Frank S., one last throw of the switch for the winter trains, and it was time to call it a day. All that is left on the Switch tamper is to mount a replacement motor on the machine, and we should (again) be ready to work. Another big project for this winter is to "ring out" the wiring on the 6000 tamper and verify we don't have a wiring problem on that machine. Frank D. Sunday, December 5. 2010Wood Shop Update - December 4, 2010The day started as usual with a short meeting to review project work and address any safety or shop issues. Before I knew it, Rich Witt had picked up my camera and started snapping pictures. So, here are some of the 'usual suspects' for you to place names and faces. It turned out I was not immune from the rampage.  Gwyn Stupar  Greg Ceurvorst  Bob Kutella - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Tooling Moving on to some of the work at hand, we started setting up our very old Delta Heavy Duty shaper with tooling and guides to be able to start milling matching tongue and groove roof boards for the ETB Department.  First One Later on, the arrangement had progressed to the point where we managed to run the first piece, complete with fences, featherboards, guards, power feeder, and dust pickup. I am feeding the stock and Rich Witt is acting as the catcher.  A Frame Up More accurately, window frames for the B&M 1094. In the morning we cut all the tenons for these windows, and by day's end Rich Witt had completed the work to allow the first dry fit of the first frame. No matter how well we are able to use machines to do the heavy cutting, there is always the craftsmanship element of fitting and trimming the parts.  CRT 1797 Side Doors As you might expect on a cold snowy day, Tim Peters continued his work on CRT 1797, and the rebuilding and repair of the four sliding side doors.  The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Tim himself suggested this caption for the picture. The end or train doors of the 1797 have small double hung (after a fashion) windows and Tim is nearly complete with making two new frames this week. The new frame is THE GOOD, the older frame is THE BAD, and, well, the UGLY - - - -  Rapid Transit Accessories We rarely capture an image of Bill Wulfert although he works tirelessly on the el car collection. Here he has completed stripping and cleaning four pamphlet racks in gleaming brass, has more restored paddles for train markers in progress, and has one of the hang on end signs for our early cars. |
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Comments
Mon, 09-08-2025 08:22
Good job on the Burlington Nortern 9976. OK.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:56
No new news that I have heard of thus far.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:53
I'll also be doing another update on it soon. Keep en eye out for that.
Tue, 08-12-2025 12:47
A little work was done to it for Diesel Days this year. You'll see photos floating around for the temporary short term job that was done to make it [...]
Wed, 08-06-2025 13:01
Is steam car CN 15444 going to be coming to museum several times it was to be moved to muesum
Sat, 07-19-2025 18:56
Yeah, sadly it's still there as of 7/19/2025
Thu, 06-12-2025 19:14
Its been 14 years guys, where is the unit? Like really? Did you guys misplace it? Or are repairs taking that long? At this point be might we will have [...]
Wed, 04-09-2025 17:40
Jamie Thanks for the update. She's gonna shine like every thing else you guys do! Smeds
Thu, 03-06-2025 16:28
Yes, there is a wye. Those two have been MU'ed on diesel days a year or two ago.
Wed, 03-05-2025 14:04
7009 number boards look good. Is there a way to turn a locomotive around at IRM? In case you ever had a mind to connect 7009 and 6847?
Fri, 03-29-2024 21:26
We're slackers and spend more time working on the equipment in the shop than keeping all you readers updated. We'll work on it, but I'm sure updates [...]
Thu, 03-14-2024 08:02
What happened to the Department Blog? It's been over 2 years and I still regularly check for updates, but nothing comes...