Sunday, March 28. 2010

Posted by Adam Robillard in Track Department

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Track Dept Weekend Report Mar 27, 28

Corwith Tower Lever Machine

Frank walking the machine to the tower

Saturday Report ---

The day's primary project was the joint effort with the Signal Dept to get the very large Corwith Tower lever machine into our Spaulding Tower. This proved to be no easy task. The entire lever machine is roughly 20 ft in length and weighs nearly 9000lbs... The signal dept can report further on its future but our part was the heavy lifting with the Model 50 Burro crane to get it into the lower level- through the doorway. Tom Hunter ran the crane and after a few test lifts near Barn 9, we lifted the machine near the station and ran it into the Tower very slowly and carefully. We were successful in getting it in the building around 2PM and hit lunch. Lets hope that machine never has to leave the tower again!

Tight squeeze into the building

After lunch, the crew of Tom Hunter, Tyler Hunter, Frank Devries, Jeron Glander and myself, Adam Robillard split into a few groups. Jeron and Tyler ran to Napa and picked up new fuel filters for the Burro crane and along with Tom Hunter replaced the filters in the crane and fueled up the machines in yard 11. Jeron did some wonderful electrical work on the Amtrak regulator and also broomed a yard track in Yard 10 to test the functions. All which appear to be working well. Nice job Jeron! Meanwhile Frank and myself were at Track 24 pulling the bad vibrator motor out of the Switch Tamper and prepping the install of the new one Tom had stored in his garage. We managed to get the new motor in and wired up but it hasn't been tested yet. That's for another day.

Greasing bearing on the reinstalled motor

The next project was to relocate the brush trimmer that has been stored in one of the electric carbarns. It cannot be left in the open near the public beginning next weekend so we needed to switch it back into Track 24. Tom and the gang took the EJ&E 585 motorcar to retrieve it only to have the entire machine derail on the Yard 6 lead.... Call in the Model 50! While Frank, Tom & Tyler took time to rerail the cutter, Jeron and I headed onto the carline to weld traction bonds. The portion of track we surfaced over the last few weeks revealed three joints with broken or non existing bonds. Some quick work with our stick welder resolved that problem and the two of us went back to Tk24 to clear all the machines out of the Barn. When the cutter was rerailed, now well after dark, we shimmied it into the back of Tk24 and switched everything back in the Barn. We called it a night around 9PM. Wow, what a day.

More of Frank's photos can be found on his page here: http://www.irm.org/gallery/icemancne

Sunday Report---

Four Mile Siding

Today was a quiet day so I spent it finishing the mainline inspections and greasing switches. I took the EJ&E 585 motorcar out to Seeman Rd and walked one rail all the way to the end of the railroad and walked the other rail back. Not much to report other than a broken bolt and a few joint/ tie defects we'll have to either spend a day repairing or add ties in this section for Volkmann. I oiled and tested all of the mainline switches from Four Mile Siding to Schmidt Siding and tested the power switches. Carline Jct wouldn't respond on power mode so it's back in hand operation until the Signal Dept can troubleshoot that. I changed a handful of signal lamps on the line while I was out there. There are still dark signals along the carline, and one at East Switch though everything appears to be working properly. That's all folks.

Adam Robillard
IRM Track Dept
lzeje657@msn.com

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