Illinois Railway Museum Blog

On Wednesday, more work continued on UP 1848 and CB&Q 504. Dan C was out to the shop during the day to begin repairing and changing some rectifier modules that had failed on 1848 a few weeks ago when moving the coal trains in for storage. We had a number of parts in stock that we acquired from some other B40-8's that were being scrapped. Those modules were in great shape and were used to replace the two failed ones. He also made some repairs to the 504, disassembling, cleaning and reassembling the isolation switch which was getting very sticky in the cold weather. And repaired a couple broken wires on some contactor interlocks that was caused by a raccoon that had worked its way into the electrical cabinet.

A failed rectifier module from 1848

Jeron and I started working on the cab heat pipes of 504, removing some marman couplings, cleaning the pipes, clamps and rubber. To do this, we spend a while fixing the sandblasting cabinet, new media, screen protector, cleaning filters, etc. After getting the pipes and couplings together in the side sill, we opened the cab heat return valve at the expansion tank to charge the cab heat pipes. Everything underneath was in pretty good shape at this point. However, the firemans side heater had a number of issues.

We spent a good amount of time removing three bad rubber hose couplings and one marman coupling. There isn't much clearance under the heater to get everything out easily without separating every connection. All those fittings were cleaned and everything is ready to go back together once new rubber and gaskets arrive. The brushes in the motor were stuck as well, so those were removed, one of which by having to take the entire motor apart. Cleaned those up and reassembled, now it's working great.

Fittings and parts from the fireman side cab heater of 504

A few other odds and ends, Jeron starting testing a bunch of radios we had in stock that were not working, but had no labels as to what was wrong with them. We'll see if we can make some good ones out of a few bad ones. We also tried out a new portable battery charger ARMS, Inc. It has a built in battery energizer as well. It is a very nice unit, and much easier to move around than the huge LaMarche units we have that really aren't mobile at all. Jeron located new sockets and a light shade to repair the ground lights the next time around.

Hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!