Board Meeting Weak-Brief Report

 

Michael Buchta assembling heating and ventilation ductwork under The Terrible Trolley

In the early 2000s I sent out an email most weeks to nearly 200 friends of mine and the Museum’s.  It was not regularly sent so I called it Weakly.  During the pandemic I took a cue from Frank and Randy Hicks (hickscarworks.blogspot.com), our friends at Illinois Railway Museum.  They produce a regular blog using google Blogger, (https://trolleyologyguy.blogspot.com/) which is free software that comes with the free email addresses which google provides to anyone.

I got the address cuzinbruce@gmail.com to help direct some of my email away from my regular address.  The moniker cuzinbruce came from our friend Tony who called me Cuz, so when I would call him on the phone I would always start with "This is your CuZinBruce".  Anyway I revived the blog with a new page weaklyreports.blogspot.com and have been posting my take on things around and about the Museum (shop and all) to show what I used to put in my board reports.  Stuff that some of which is mentioned by others in their reports.

This report is the jumping off point for your to explore the pages from the past on my blog and to perhaps check out the work and activities going on at IRM.  There are reports and pages of research and recollection.   I hope that you find them interesting.

https://trolleyologyguy.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4.html
https://trolleyologyguy.blogspot.com/2020/01/m551-acquisiton-1984.html
https://trolleyologyguy.blogspot.com/2019/12/4398s-new-decor.html

Today I stopped by the Museum after a medical appointment and found that Michael has made considerable progress re-establishing the last of the ducts going to the baseboard of 1713 (The Terrible Trolley).  Michael built the upper part of the duct last month which carries the air from the car back into the system through louvers by the center door as seen in the photos.

                

In other news, contract restorer Keith Bray has completed his work on Monday and will now return to Virginia to concentrate on 5706 a Type 3 Boston car which he is completing for the Boston Street Railway Association. 

 

 

 We will continue to plug away on the car with work accomplished this past week including passenger seats that are being painted by Fr. Jack Demnyan and the lifeguard trip gate which I have been working on.  Our short range plan is to finish seats and then begin work on the heaters and seats by removing a seat at a time and restoring all of the components including the wainscotting (walls next to seats with new and reclaimed materials.

Around the property I captured a couple of pictures of Kevin, Michael and Connor in action including this rare black and white (caused by a camera that knows better than I do) of the guys grading next to the line between the Farm Road crossing and the Reliance Drive (originally Museum Road) never was crossing.  This grading will facilitate the tie replacement in this area.

Finally, a shot from Facebook this week showing a colorized historical photo of the trolley trestle that originally crossed the Ravine which is the location of the street of the same name in Munhall adjacent to the Homestead works.

The weak that was at Arden Dec 9-15

See the addition of a photo at the end and comments: 

 

Opening on a positive note is this photo from Scott Becker with Michael Buchta showing off woodwork he refinished for Red Arrow 73.  The electric cart he is working on was conceived by Sarah, Bear Kendlick and various young people, with 4013 and the PaTransit and T decals that Sarah produced and applied. Doesn't it look great!  I recently noticed that Devin Mooney posted photos of this previously here on the Volunteer page.

 

  

Starting with December 14 here's the crew erecting the frame for the new sign at the Electric Way entrance.  It's just a sign and not animated like the one at the old site.  As of Friday the electricians were still working to get the wires over to it along with wiring for the street lights for which bases were poured.

 

If you are reading this, congratulations for having too much time on your hands and being curious.

 

I noted this pallet full of stuff at reliance on Thursday. I have to get the aftermath photos this afternoon.  Perhaps needless to say the west entrance needed to be rendered less inviting to those pulling in thinking PTM was still there.  Below is the the new wide open sidewalk!

Next is a whole group of photos of my focus for this week.  The big day for this work was Tuesday when Jack Demnyan was able to come help on 8042.  I was concentrating on the trip gate for the lifeguard basket while Jack sanded and painted a seat for the car.

Bill Shaw prepped the "sticks" for the lifeguard basket and the trip gate seen above.  He rounded the edges with a hand router and then I got the gray paint on them.  I lined up the metal brackets and sticks on the work table and am now in the process of installing the gate on the car. 

This photo shows Keith Bray's craftmanship in the making, fitting and hanging of the folding doors.  Keith also made a new folding step board and fitted up the linkage so that everything works in tune.
 

 

Further craftsmanship is illustrated with the fitting of the dash aprons.

 

 

This past week we received a pair of Peckham 4.5' wheelbase trucks 5'2-1/4 gauge, removed from Philadelphia Transportation D7

 

 

 

Here's a look at the seats for 8042 which Keith removed for the rebuilding of the left rear bolster end back in 2020.  They were painted brown for the 1976 overhaul of the car for use at Independence Hall.  Jack Demnyan has strained the green paint and applied a couple of coats to the first two seats.  We will be painting all of these forward facing seats as work to overhaul the interior continues.

 

 

 

 

Additional things last week

In addition to the photos from the first report this report includes views showing the work completed on 8042 plus progress recently by Michael Buchta on the ductwork for 1713 (the Terrible Trolley).
This first photo shows Art Rizzino seated in 8042 as we toured the car last Saturday and looked over what Keith had accomplished.
This is a close up photo showing the bench seats where Art was sitting reinstalled along with the new rubber flooring that we obtained 2 years ago which Keith also installed as part of his work.  The trained eye can also see that most of the chrome stanchions are now in place.  Keith is coming back to complete this installation.

Looking the other way from the bench seat is the center door partitions which Jack Demnyan and I spent considerable time repairing and painting. 

The new ceiling and the interior lights installed by John Habak can be seen along with the bulkhead and the fare register ringers installed by John Habak and Barrie Baker.  These two also meticulously restored the fare registers that will hang here, just as they did with the station clock they prepared for the new Visitor and Education Center.

Looking more deeply into the rear of the car we see the rear center door bench seat and the first of the seats removed for the rewiring of the heaters and restoration of the interior wall panels.

Looking further back the new wall panels installed by Keith and our crew are on the right.  Hopefully the video will appear showing December 18, 2020 when our youthful crew worked on riveting with Keith

Finally a close-up of the rear of the car where Keith installed a considerable number of items including the windows that we refinished along with the bulkhead panels that we painted and all the trim that was necessary to return the car to its (much shinier and cleaner) 1957 “appearance”  The upholstered seat covers will be applied when Keith returns.

Meanwhile Michael Buchta has made progress on 1713 and 73.  This series of under car photos shows his handiwork creating new ducts for the heating system, all of which suffered considerable rusting.  The picture above shows the duct of the rear right sill  of the car which he just fabricated and installed.  
The photo below shows the return air duct that comes from the louvered panel at the base of the rear center door partition.

The next two photos show the great job that wonderful new volunteer Mark Hall has done painting the underframe of the Terrible Trolley 1713.  Last week Mark received assistance from Mike’s parents.

Finally, late on Thursday November 30 Michael set up the new MDF panels for the ceiling of Red Arrow center door car 73 in the shop annex after meticulously mopping the floor and sprayed the panels with the Greenfield color that we had mixed for the job.
 

The Week that was @ Arden

Saturday December 2 I took a drive down the Burma road from Reliance to the TDB and got to see the Yuletide shuttle returning to the Blvd on its endless loop.  I refer to it this way because the car is trapped unless the switch which it is approaching in the photo is manually thrown.  This is a good thing for the shuttle but I need to remember not to go to McClane if I’m out with an Operator for an Hour participant.  Anyway, on to the next photo.

 Here’s 1711 turning into Enterprise Wye with the big thing being a chance to see the Santa car 78 meeting with the shuttle.

 

The shuttle comes to rest at the crosswalk to the TDB entrance where the Santa car loads going the other way.  Sunday I did a little tour guiding at the TDB and enjoyed talking to the crew there.

It’s Sunday now and I took time to look inside Mon-West Penn 274 and see the beautiful restoration of the woodwork that Bill Fronczek had been doing in the shop.  The photo shows the bulkhead between the passenger compartment and the baggage section of the car, which we have learned that coal dusted miners would ride to avoid getting the passenger section dirty.

It’s Monday now and I went down to the shop to get things cleaned up following Keith Bray’s work on 8042.  The photo shows the lifeguard basket I finished rebuilding as I was getting it off of my workbench and under the car.  I need the work space to begin sanding and painting the passenger seats that are out of the car.  Keith is tentatively returning December 17 to do a final tightening of screws on the trim and doing a final wrap up on the other things on his list.

Before his departure we were discussing the roof walk arrangement for 8042.  He felt strongly that the walk needed to go the length of the passenger compartment (between the curved bonnet ends) in spite of the fact that the car arrived with only a small section at the rear of the car.  I told him that I was sure I could find a photo showing the arrangement, and sure enough, this one popped up on Facebook last week.  Interesting to note that the single end 8000s had eight vents on the roof with 6 of them in the rear where the air always flowed in normal operation.  Thanks to Bernie’s effort several years ago we have 8 freshly fabricated vents to use after the canvas is applied.  The new vents were a must as the originals had lead a tough life.

Wednesday I was on a mission to find the Wells Fargo Agency porcelain signs that I produced and had fabricated for the Wexford Station several years ago.  In the process of looking at reliance I came across Dave Hamley and Dick Rhoton’s handiwork as they work to cross-fertilize wheels from the original trucks pulled from the Shaker car.  Last year Pittsburgh trucks were acquired from our friend Ed Miller in Ohio (also previous owner of the Terrible Trolley.  The photo shows the super resilient wheel removed from the truck.  

The guys have set up a space at Reliance to work on the trucks and the parts removed are stored nearby.

Turns out that the crate with the porcelain signs ended up right there so two birds with one stone…