Truck gets moved in place!

On Wednesday, the power truck is moved underneath the 1005. That means all the work on wiring, piping, electrical and painting is complete. Note how nice it looks in fresh new paint. All the painting was done by hand. Note the caboose behind is quickly coming into paint itself. We call it "Sacramento Northern 1632" but its real road number is something else. The Western Pacific head office had ordered this caboose scrapped, but the yard crews decided this was in better shape than 1632. So they swapped numbers, sending the real 1632 to scrap in its stead.

Note how many people it takes to move the truck. Two people can keep it rolling with all their strength, but it takes a man with a lever to start it moving. This is in stark contrast to, say, a roller bearing caboose, where one man can move the whole caboose. That is because of the traction motors, which have a lot of rotating mass, and each have four plain bearings inside (two armature bearings and two where it hangs on the axle.)

Rest assured, this crew did not push the truck the whole way. They used the shop switcher, "Muni 0305", which lasted about two weeks on the Muni as a line car, but has proven to be a "really useful engine" around the WRM's shop. While they were switching, they exchanged Muni PCC 1016 and the so-called 1632 caboose. That puts 1016 over the pit for a traction motor swap. All three units are nearly completed, and the race is on to see which finishes first.

Here is the truck in place under the car. Photos this post by Joe Magruder.