Entries by Joel Ahrendt

The weekend again had a flurry of activity. CTA 4391 had its inspection completed and was released for service.

IT 415 had a journal bearing (Brass) replaced. It seems that the Lubricating pads (Sheep) are getting to the end of their useful life and will all have to be replaced as soon as new ones can be obtained!

The Sand Springs 68 made three trips around the car line for equipment testing & Ect. It is one of the cars that are being prepared for the annual Trolley Pageant on July 4th. There are plenty of cars that still have to be looked over before that event.

Truck replacement on one of the two New York Subway cars was done over the weekend as well. For anyone that hasn't seen that done before, it was a very exciting thing to see. (As much as I could see going around it every 15 minutes). They jacked up the car, slipped out the old wheel set, and slipped in the new one.

The wood for the Charles City Western 300 engine is being prepared for the deck around the hoods.

Three windows for the CTA S105 are in their final coat of paint with the rest of the windows following along.

Work on the Michigan 28’s roof continues. Installation of all new tack molding was nearly complete at the end of the day Sunday.

New ballasts were installed in 4 of our high output overhead work lights! Charlie Strong of the Car Dept. skillfully rehung the Fixtures and thanks to his help, for the first time in many months, all of them are is service again!

CTA 22&41 had some interior lighting repairs made and an a height adjustment made to one of the Pilots. They found out that the Pilot was brushing some of the newly spread ballast.

The work on the "Baldy" CTA 4146 continues as well.

Respectfully Submitted,
Joel Ahrendt

It was a holiday weekend, so there was lots of activity in the Car Dept.. The biggest news is that a rebuilt motor has been put back in the IT 415. A full annual service inspection was also performed on the car by a host of Car Dept. personnel! It was tested and released for regular service.

The CTA 4391 (The Green Hornet) was brought over to the pit on Monday and it's annual inspection was started.

Work was done on the CTA S105 engine's windows, with the first coat of yellow paint going on one of the motorman's window.

There was a moment of silence at 3:00 pm on Monday with one of the members of the West End Jazz Band playing taps at the flagpole. This was a particularly moving event.

There are some corrections to last weeks report!
Not all inspections that were mentioned last week were for Regular Revenue Service Cars and that report should not be taken to mean that these other cars are now ready for, or released to, that type of service! The inspection work that was done to some of our work equipment was of a limited nature based on the annual usage of this equipment and the fact that it is mostly yard work that this equipment is used for! In addition there are Regular Revenue Service Cars that still need to complete annual inspections, but work will continue at a fast but safe pace to get this done!

Respectfully Submitted,
Joel Ahrendt

It's that time again to do a weekend update from the Electric Car Shop. I was not out two weekends ago, but I do know that there were the tours of the shop. As you will read in the Hicks Blog, CA&E 308 got it's inspection.

Jumping forward to the weekend just past (17 - 18). There was lots of activity over this weekend. Commonwealth Edison 4 was brought over to be serviced and inspected; as well as, CTA 41 and 22 on Saturday. That brings a total of 4 "L" cars released to service, two 4000's and the two singles.

Sunday brought the inspections of the Joy 2; CA&E 431; and IT 101. The Joy engine was serviced in the morning, finishing up by noon. Both the 431 and 101 were over next. They were able to finish the inspection on both of these two rare running cars. The 431 will be in operation Memorial Day weekend, as well as the 308.

Other work around the shop over the weekend included continued work on the metal of the PCC car in Barn 4 and roof work on the tack molding on the Michigan car.

On a last note, we wish speedy recovery to Bob Bruneau.