Oh what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day.......

Surprisingly, everything came my way today!!

I showed up @ 8am and met Paul at the local Dunkin Donuts-I only had coffee, no donuts! I swear!!!!
Anyway, Wayne showed up a little while later and set up to needlescale the frame of #35.
Around 9am, Leon showed up and while Paul was busy setting the punch codes of the frame on #35, Leon & I began the final assembly of the turntables braking system.

This took quite a while as we needed to re-fit both brake shoes and remove and adjust all of the levers a few times.

At 11:30, both Ronnie & Rickey showed up and set about to continue the paint removal on #35's drive wheels. At 12 noon Paul & I had to leave for a meeting. With Wayne needlescaling and Leon now working alone on the brake system, I was astonished when I  returned at 1:30 (with lunch for all I might add) to see that Wayne had cleaned off nearly 2/3 of the frames right side.

Leon had completed the brake assembly and after bolting up a couple of parts and adding a few cotter pins, we tested the brakes and they worked nicely.

The guys broke for lunch which gave me some time to clean out and ream out a few of the bolt holes so we could begin to reassemble the steel framework for the turntables braking platform.
After studying quite a few photos of the turntable in action, we have concluded that there was a wooden platform that the operator used to stand on that brought him up high enough so he could operate both the brake lever and the controller. This allowed a one man operation of the turntable. Way cool!

The above photo shows you one of the platforms frame pieces in the upper left corner and you can make out the brake handle to the right of it. Also you will see that we added both of the sand boxes to the frame at this time. Even with the weight of the unit in operation, during inclement weather the LIRR still need to add sand to the ring rail at times, in order to provide traction for the drive wheel.

Here's Leon testing the brake system. He is holding the long lever which will rise through the wooden platform and here you can clearly see the two pieces of steel going in a vertical position on either side of the brake system. To these parts, Pressure treated (PT) lumber will be bolted and assembled into the platforms frame and a PT deck will be placed on it afterwards.

 

When we called it a day at 5pm here is what the frame looked like after we painted on a light coat of metal primer. Remember it was a LIGHT COAT! This is what we were told to do by the restoration contractor. A light coat will allow anyone to see any cracks that might have developed in the steel of the frame.

Where Paul is standing (with his back to us) is where Wayne stopped for the day. He  stopped just to the rear of where the #1 drive wheel would be.

 

Next week, I will be away, but Leon & Wayne will run the work seesion. I can only imagine how far they will get the frame needlescaled and maybe (?) the turntables motor frame assembly will get put into the turntable pit and re-attached to the turntable bridge. I also suspect that my other guys, also known as the "newbies" (Ronnie, Rickey. John, Gerard, Evan, Louis) will continue to get the drive wheels cleaned up.

 

All in all, a fantastic day, workwise and weatherwise.

 

I will be posting late next week as I won't be around until Monday to write up my blog.

Gary

 

Levers and Brakes and trains, Oh My!

Just yesterday morning, I had some good feelings about the day.
Thankfully, they materialized.

A few years back, the Railroad Museum of LI (RMLI) received from the LIRR, a 10 lever interlocking machine that was from Nassau Tower in Mineola. This unit arrived on a well worn out flatcar and also came in with a pair of ALCO power truck side frames.
Before my wedding this past August, I visited with RMLI President Don Fischer to ask about this unit.
A few weeks ago, the Board of Trustees from RMLI voted to deassesion this piece from their collection and RMLI President Don Fischer contacted me to let me know about their decision.
As RMLI already had a working interlocking system installed in their museum (from BLISS tower), they felt it was not necessary to duplicate this display and voted to donate this "ARMSTRONG" interlocking machine to OBRM.


I contacted our friend and supporter Steve Krisman from 5th Industrial, and he was more than happy to assist us at this time.
He asked his friend Bob Flutie from BF trucking to pick up our unit and bring it over to 5th Industrials site where Steve would hold it for us until he could get it up to us.

North Fork Welding & Supply donated a crane to assist RMLI in moving the drive wheels for their #16 BEDT locomotive and while the crane was on site, they rigged the interlocking machine and placed it on Bobs Landoll trailer. But lo & behold, Bob, being the friend that he is to Steve, brought the unit from RMLI's site in Riverhead, all the way up to us in Oyster Bay!

THANK YOU Bob and THANK YOU Steve for making this acquisition happen.

I especially want to  offer a big THANK YOU to  Don Fischer and the Board of Trustees at RMLI for making this OBRM acquisition a reality. A great joint effort that benefits the entire railroad musuem community.

Due to all of the projects currently going on , this project will probably not be started until early next year.
It will demand an inordinate amount of rust removal and major amounts of penetrating oil !!
Here is a picture of the unit after its arrival at OBRM's display yard. I put it next to the turntable so as to have room for the forklift to move locomotive parts and to leave a large empty area where we can eventually lay out the turntable ties, when they arrive.

During the day, we had many of our volunteers hard at work .

Leon Daitz and Steve McKeon were busy getting the turntable motor braking assembly back together and installed. This unit had been removed about 5 years ago and was disassembled, degreased and had the paint/rust removed.

We needed to remove what was left of the broken off cotter pins from inside of the assembly pins. Not a small job in itself which was easily handled by another of our volunteers, Jeff M. Then all of the pieces were treated to a coat of rust converter, primer and finally, paint.

 Steve McKeon  first came to us as a volunteer from Barry Technical School who has been working jointly with BOCES and OBRM.

He is a talented, master welder and was able to fabricate a cast iron part  for the brake lever onsite. This was not an easy task and he was able to make the part from a spare tie plate that was stashed away on a pallet.

Leon has been with us for many years and can always be counted on for his knowledge and diligent work ethics.

The 2 of them made this unpleasant task almost look too easy!

One of our newer volunteers, Gerard, was assiting them in assembling some of the parts.Here he is assembling  the brake lever that the operator would use to slow the turntable and align the track so he could align it to the lead track coming in from the LIRR yard with the locking pin.

While this was going on, 3 more of our volunteers were hard at work on the drive wheels.

According to the plan list as outlined by our restoraion contractors, Steam Operations Corp., we needed to clean off the outer and inner bearing surfaces from the drive wheels and preserve the faces with a thin coat of primer. We are also in the midst of removing the primer on the drive wheels which OBRM applied many years ago while #35 was in Mitchel Field. So for the next several weeks, this will be an ongoing project.

The top photo is of volunteers Ronnie Schnepf & Paul Floroff working on the rod bearings-On the bottom is Ricky Imperato hard at work on the bearing faces.

As always, it is the volunteers who ultimately make the restorations work and I am proud to be able to oversee the workings at the yard.

This next photo may not look like much to many of you, however, this is the first time in around 5 years, that the braking sytem has been installed (and working) on the turntable motor frame assembly.

This assembly is a series of levers and rods which is put into motion by the operator pulling a very long lever which can just be made out in the above photo going up at an angle from the  left side of the power wheel. You can see 2 of the bolts above the black metal strap in the middle of the photo.

We still need to finish up the bottom (wooden) brake shoe. You can easily see the top (wooden) brake shoe which is sandwiched between the 2 black metal straps.

When completed next work session, we will be ready to drop the entire frame assembly into the pit and attach it to the turntable bridge, which had previously been sandblasted and painted by Gallagher O'Rourke Company.

NEXT SATURDAY 9-25-10 will be our General Meeting in the Historic Oyster Bay Train Station on Railroad Ave.

Whew! I am exhausted just reliving yesterdays adventures.

Thankfully, I have the brains of a Scarecrow, the courage of a Lion and the heart of a Tin Man.

Now I just want to get back home. Where is that wizard????

Gary

A day of remembrance and optimism

Saturday September 11th 2010-


I am flying my flag at half mast today, having put it out at 7am this morning before leaving for the day.
Never forgive, never forget.
Remember the people who gave their lives to save the others who were murdered 9 years ago.

A smaller than avereage turnout today, only 6 of us but what we lacked in hands, we sure made up for in efforts.

The turntable motor frame assembly now has its 2 coats of paint and the entire braking assembly has been given at least 1 coat. Some parts have 2, but next week we will give every part from this assembly another coat and do any touchups needed on the motor frame before we begin reassembly.

We checked the pin that holds the 2 drawbars on #35's frame and it hasn't "popped" loose yet, so we cranked up the jack another notch and gave a few new squirts of Kroil brand creeping oil to the pin between the drawbars and underneath the frame.

Hopefully we will find it loose within the next 2 weeks so we can remove the drawbars and have them cleaned and coated.

One of the chores that we were given in our extensive list of "things to do" by the restoration contractor was to get any of #35's parts off of the ground. We have been a little lazy in the way that we have handled a few of the really large and/or heavy steel parts and have put many of them on the ground.
Hey! they are made of very thick steel so we figured a little time on the ground wouldn't harm them too much. Well, today we took all of the parts and placed them on either side of #35's frame on top of ties or pallets to get them off of the ground.

Next week we will start cleaning, coating and reassembly of the 6 drive wheel bearing box assemblies. These are made up of 7 parts which will only fit into their respective boxes and do not interchange, so it will be a challenge to us. I am sure that it will take up the better part of a day to accomplish this task.

Gary

A great summer day in Oyster Bay

Saturday August 28th 2010-
While 2 of our volunteers were going over the Alco Worlds Fair Cab display to fix the air horns-clogged baffles, a 3 man crew was hard at work moving the cribbing under the turntables motor frame assembly in order to get to the unprimed areas.

With this task accomplished, they set to work getting a coat of primer on quickly. As the day turned out quite warm, the primer dried in a few hours, so they were able to get a 2nd coat onto the area. They also were able to get 2 coats of primer on all of the brake assembly and platform brackets as well.

A few of our other volunteers were still going over parts inside the storage trailers in order to be able to put together as many sub-assemblies as possible to make it faster to reassemble #35's frame and drive train.


We had one of the locomotive rebuild contractors from Steam Operations Corp (Keith Muldowney) on hand to go over some measurements that were missed on the last visit and to review our progress on parts renewal and breakdowns.

WE (OBRM Volunteers) are on schedule and if the air compressor situation continues at this pace, we should be able to complete the needle scaling of the drive wheels/tender truck assemblies/locomotive frame by the end of November.
One of the drive wheel shas been completely stripped of paint on the outside.Next week the backside will be stripped of the primer that was applied when the new tires were installed, years ago.


We also picked up the rear end of #35's locomotive frame with our trusty forklift in order to move the cribbing underneath. This enabled us to get to the drawbar pin which had been rusted in place for years. We made sure to drain any standing water in the pocket, then we put a jack on a timber under the frame and applied upward force to the pin. From the top, we poured in a "creeping" oil known as "Kroil".
This stuff is amazing and should allow us to pop the pin over the course fo the next few weeks. Then the pin and the pin pocket will get polished while the drawbars will be removed, stripped and coated with cosmoline for long term storage.


Remember that while all of this work is being performed behind the barriers, we are also [color=#FF0000]open for business [/color]and have many familys and railfans visiting with us. Our docents are kept busy with these visitors and we are working diligently on our "SPEND A DAY IN OYSTER BAY" program.

MADDOG

A stellar performance-again!

An overcast day greeted me as I arrived at the display yard around 8am on Saturday 8-21-10.
I started up the forklift and let it warm up while I plotted the days goals.
Putting away the left side valve gear for #35 AND attempting to get the second coat of primer on the turntable motor frame assembly were my goals for the day.

Fortunately, volunteers (you gotta love 'em!) started arriving a t 8:30 and we were able to  accomplish the first goal-valve gear relocation. While the foklift was running, I then put both pilot truck bearing box lock bars onto the work tables. These needed to be cleaned and coated: a simple task, but necessary.

I put a crew on the turntable frame painting and had another of our knowledgable volunteers working on the braking assembly. Many bolts needed to be removed as well as the various sizes of pins which had rotted cotter pins broken off inside of them.
Jeff worked all day getting all of the broken cotter pins removed and had all of the parts given to him completed. This was a dirty job, but he got it done.

At the same time. Paul worked on getting all of the brake assembly parts coated with 2 coats of EXTEND and ready for primer for next weeks work session.
The junior volunteers did a great job of primering the frame and finishing the pilot truck parts
As far as I can see, the pilot truck portion of the restoration has been completed.

Next week-
We will have Keith Muldowny from Steam Operations Corp (S.O.C) paying us a visit to check on our progression of parts renovation for #35.
S.O.C is the contractor for the rebuilding of #35 and as I have already stated-
The more work WE do up in Oyster Bay, the less work THEY (S.O.C) have to do in Alabama. This will translate to more restoration for the same amnount of money!
We plan on getting the painting done on the turntable frame assembly next Saturday and will assemble a new round of parts from #35 to be worked on.
If we can get an air compressor, we will perform paint the removal project on  #35's drive wheels.

Gary

I''M BACK!!

HI folks-I am back to work! My wedding was wonderful and thank you all for your kind words.
But seriously folks-We had another GREAT day in Oyster Bay!!!
It started off very well and just got better.
We put away the right side valve gear assembly into storage and began work on the left side assembly.
This process was just like the drive rods. We had to remove all of the paint and grind down the surfaces of the parts to bring up their shine and remove all traces of paint & rust. This enables any inspector to see if there are any stress cracks forming which would render the part defective.
Fortunately, by the end of the day the volunteers were able to polish every part and coat them with COSMOLINE for long term storage.

At the same time, the other volunteers were busy at work putting a second coat of EXTEND rust converter onto the turntable motor frame. With the weather being warm & breezy, the extend dried in a couple of hours and they were able to get the first coat of primer onto the assembly. Next week we will get a second coat of primer on and I plan on lifting and re setting the assembly to allow the primer to be applied to the parts under the cribbing.

We will also start paint removal on the drive wheels.
BUT WAIT: THERE'S MORE!!!!!
As an added bonus to the day, OBRM President John Specce stopped by with a present.
#35's ORIGINAL Throttle handle.
Somehow, we were contacted by a gentleman who had it in his possession for some time. He knew about us and wanted to make sure that it was returned to #35 for its restoration.
How's THAT for a great moment in history??!!
Here it is on the tail of the parts trailer going left to right. The throttle grip is on the left side. On the right side is where it attaches to the rod in the cab.

Gary

Last Saturdays work session 7-31-10

A really beautiful day in Oyster Bay!

We arrived to find both sets of valve gear assemblies waiting to be worked on and we did not dissapoint!
I put two  of our new volunteers to work removing paint and polishing up the right side assembly. After that was completed, they coated the rods with Cosmoline to prep it for a short stay outdoors before it is to be put into storage.
At the same time, we removed the last of the stubborn paint from the turntable motor frame assembly and applied a thick coat of Extend Rust converter. Right now the frame is a light black color, but after the next coat, it should be darker.
When we return to Oyster Bay on Saturday August 14th, we will complete the second coat and by the end of the day, we should have been able to apply the first of two primer coats. Grey is the color of choice!
Gary