1005 in repose

Here is SN 1005 parked outside Carbarn 3 for Member's Day. The lower panels are being prepped for paint. The other side is already painted. The car looks good!

What's going on with 1005? First, a complex repair on the brackets which hold up the radial coupler - a lot more on that job is coming. Second, the seats are being sent out for re-upholstery.

Why does it look so good while being parked in the dusty shop? It's kept under plastic. Here you see ropes set up to lift the plastic off the car.

Video of early shakedown run

Last month the car was operated on its own, for the purpose of turning the car around and doing testing of the propulsion system and brakes.

A video of excellent quality was captured, and is located here.

Overhauling the brakes

Let's review some earlier work. Many of the components of 1005's brake system have enjoyed an overhaul. Now we get a glimpse of the teardown of the brake cylinder. No, it hasn't been since 1956. You can see in the picture below, the innards of the cylinder.

Center is the piston itself, which moves inside the housing. The plate above it clamps a large rubber gasket. You can see the gasket on the edge of the picture being held by a volunteer.

Upper left is the non-pressure head of the cylinder, also viewable on the left side of the piston in the picture above. As you can see, it guides the piston and gives the spring a place to nest. The spring is a return spring, which assures the piston returns to its seat when pressure is released. Among other benefits, this also protects the piston shaft from the weather.

A hand powered forklift was used to lower the relevant sections from the car - as they are heavy. Parts were cleaned and painted, gasket renewed, and reassembled and returned to service.

IT RUNS!

Dave Johnston reports: Yesterday afternoon SN 1005 was switched out of the shop in order to turn it around so the coupler can be installed at the rear of the car. The car was moved off shop track 2 and placed under trolley wire by diesel locomotive VE 502. Then the pole on 1005 was placed on the wire and the dynamotor compressors pumped the car up. With a small group of shop staff on board, the 1005 made two trips down the tail track and around the loop under its own power. With the exception of a sticky whistle valve, the car operated flawlessly. This is the first operation of the 1005 in over ten years.

The brake system has been converted back to the M 24 A and M2 B brake valves, which operated much better that the system it had since its Key System days. Work still needing to be done includes seat upholstery, upper sash, final paint, rear coupler, and lots of details.

IT MOVED!

Sacramento Northern 1005 has moved under its own power! For the first time in a decade.

The reverser is complete and tested, and the wiring is intact.

If you were at Members Day, you know the PCC and caboose switched places in the shop. At that time, the truck was moved under the car, and work was completed on wiring the reverser.

The motors were jacked up, and one at a time, energized to confirm that they turn in the correct direction.

The car was lowered off its jacks. The four jacks, including the damaged jack, are now out from under the car.

Tuesday, insulating the traction motor wiring was completed.

Today, power was applied and the car moved. Only 8 feet, but one giant leap for the project.

Spaghetti at the Western

The reverser side rails are back and it's time to reassemble the reverser. Excuse this somewhat boring blog posting, it will simply contain the pictures the shop crew needs to rewire the unit correctly. Click on the picture to zoom in a lot.

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.