Two Milwaukee Streetcars

They are on their way!

Steam Cleaning

All of the wheelsets had been removed from the trucks as previously reported.  Sunday, a new high pressure steam cleaner was christened to remove layers of oil and grease from the wheelsets, and also from the second truck frame, seen to the left.

In They Go

Greg Kepka and Dan Fenlaciki roll in the second wheelset, a rental truck for this purpose.

Number Three

The big forklift does the heavy lifting, while Greg and Dan walk alongside to make sure it stays put.  By the end of the afternoon, all were loaded and secured, the truck rear door buttoned up, ready to drive off today.  By now, as I type, they should be at the wheel shop.

Of course we still could use some money for this current and active project.  There are still some pledged matching funds available, so every dollar you send in to FUND RTMS, will make Santa very happy - each dollar becomes two.

A Dirty Job

Work continues and good progress is being made on this project.  Mike Stauber drew the short straw and was cleaning the last set of wheels that are now ready to go to the wheel shop.  Frank Sirinek was also involved in this job, but was not recorded in this image.

Shipping

In order to ship the wheels, we have decided to rent a truck and do the transportation ourselves.  Several of the regular denizens of the wood shop manhandled some 12 foot timbers through our saw, to cut dados allowing the wheel flanges to be set and not shift during the journey.  Lorne Tweed is checking the results

Moving On

With the wheelsets cleaned up, Frank and Mike quickly moved on to the cleaning and priming, painting of the truck parts, now disassembled, from the second truck.

As reported earlier, the second motor truck was removed from the car last Sunday.  But the Electric Car Department does not rest on their laurels.  A crew was set up to completely disassemble the truck to get the wheelsets out on Tuesday!

Wheelsets

Yes, this is the second set removed, ready to be shipped to the wheel shop!

Motors

Here are the two traction motors removed from truck number two.  It has probably been over a half century since this truck was out from under the car floor, when it was still in Milwaukee.  And it looks it!  Lots of grime, crud, and dirt in evidence.  Frank Sirinek has already begun the task of cleaning one piece at a time and he was helped by Victor Humphreys, readying them to be primed and painted.

BLOG readers should be sure to follow comments on these pages.  Especially noteworthy is one from Tom Sharratt who is very active in this work, and he notes MATCH MONEY is still available to turn your donations from one dollar to two, for every contribution sent.