Brakes on Passenger Cars

[Ted Miles]

folks,

Can you give me an update on the brake project for the passenger cars at the museum. Especially the W&Q #3.

Last I heard there were parts being sent to a foundry to be duplicated one or more times.

Also, I wonder if the two newer passenger cars are going to be given any brakes?

Ted Miles

[James Patten]

Coach 3 got brakes last year.  Coach 8 and flatcar 126 got them this spring.  Currently there's nothing in the works to put them on 103, although we have a truck from MNG which will let us put brakes on the car.

[Dave Crow]

Ted,

I was one of the group that installed brakes on flatcar 126 and Coach 8 back in the Spring.  I arrived Thursday morning, as we were asked to install brakes on 126 first so that it could be used in ballast service on Friday.  Jason, Jonathan (St. Mary), and Vern (Shaw) had cut timbers for the brake beams, cut and threaded some 5/8" rod for the connecting rods, forged brake beam bolts and beam hangers, and gathered together new castings for the brake shoe holders.  So, we moved 126 into Bay 2 and lifted the one end of the car and rolled the truck out.  This made the installation much easier.  We hung the brake beams and installed the safety chains.  When it came time to install the brake lever (there is only one used for freight car brakes), we found that the length used for Jackson & Sharp coach trucks are too short for the Portland freight truck.  As I had had the shop guys at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum make me two new levers, and Josh Lepman delivered them - but to the length used on the J&S truck - so we had to make new, longer ones.  We found some bar stock and cut 2 new levers - Coach 8 rides on freight car trucks and would need a lever as well).  After drilling the holes, we installed the lever on the truck.  The rod connecting the two brake beams together needed to be heated and bent slightly so that the brake beams pivoted square to the axle.  The rod with chain for the brake wheel was attached to the top hole on the brake lever and then we rolled the truck back under the car.  After lowering the truck back onto the kingpin, we adjusted the length of the rod so that there was enough chain on the brake staff for at least one full wrap of chain with the brakes released.   While this is a short description, the actual work took most of Thursday to complete.

On Friday, we started the same process on Coach 8 - including using the overhead hoist in Bay 2 to lift the car end.  Important note - do not try this at home!  While we managed to lift the end of the car, we realized we were seriously over the rating for the hoists.  So the car end was lowered onto cribbing for safety.  For Coach 8, we had to make a lot of the parts, as there had been only enough of some items for one car.  So, we cut and profiled brake beams and drilled them to accept the brake shoe holders.  The brake lever I had made on Thursday wasn't long enough for the freight truck used under Coach 8.  Even though the two trucks looked the same, we ended up scrounging another piece of bar stock and cutting a longer lever.  I think we managed to get the truck portion complete on Friday so that the car could roll on its own on Saturday; however, we still had to install a brake wheel and staff assembly.  The steel platforms installed by Edaville used some of the original hardware such as the posts and the top bar-stock plates.  So, we had a top hold for the brake staff to pass through, but no lower hole to pass through the platform itself.  Although there was a steel plate bent and formed to form an area for the brake chain under the platform, we had to connect that location with the upper brake staff position.  We started drilling through the platform Friday evening and continued until well after dark - the drill bits weren't the sharpest and the drill wasn't the strongest for such large bits.  In any case, by lunch on Saturday, Coach 8 was sunning itself out in the yard sporting brakes on the south truck.  Marcel and the fellow that made new windows for Coach 8 spent the afternoon varnishing and installing windows into Coach 8.

Some of the folks involved with the brake work include:  Jason Lamontagne, Jon McChristian, Vern Shaw, Gawdon Cook, Ira Schreiber, Don Sanger, Cindy Sanger Rhine, Zac Wyllie, Marcel Levesque, and Dave Crow.  I apologize if I accidentally left out anyone.

Dave Crow

[Ira Schreiber]

Addendum:
Unfortunately the brake assembly on Coach #8 had an inherrent bind in it resulting in the lever dropping down on the ties and making a pseudo pretzel of itself.
Jason looked it over the next weekend and we came up with a different mechanical linkage which basically made a universal joint to eliminate the lever bind.
An eye bolt was gas welded shut with the forged eye on the brake beam thru the other eye. This made a permenent coupling with full freedom to go where it wanted. The plus side of this is that the lever is now above the bolster rather that below the bolster and is much happier in its new home.
Assisting in the mechanical work was a young man from Valley Railway, of Essex, CT, who was visiting for the day and was a tremendous help in the project. Unfortunately I don't remember his name.
Dave Crow's leadership in the original installation made the rework go very smoothly.

There have been no further reported incidents with either brake system, #8 and #126, so all appears well.

Ira Schreiber

[Ted Miles]

Thank you all for the report on the brake projects.

I gather that there is somebody at the museum who has a J&S truck drawing for passenger cars.

So now i guess somewhere there is a drawing for the Portland freight car trucks.

Up to now I thought the work was being documented by actual hardware on the surviving trucks.

Out here in the Bay Area there is the Society for the Preservation of Carter Brothers Resources. The Carters built mostly narrow gauge equipment and designed three sizes of freight 8, 10 and 15 ton size freight (swing motion) trucks. There are lots of 15 ton trucks (the most modern) around.

Now the Society has re-created the missing 10 ton size for a South Pacific Coast box car that they have. You can see the process on their web site in one of the photo galleries. They will be making more of them in the future as well as a pair of 8 ton trucks soon as they find the money.

They are about to start building a Car Barn to have a place to get their historic equipment indoors.

Again thanks for the thouough going responces.

Ted Miles

[Dave Crow]

Ted,

I know we have a drawing of the J&S passenger car truck, although I have heard that there are several versions to that drawing; for instance, the end rails that tie the side frames together may or may not have a depression to clear the draft gear.  When you think about how low the cars sit on (and around) the trucks, it makes sense.

As for the freight trucks, the truck under Coach 8 originally had brakes, as the end rail already had the holes drilled through it for the brake beam hanger mount forgings (sorry, what a mouthful of a name for a piece of piece bent over like a giant "U").  The truck under flatcar 126 had to have those same holes drilled, as it must never have had brakes on it.  If we had looked at the other truck, we might have found those same holes, but swapping trucks just to not have to drill 2 holes would have been nuts.

I'm sure our archives have copies of the Portland drawings for the trucks (hopefully); I know from the list of Portland drawings that there are several generations of freight car truck drawings, especially since there was supposed to be a "heavy duty" version of the freight car truck.

Dave Crow

[Ted Miles]

Dave,

i got my newsletter today and I guess the editor thought that brake questions would be of interest to the rest of the museum as well.

I am glad to know that an important element of the museum collection is
getting restored; even if it costs time and money to do it!

Ted Miles

[Bill Baskerville]

I don't know who to thank or commend for a job well done, but the repair to the Brakes on Coach 8 made a huge difference.  When I was up in Late July thru early August the brakes were marginally effective and John made a note in the conductors report.  On the fall work weekend trains the brakes worked really well.  Much, much better when coupling and holding the train at Alna Center.  My thanks and a hearty 'Well Done!'.

Bill