[PRCo] Fwd: Orange Empire Railway Museum Red Cars / Yellow Cars Update 11/6/07

[James B. Holland]

--- In PEry at yahos.com, John Smatlak <jsmatlak at ...> wrote:

  This email is our weekly update on operation, maintenance and 
restoration of OERM' s collection of Los Angeles (and other) electric 
railway equipment. These updates are compiled by John Smatlak, and if 
you know someone who would like to be added to the list, please have 
them email me. Additional information about the Museum and its 
collections (including lots of photos) are available on our website: 
http://www.oerm.org/ (some new pages were added today). Weekly update 
lists from OERM are also available for diesel locomotive maintenance
and for our 3-foot steam narrow gauge collection.

The next two weekends are our annual Thomas event- hope that all of
you OERM volunteers can spend some time with us- we need everyone's
help to pull this event off! WE ALSO NEED HELPERS THIS FRIDAY TO
FINISH PREPARATIONS! We still need to clean the interiors of the
streetcars, and the windows on the Thomas train still need to be done.
Thanks to all who have been helping get everything ready to go. 

LA Railway "Huntington Standards" 525- On Friday and Saturday George 
Chapman and Jeff Andelin continued to install the refurbished seats in 
the center section (see photo).  The clerestory windows are also
fitted, and George got the clerestory stops stripped and repainted.
665- On Saturday Ian Renwick made a new bottom gasket for one of the
valves on the car's D-1 BG air compressor. This has stopped the leak.

LA Railway "PCC" 3001- Got an exterior wash on Saturday. We also
noticed that it has a roof leak- so we need to remember that this is
not a car we want to use during rainy weather.

LA Railway "H-4" 1201- over the weekend we wrapped up the car's annual 
inspection. It now needs a good cleaning. During the inspection I 
replaced the contactor tips in the Line Switch in the switch group, 
which had really gotten worn down as far as I'd care to see. Cars 
1201-1225 had a Westinghouse 275-05 HL Switch Group. None of our other 
cars have these same unit switches, so consequently we don't have much 
in the way of spare parts such as contactor tips and arc horns. 
Fortunately we were able to substitute another contactor tip, and by 
enlarging the mounting screw hole on the arc horn, re-use the existing 
arc horns. In the Westinghouse 15B controllers, Ian Renwick found that 
the high current controller fingers are getting pretty worn. As seen
in the accompanying photos, LATL fitted the H-class cars with a
controller finger of their own design, instead of the standard
Westinghouse part. The LATL part is round, designed to be turned over
when one side gets worn down. Ian adjusted the finger tension for now,
as we have none of these in stock as replacements. We looked at using
a more common Westinghouse finger (see photo), but the rivet on the
part doesn't fit on top of the arc chute fingers, which perhaps were
changed when the new style of finger was brought into use? Dave Garcia
is looking into parts sources for both of these items.

Carhouse One- thanks to Bob Blalock for coming out on Monday with his 
leaf blower and cleaning out all of the special work in front of 
Carhouse One. His timing was perfect as the street sweeper from CR&R 
came by a short time later (CR&R comes through just before the big 
Thomas event each year with their street sweeper- our thanks to CR&R
for this valuable service!) The area looks much better, but we still
need to pull up the points from these turnouts and clean out the
sockets. Thanks also to Ron Ruffulo and Gordon Taber for replacing a
broken out light panel on the north side.

PE Hollywood Cars- Dave Garcia and the pattern maker took the brake
head pattern over to the foundry and got a quote on having a run of
parts made. Looks like the new heads will cost us about $130 each for
a run of 
10. Not bad, considering all the work they will save from not having
to rebuild the old worn out ones. The only machine work that should be 
necessary will be to clean up the holes for the bushings. In other 
Hollywood Car news, the 717 was out on Saturday for a very enjoyable 
test run on the newly refurbished main line. The slow order section is 
now gone, and the track rides very nicely! All in attendance enjoyed 
several trips over the line. Congratulations to Greg Wasz and Danny 
Giles, who were our primary interface with the track contractor during 
the course of the project, which saw about 500 ties replaced. Funding 
for this major project came from the proceeds of our annual Day Out
With Thomas event (another good reason for you to come out and
volunteer some time during this year's event).

Around the Shop- Thanks to Rex Atwell for working on sorting things in 
the big pile of parts in front of the Warehouse. Thanks to Byron 
Brainard for installing a temporary replacement steering box in our 
Westinghouse "Marketeer" electric cart. On Monday, a major effort was 
made to get parts moved off the asphalt in front of the shop. Many
items were located to new quarters "out back" and others were
consolidated with other items in front of the warehouse. Daryl Weaver
and I also did a major pruning of the small trees on the east side of
the warehouse. One was dead, and they all needed a major trimming.

Mine Locomotive- many people probably don't know it, but OERM has a 3 
foot gauge electric mine locomotive that we acquired from Knotts Berry 
Farm. It's been outside suffering for several decades, but fortunately 
it's built like a tank, so by and large it still looks OK. Our three 
foot gauge stalwarts Bill Barbour and Paul Harr recently sandblasted
it as part of a batch of items they were doing, and on Sunday Bill
applied a coat of black paint (see photo). It certainly looks much
better. One wonders what the thing weighs!

Library and Archives- Some additional sorting took place in the
archives over the weekend, filing recently arrived materials. Also,
curtains were installed in front of the newly repaired window at the
east end of the upstairs offices. This will help keep the temperature
stable in this area, as well as keep the UV off of any of the
displayed items. 

Photos:
1) Ian Renwick working on the Westinghouse 15-B Controllers in LARy 1201
2) A close-up of the controller fingers. In Ian's hand is the standard 
Westinghouse controller finger, installed on the controller are the
LATL type round fingers.
3) Interior of 525 center section with seats installed
4) Clerestory windows on the 525
5) Our 3-foot gauge mine locomotive has a fresh coat of paint thanks
to Bill Barbour

MATERIAL DONATIONS WANTED:
1) We are interested in acquiring plastic parts bins. Please contact
us with size information if you have a quantity to donate.
2) We could really use 10-20 wire basket (preferably stackable) 
palletainers for use in our large number of containers.
3) We could use 2-4 of those plastic "huts" for storing 50 gallon
drums of lubricants.
4) We could use a few more 40 foot shipping containers in decent
condition.
5) We could use a replacement for the ailing ice machine located
outside of Town Hall. It's a Hoshizaki model KM-630MRE, and makes
about 1200 lbs. of ice. Something in a  comparable size, in good
working order, is needed.
6) We could use more wire shelving and posts. Examples include Metro 
brand (this is the chrome plated stuff that you see in restaurants).
We use the shelving extensively in our archives areas. It's nice
because it's easy to adjust and does not collect dust.
7) We could use a couple of nice wooden bookcases for our archives
areas with shelves about 12" deep.
8) Roll scanner and printer- we are researching our options for a roll 
scanner and printer for the archives. Let us know if you have any 
connections or suggestions in this regard.

Contact me via email if you can provide any of the above. Thanks!

As always, these were just some of the projects going on at the Museum 
this weekend. Why not come out and lend a hand? Not a member? Need the 
Museum address in order to mail a donation? Find our membership 
application and more on our website at: http://www.oerm.org/

--- End forwarded message ---