End of 2025 Update

 

Paradisio, Purgatorio, and Inferno Compressatorio. Get yourselves a cup of your favorite drink and settle in everyone, this is gonna be a long one.

At our last update, 3001 was being wired, 303 was receiving some interior touch ups, and in general life was moving pretty smoothly. Very shortly after that update was published, however, things got a bit more complicated. These have probably been some of the most hectic months in the shop in quite some time, at least in terms of how many cars have been worked on. 

2600 has for a long time had something of a weak compressor. Combine this with the fact that safety cars tend to use a lot of air, and it hasn't been uncommon for the compressor to effectively run almost nonstop for 20 minutes, pause for a few moments, and then kick back on again. It's been something kept on the radar, but never pressing enough to warrant pulling the car from service. Unfortunately, that changed.

While in service towards the end of august it was noted that the air gauge was stubbornly refusing to climb above 50 psi. Any usage of the air that there was wouldn't be made up for unless sitting for an extended period of time. Bringing the car to the shop became something of a harrowing experience as the air dropped so low the doors opened themselves while motoring up the hill. 

2600's compressor rests on mountings that suspend below the car, and support the compressor from below. Generally, a very solid arrangement. However, this does make removing the compressor a bit difficult, as you have to first get the bolts that fasten it out, then lift up on the compressor, move it backwards, lower, twist, and then extract from under the car. There's not a lot of clearance. This also means we need use of the pit, well that's occupied by 3001, which isn't quite to moving itself, and without a roof can't exactly sit outside for any length of time. No matter though, 3001 can be pushed all the way into the shop, loosing us almost all of our working space but oh well, and 2600 can be nosed in enough to get the compressor out, then dragged back out and left outside until the compressor is repaired. That means a lot of equipment has to be moved under not its own power, but oh well, light work for the diesel. 

Enter compressor death number 2. If 2600s compressor refusing to get above 50 psi was bad, the Diesel proved to be much, MUCH worse. It could build to 30, at half throttle, and any reduction and the needles dropped like a stone to barely a tick above 10. Well, there goes the plan to make moves with the diesel. The hero of the day, as it more than often is, came to be line car 1.

Weighing in at, well I don't think anyone really knows, built in 1894, with a body mostly made out of random spare lumber, our Iowan corn fed, all American champion has proven many times to be more than up to the task of dragging around just about anything. The use of LC1 as it turns out is rather fortuitous, but more on that later. 

The Iowan obviously did a fantastic job, and without much fuss at all we had 3001 buried and 2600 nosed into the shop. Removing the compressor took almost all of an afternoon and some of the night, as we were both figuring out how to drop the compressor, but also dealing with a lifting table that was just slightly too tall.

So, what was wrong with 2600's Compressor anyways? Well, a few things, luckily almost all in the head. All of the check valves were rather dirty and covered in gunk. A major smoking gun was found when one of the check valves was found to have snapped in half, blocking the valve from moving at all. This wasn't all though; the head gasket had failed or was failing in multiple places. The gasket itself had been made incorrectly, as holes for the head bolts to pass through had been mis stamped and severely compromised the gasket. It was also mysteriously torn, having lost about half of its width on the lower corner of one of the cylinders. Piston Rings were checked as well, and though still acceptable noted as something that will need replaced in the future. 

Compresor as extracted from under 2600.

Failed Gasket. The missing chunk and bolt holed mis-stamped clearly visible.

Head of the Compressor

A complete, though dirty, example of a Check valve from 2600's compressor.

Snapped in half and failed check, This was one of the major issues that kept the compresor from building air. 

Gratuitous crankcase shot.

A new Gasket was cut, a freshly cleaned up head was put together, with all replacement valves inserted, and the compressor was put back together. Remounting it to the car was far easier, this time knowing the process, but also having now found a lower profile jack to get it under the car in the first place. 2600 was returned to service less than 2 weeks after having to be pulled. 

So, what of the Diesel's compressor? Similarly, a valve issue. upon opening the compressor, a fine copper dust was found to be coating pretty much everything, and one of the intake checks was missing its copper ring seal. Amazingly, a good healthy clean and the valve was able to seal up enough to be put back into service, with plans to order a full head rebuild kit this spring. 

Now, onto Line Car 1. This car has had for a long time a mystery issue that has meant the #2 end controller (west) hasn't been functional. With need for the car to put in some heavy work lugging S193 around for Winterfest setup, it was decided to finally get into the weeds on that controller. The mystery issue that evaded multiple shop departments for years? A single contact finger on the reverse drum was slightly twisted and was not making contact, meaning current couldn't flow through the circuit. 5 minutes with a screw driver, and some light bending against a bench was enough to restore the controller to operation. Well, mostly, the controller itself was still in rough shape, with many elements being heavily worn, some even so far as to have burned into the screws that were holding them to the drum. K10 parts are something that we are fairly thin on, so the controllers are still not perfect, but have been brought to a point where they are safe to run. While undergoing that work, the brake rigging and suspension was all given a greasing. 

Line Car 1 is sadly a car that at the moment lives its life outside, so when the paint on the car was coming off in our hands while working on it, the decision was made to give it a new paint job. The old household paint that had been applied by prior owners came off in big sheets, with no primer under to hold them down. The wood was sanded, new paint and primer was bought, and quickly the car became somehow even more orange than before. Once again, we got the majority of this week done in only a few weeks. LC1 has since put in a good season’s work doing the line car shuffle the length of the line and back, with no issues to report. 

LC1 being Re-Lettered.

Lettering Complete.

Re-Painted for a nice Roster Shot. Since the car came out just at the start of Pumpking Patch Trains,

and is already orange, a plywood Jack-O-Lantern smile was hung from the front.

The Line Car Shuffle begins it's work repairing Chrsitmas light strings.

So, all of that is the saga of the Un-planned work. Now onto some of what we were actually intending to do. 

First of all, an update on 3001. Around the time of the last update, we ran out our stock of wire. Turns out a double end double truck Birney car easily exhaust almost 700 feet of wire, at least for the somewhat more wiring intensive K6 controllers that Conn Co. insisted on using. Ordering the wire took quite some time, but fortunately the wire arrived early November, and the last of the traction cabling has since been run. Motor leads are also all made up, and all the breakouts from the controllers have been tested. Line switch wiring is now complete, as is wiring for the compressor, which has also been plumbed in finally. Though probably the shortest in number of words, as this hasn't been anywhere near the saga of the compressors or LC1, this is actually an incredibly large step forward. This puts us withing arms reach of actually being able to power test the car, and see it take its first steps under its own power in decades. We make no promises on when, as time and resources are all devoted to keeping the fleet running for Winterfest, as well as other general holiday commitments, but it will be soon. 

Moving backwards in time a bit, following the repainting of LC1, and before the arrival of 3001's new wire, a bit of planned work got underway. 303's roof has been bad for some time. If it rains outside, it rains inside. The canvas is heavily deteriorated, possibly never properly treated, and was coated in roofing tar at various points to seal leaks, instead of being fixed correctly. Initially, we'd planned to start on that after 3001's wiring had been completed, which had we not run out of wire would have been in august, leaving us plenty of time to get the roof done for Winterfest. The sudden failure of 2600 and then work on LC1 pushed that work back into October, meaning getting it done in time for Winterfest is no longer an option. Still, with no wire in for 3001, may as well get started anyways. The old Canvas came off fairly easily, the lack of proper treatment and application of tar caused it to become somewhat brittle, so it cracked and came apart with little effort.

Underneath the Canvas, the wood was mostly in good shape, but not perfect. Along both sides holes had been cut to access lighting circuits, and then crudely patched with tin sheeting. Some wood on the vestibule ends was getting quite soft, and along the tail board of the clerestory where the anchor screws had lost most of their purchase. An oddity that was found was in several spots along the car was the addition of several large wooden blocks under the sheathing. These were definitely not original, and some of them were becoming an issue. On both sides of the car, on the west end, the blocking had been placed in such a way that it was raising the sheathing on the main barrel of the roof in such a way that it was no longer in line with the sheathing on the vestibule ends. The gap created had ostensibly been filled with scraps of canvas, but that was most certainly failed and allowing water in. So, a whole section of roof on both sides had to be removed, the blocking removed, and then the sheathing replaced. So what were these blocks for? Well, it's hard to tell. A visit from Randy Hicks confirmed that they were not original to the car’s construction, and were most likely added later on in life. The location of the blocking removed dies potentially offer a clue, as it aligns with the steps and grab irons that one would use to climb the roof. The best guess is that those blocks were there to strengthen the step areas, and were probably installed in the later days of the CA&E at Wheaton Shops. Mis-alignment, rough patching, none of that mattered, this was back then just another long in the tooth car on a road not intending to last very much longer. 

Canvas patching to fill the gap created by missaligned structure.

The added blocking, the added hight above the Carline is very visible. This is the North side of the car, the south side was much worse, with a ap of almost an inch.

The added blocking cleared out. The steel band is part of the cars iriginal structure.

New sheathing in place. 

New canvas has yet to go on the car, and the last bits currently trapped under the poles and running boards has yet to be lifted, a job that will have to wait till next spring. 

Currently, we are focused on getting the fleet through Winterfest. Cold weather often has negative effects on cars, causing tanks to freeze, and ice to creep its way through air systems. Over the doldrums of January and February, 16 is planned to come into the Visitors Center, where it will receive a new coat of paint on its roof, floors, and likely window frames, as well as most likely some more revarnishing. We will also (Hopefully) be finally installing heat back into the car. Working in the VC will give us the chance to work in heat for the first time in years, not only allowing us to do cosmetic works, but also keep up a pace of work that would otherwise be scuppered by the weather. 

 

Car Shop update, First half of 2025

 The cold of winter has long given way to the heat of summer, and oh how neither has been pleasant. 

At the top of this year, a great deal of time was put into doing fleet maintenance, inspection, and general light improvments. Between some controller issues on the west end, and other cars being urgently needed for service, much of our work once again focused in on car 16. we also took the opportunity to do some cosmetic work to the car, pulling both of the cargo doors and revarnishing them. 

16's west end controller being gone through,

servere wear on the drum propted replacement of nearly all

the elements on fingers.

One of the cargo doors with it's first coat

of new varnish applied. Each received at least 3 coats

of marine grade varnish.

Freshly Varnished door back in place on 16

With the 85th anniversary, and it's parade of trains, approaching, 16 was finished just in time to get the rest of the fleet quickly inspected and prepared. May 11th we had 6 street cars, a line car, an
interurban, and both a diesel and electric locomotive in service. We're happy to report that during the whole day there were no mechanical faults with any of our equipment. 

18 and 303 being prepped for the 85th

anniversary

After the 85th event, and partialy due to us quickly running out of places for running cars to be under cover, we've had a rather lare denizen of the shop. CA&E 303 has been living on shop track 2, where 3001 had previously been sitting for nearly a decade. Our resident control group and rapid transit, Gio, has somewhat adopted the cars and put a great deal of effort into fixing it's multitude of small idisincracies.

Due to having to run on the Chicago El, 303 

is actually quite a narrow car, leaving more room to walk

around it than many of our streetcars. However, it's 

height is immense, with only a few inches betwen the poles

and the overhead contact rail.

The true scale of 303 alongside 3001.

 The car has long had an issue where second point on the controller (both ends) is completely dead, and does not supply power to the motors. With help from the Hicks's of IRM, we were able to sort out the issue. During their time on the CA&E, the 300 series cars had their control groups modified to a C-21 version of the GE type M control. However, to save money, the CA&E just re-used the old C-6 controllers, just modifying them with an internal jumper.  What all this means, if that if you try to wire in the control stands as if they were C-6's, you end up with a second point that instead of supplying power to the contactors, loops two grounds together, causing you to loose power. Most likely, that is the source of the error. Luckily, it's an easy fix. With the correct diagrams from IRM, it was as simple as moving  the positions of a few wires, and second point returned to life.

Gios' Girlfriend, Regina, has also been spending time on 303. She has been producing curtains for the windows, intended to cover where the CA&E removed stained glass and simply boarded over where it had been. She has also been spending time to painstackingly refesh all of the painted writing and labelling inside the car. 

Curtains in 303

Refreshing the lettring inside the car

Not all of the work being done in the shop has been neccescerially just on the cars. Shop forces and expertice has been put to good use outside of building as well this year. During last december we assisted in the shipping out of two trucks that had formerly belonged to Springfield Terminal 8, a line car that was sadly lost to fire. These trucks are now off to as new home in New Jersey where they will end up under another car being restored down there. In a similar moving vein, the shop was on hand to help with the move of the "dining car" from it's location atop the parking lot and back onto the main line, to get it safely out of the way of the new drainage and paved parking lot going in. This was a difficult task that required expertly moving the fragile wooden car 90 degrees, down a hill, and onto the rails underneath the trolley wire, all whilst construction vehicles zipped around. The car is now safely resting in hartmans siding. The machine shop has also been spun up to assist track department. Joint bars for an emergency repair in Hancock siding needed to be reprofiled, and our Greaves-Cincinatti milling machine made short work of it. 

Iron Mountain's 35,000 pound forklift gently carries

one of 8's trucks from where it had been sitting for decades

The "Dining" car sitting on NR1

The Cincinnati Mill working through a joint bar.

While there has always been the background haze of running repair work, 1326 loosing a compressor motor brush, 355 having a litney of issues with it's catchers, 16's air governor jamming, as well as many MANY other issues, the major project and center of our focus, is 3001. Same as it has been now for quite some time. A lot has gone on with said car, and to go through it all here would make this post rather long. As such, a 3001 specific post will be coming shortly. 

P.Beard

Shop Manager

3001, A specific look for the first half of 2025

 As of the last update, the car had most of a roof, a functioning air system, and one complete controller. The borrowed type 5 trucks had been adapted, and the car was placed over the inspection pit. A few of these topics haven't been covered, however, so let's briefly circle back to them. 

A view of the #2 end (east) july of 2025

3001 outside for the first time in many years

while being moved over the inspection pit

3001's original trucks are Brill 77E's, and while the motors have had their armatures rebuilt, ther rest of the truks are in rather rough condition. As such, and to get the car "paying it's own bills" as it were, we are using a set of trucks from a boston type 5, which are C35's There are a few things that require adapting between the two. 77E's use a link bar to actuate the brakes, where as on a C35, there is what's called a radius bar. As such, new rods had to be fabricated to connect the trucks brakes the the linkages under the car. Luckily, a few old switch throw rods prooved to be just the material needed, and their threaded ends allowed them to be made adjustable.  The center bowls are also different, with Conn Co using a very different size than Boston Elevated. A solution came in the form of an adapter plate. However, due to the bolt holes for a Conn Co plate just slightly overlapping the bolt holes in the bolster of the C35 trucks, the Conn Co bowl had to be clocked 90 degrees from it's "normal" position. Luckily, though, as all the mating surfaces are circular and meant to rotate, this solution works perfectly, though it does look a little funny. 

One of the Adapter plates, showing the Conn Co center

Bowl being clocked 90 Degrees to how it

would normally be placed.

New Brake rod connecting to the truck. Return springs are also installed. 

The main barrel of the roof was fairly easy to complete, as it's all toung and groove boards just following a curved surface. Forming the ends, or the vestibules, presents more of a challenge. The radius is changing all of the time, and the boarding has to bend in multiple directions at once, in many cases twisting severely. This is work that is somewhat more familiar to builders of wooden boats, as a lot of the same ideas are present planking the curves of a ships hull. The ribbing to support the roof was in rough shape, and had to be replaced. Voulenteer charlie nordell stepped in and made up the ribs, which the boarding sits ontop of. The boarding making up the main barrel of the roof is half in thick, but for the rapidly curving ends this is too thick to be bent effectively. As such, a large amount of lumber had to be ripped down vertically on the table saw, giving think stripping thin enough to make the bends. On the edges of the roof, where the planking has to twist, the boards were cut down again, this time in the horizontal dimension. With much slow triming, twisting, and planing into place the east end roof is together. Work on the west vestibule has yet to start. 

New Ribbing and the start of the roofing going on

Corner of the vestibule roof, showing how the planking has

to twist and be cut into a wedge shape to fit

Steel work has also been ongoing. The car is officially now 2 doors again, with the holes made by Conn Co to adapt the car plugged by entirely new material. A local fabrication company was contracted to produce some of the custom formed pieces of steel that had rotted away, or had been removed by conn co, over the years. This includes the upper header panels abovethe motormans windows where it had been removed when the car was converted to 4 door, as well as all the window sill plates. The end sheets on both ends are hund, and the upper header panel on the east end has also been installed. Angle iron inside the car that supports the seats were replaced where missing, and a whole bunch of new seat mounting brackets were made up. Some work has also been put into covering over seams and patches with a thin layer of bondo, to hide where repairs have been made. 

Some patches being welded in on the east end door corner

Sill plates running the length of the car

Sills in and window frames test fit

Plug filling in where the added door had been on the west end,

Also showing the replacement header panel

Bondo and Primer covering up weld seams

Underneath the car, components have been finding their way into place. The line switch is mounted, and plumbed into the air system. Resistor grids are mounted, after one had to be entirely rebuilt after failing a Meg test. One modification we are making to the car is a disconnect knife switch as a saftey feature. This has been both fabricated and installed. 

Knife switch box being fabricated

Knife switch box hung from car

First of the grids to be hung. This is the

Grid that required a full rebuild

The most active current part of the project is wiring. Conecting both controllers to the resistors, and then to the motors, as well as the line switch and distribution box , is not a particularly complex undertaking, so long as you have a diagram, and a basic idea of how the system works. It is, however, tedious. To give a sense of scale, each controller has 22 wires that has to run into it those wirs split between a bank of 3 resistor grids, the line switch that supplies power, and the 4 motors, that each have 4 wires run to them. A great deal of the work has been in building the infrastructure into the car to handle the wires. There is a tough that runs inside the car for much of it's own length, all of the wiring has to be run through it. Each motor has it's own junction box, as well as a single large box for the resistor bank. Underneath the car wooden bracketry has to be built to hold up the wire runs. All of this is being custom built and fit. Nothing is an off the shelf component. This work is about 2/3rds complete, as the car has taken up the 500 foot spool,  as well as couple hundred, feet of wire we had not sooled, that consitituted our entire supply of 2 gauge railroad rated wire. We are in the process of ordering more. 

Junction boxes for each of the 4 motors

Motor 4's Junction box installed with wiring taking shape

Choke coil and hanger brackets to hold the wire

Junction box for the Resistor Wiring

Wiring beginning to fill out the box

Wiring Trough running the length of the car

East end controller mounted in the car, with 

much of the wiring installed

Earlier was mentioned that as of last update one controller was in, since then a second has been rebuilt and installed. However, things are not quite as simple as they first appeared, and we have since ended up having to go back and rebuild the first controller we put in the car. The issues have been resolved, but the details of why we had to re-rebuild a controller, as well as a few other interesting controller related anomalies, warrant their own post in the near future, so keep an eye out for that. 

P.Beard

Shop Manager

Summer + Winter 2024 Update

Hi All!

It's been a busy season for all of us here at the CERA Car Shop. Now that all the special events are over, the team is once again beginning the maintenance cycle for the fleet for the upcoming 2025 season.

Here are some of the highlights and projects from 2024

Montreal Tramways Car 2600 is a 1929 Canadian Car & Foundry streetcar acquired by the Connecticut Trolley Museum in 1959. This car ran in regular service until 2018 when there became a need for a new axle for the car. As built, most of the Montreal Tramways cars were built with Cast Iron Wheels. The result of that 89 years later is that one of the axle/wheel sets became brittle and needed to be replaced. Thanks to our friends at the Shoreline Trolley Museum in Branford, CT, we were able to source a new axle for installation under the car. In addition to the axle being installed and a thorough inspection over the whole car, the shop crew gave the car a beautiful new paint job! This car is now back in regular service to our organization. We're proud to have brought this car back after an 6 year hiatus!

2600 after being pulled out of Northern Barn

2600 first test trip after the axle replacement

2600 ready for service with a new paint job

Chicago Aurora & Elgin Car 303 also received a new paint job this season. The shop put the first of two finishing coats onto the exterior of the car to bring it back to the cars original 1906 paint scheme. This car would have come out of the Niles Shops with a Pullman Green body, Black Frame/Trucks, & an Orange Roof. For this round of paint, we focused on the car body. 303 also had adjustments made to the cars air governor and other components. 

303 getting primer

303 with a completed first coat at Dusk

3001 is progressing very well. This summer, our shop team (Lead by Chief Motorman Mike L.) cut, sanded, and installed the floor onto the car as well as completed most of the roof to the car. The West end trolley controller has been cleaned and rebuilt with the East End controller following shortly after. The air brakes on the car function as intended and will be fully connected to the trucks in the coming months. As of now, 3001 has been rolled over the pit where wiring work and connections will now be made. This car is on the home stretch!

3001 Roof Installation

3001 K1 Brake Valve being installed on the new wood floor

Wood Floor nearing completion

Half way point for 3001's floor

The pit in the shop has also been reinforced. For those who don't know, our shop is equipped with a concrete pit where shop personnel can get under a trolley car to do repairs and maintenance. This pit has been "shored up" with steel to ensure its longevity. 

We have many exciting projects coming up in the 2025 season so stay tuned!