This past weekend, October 11-13, was a very busy one at the Rockhill Trolley Museum. Besides the variety of trolleys running for the annual Fall Spectacular, much project and maintenance work was completed as well.
Here is a quick summary of the work completed:
Johnstown Traction Company #311:
- Jim Cohen spent Friday and Saturday night with paint removal in some areas, as well as needle scaling the door step areas with Joel Salomon. Carl Salomon assisted Friday night with the roof cleats. David Brightbill continues to make steady progress on wood refinishing. The new floor is about 80% installed thanks to the talents of contractor Keith Bray.
It's hard not to be impressed with the quality and comprehensiveness of work being performed on the museum's first trolley car.
Frank looks over the new floor as it is installed.
Miscellaneous Car Maintenance:
- These are the often out of sight tasks that never end and for which volunteers just don't get enough credit for. Among other projects, Budd Blair and Fred Walter checked the pole tension on Car #163 after the inbound end pole was replaced the previous weekend. Thanks to Charlie Wootton, Ron Rabena, Courtney Brown, and Nicholas Brightbill for getting the pole replaced the week before.
Liberty Liner Independence Hall:
- As mentioned in a previous post earlier this year, new resistor grids for the Liberty Liner have been obtained to replace those under the car which are in poor condition and have finally failed, rendering the train inoperable. On Sunday, Henry Long and Matt Nawn started the process to replace the grids under the A1 (outbound) end of the train.
Before going much further, let's explain how the train is configured:
(outbound) A1 section - C section - B section - A section (inbound)
The C is the all coach center section, B is the bar section, and the end coach sections are A1 and A. Interestingly, the outbound and inbound configuration at the museum is the same when the train was operated on the Red Arrow Lines.
The work was done underneath the train on the ground in Carbarn #2. Each wire was traced, marked according to the schematic, and disconnected from the resistor banks. By the end of the day, all wires had been disconnected from the A1 end resistors and marked, a concept for mounting the new resistors was developed, and some general assessment work on the train's electrical and air systems was done. Next step is to remove the resistor banks themselves.
Helping Henry and Matt with this work were Joel Salomon who helped get the Liner in position, Nevin Byers who helped get some lighting set up and Andrew Nawn, who yelled wire numbers from the schematic to his dad so his dad didn't have to constantly crawl out from under the train.
No date has yet been announced for when the train will be operable again. Watch this column and the museum news messages for further details!
The existing grids have been disconnected and are ready for removal.
Andrew Nawn makes a Halloween-like appearance with the uneven lighting in the back of Carbarn #2
My thanks and compliments to all volunteers who make these things possible.
- Matt Nawn
