W.W.&F. Discussion Forum
WW&F Railway Museum Discussion => Work and Events => Topic started by: Mike Fox on February 07, 2009, 08:02:03 PM
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In the interest of sharing as much as possible, I moved around inside the shop taking pictures of the new Addition, before we fill it, which by the last photo you can see it has started already. Pictures should be self explanatory, but I'll caption them anyhow. Lets start upstairs. For size reference, it is about a 7 foot ceiling.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1552.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1551.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1554.jpg)
Now for the main floor. Pretty self explanatory. But I'll try my best to confuse every one.
Standing in the south corner of Bay One
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1555.jpg)
Standing in the south corner of Bay Three
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1559.jpg)
Standing in the North corner of the Addition of Bay Three
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1558.jpg)
Standing in the North corner of the addition of Bay One
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1557.jpg)
OK. We have the four corners covered. How about some ground shots.
Bay One, head high.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1561.jpg)
Bay Three, head high
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1560.jpg)
And finally, the temporary walls were removed this afternoon and things started spilling in to the open space. Notice #9s cab.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/100_1579.jpg)
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Mike,
Once again, great interior shots. For those of us from away these pictures help us to enjoy the results of the labor of the many who worked so hard to button up the new addition.
Duncan
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I would like to second Duncan's comments!
Not to belittle those who built the original bay one, it sure appears that construction standards
have advanced over the years.
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Zack figured it out, sketching things on paper, trying to get the most out of the space we could (no posts or interior walls) while trying to keep it similar to the way the original was built.
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Wonderful photos and a great job.
Interior wiring, lights and the second floor windows are yet to come, right?
Are the rails to be connected after the big lathe is moved to bay #3?
Ira's axiom to Parkinson's Law.
"The bigger the available space, the more stuff will be put in it...."
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OK. Here are some more inside shots. The big lathe got moved today. Brute strength and ignorance took care of it. Oh, and Fred helped a little too. ;D
Here is Jason setting things up to use it already.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/BigLathe.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/BigLathe2.jpg)
And we scooted the cab for #9 into the extension some more to open up the wall around Bay 2. The final results
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/Bay2.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/Bay2-2.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/Shopinside.jpg)
And finally, we talked about it then I walked out to do something else and they did it, They rolled 309 into the new section.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/309inBayone.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-11/1225939/309inBayone-1.jpg)
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Nice, nice, nice! ;D ;D Now with the big lathe out of the way there is room to put another car in bay one out of the weather. :)
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Wow, the progress in the shop addition looks wonderful especially 309's move. I take it the new rails got connected to the old section's track. I know they were lined up and ready for joint bars.
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Thanks for the update pics Mike. I love it when a plan falls into place like this.
Duncan
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Looks like we need some 'telltales' for the low overhead clearance in there...;)
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Kudos to all you folks who have been working on the shop addition through the winter. I'd take my hat off to you but my head would get cold! It's looking great. Mike, Steve and others who have posted photos -- thanks so much.
Here's a thought. If the original portion of Bay 1 was insulated and heated (even by a torpedo heater), it would be a good place to work on a car during the winter, and it would be much less expensive to heat than the entire new space. A piece of canvas battened over the interior doorway into the new space could be removed during better weather, or a set of removable wooden doors could be made. Just a thought....
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I had a similar thought yesterday myself. And I think it may have been heated like that in the past. Some sheetrock covers the inside wall.
But really, working indoors in the cold is not bad. You are out of the wind and the snow. It's just plain cold. I was looking at the track on Bay's 2 & 3 yesterday and thought about lifting those up. But there is no hurry. 2 feet of snow keeps the doors shut outside.
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Back in winter of 2000 or 2001 we needed to retube #10. This was done in Bay 1. Even with tarps overhead and a torpedo heater going it never got anywhere near warm. Jason said it was pretty miserable working in the cold like that. The sheetrock predates it and I think even predates my arrival at the Museum.
Looks like the upstairs room may be turned into a woodworking shop, at least for pieces that can fit up the stairs.
309 was moved back to near its old location, otherwise nobody could get to the side door.
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Bay 1 would need insulation and either a concrete or wooden floor as well as weather stripping around the doors to keep the heat in. I have insulated the walls and ceiling of metal-sheathed pole barns and heated them up to 60 degrees with a hot-air gas furnace. Of course, that was in Pennsylvania, where it's not quite as cold as Maine, but it can be done in a cost-effective manner.
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I think it weould be nice to have a concrete floot in the rest of the shop regardless of whether or not it will help in heating. that would provide quite a nice working surface and stop us from triping on the rails.
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Because of the design of the original building, a floor can not be poured in Bay 2 or 3. Well, I shound't say can not. I should say it would take a lot to pour a floor for the existing bay 2 and 3. The posts were tied together at the base by means of 2x6's or larger running under the tracks between posts. Pouring cement over those would level the floor up but that would be the weak spot.
I thought about raised walkways this weekend. Like the one from the stairs in Bay 2. I thought about building one down the west wall of Bay 3 after the rail is raised to ease walking between the Machine shop and the new extension. I can see a lot of foot traffic going between the two locations and this may help a little with footing.
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A raised walkway also would make it easier to hand-truck heavier items around the building now that it's getting so big!
Someone probably already thought of this, but regarding heat having a ceiling fan or two might help push the heat back down where it will do some good.
If a woodworking shop goes upstairs, maybe a trap door and a pulley might be in order rather than just the stairway.
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We want to make sure we avoid this kind of problem in the new space:
http://www.ihasaids.com/upload/data/1234908717.gif
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Welcome to Home Depot!
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I think there lots of choices. We could use concrete if we built expansion joints over the sub joists, they could be made of wood or rubber. Another possiblity is to make a walkway between the west rail and wall of bay three using asphalt. It works well but is not prototypical. I like the wood walkway idea but wood warps and gets slippery when wet.
Originally we wanted to lay in a brick floor. It would look great and be good solid footing but is expensive. Another option is to spread more stone, Steve Z. and I built up the floor in the former kitchen area of bay one with small stone. It made walking easier because we filled up to the railhead. Of course some of the old shops had wood block floors. The blocks were set on end, good for walking, bolting down machinery and moving heavy equipment.
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The roundhouse at the North Carolina Transportation Museum at Spencer, NC, has a fake wood block floor made with fiberglass cast blocks. That might be a solution for us. I was in the roundhouse before it was done, when the real woods blocks were still on parts of the floor, and I can tell you, you wouldn't know the replacements aren't real wood unless you got down on your hands and knees.
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....a fake wood block floor made with fiberglass cast blocks. That might be a solution for us......
In addition to the usual four-letter words that you will rarely, if ever, hear around the WW&F Museum, there are two more: "fake" and "weld". :-X
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A woodworking shop upstairs makes perfect sense. As for things too big to get up the steps -- just open the window at the end and pass them in! Seriously, though, what parts of any cars we might want to build would be too big? The center and side sills are about the largest pieces, and they are spliced, aren't they?
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I'd also point out the long-range problem of pouring concrete over wooden ties. Eventually, even treated ties will rot and the floor will begin to fail. The trolley tracks in the street outside my office were removed in 1939, and recently the street has come to resemble a washboard as the ties under the several layers of pavement have crumbled. Perhaps a better solution would be to fill the devil strip between Bay 2 and 3 with screenings, which will eventually pack down and become almost as hard as concrete.
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The too big pieces I was talking about were mainly the sills. Most of our sills are whole, only two or three sills on the boxcar were spliced, because we wanted to keep as much original wood as possible.
Mike, I was thinking about the exact same idea with a raised wooden walkway.
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Yes, we talked about the floor Saturday. Fred called it a Mouse way or something like that.
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Wayne is correct. The use of screening (the fines at remain after rock crushing) and packing it down is close to concrete. We could rent a small roller and a compactor (tamper) to do the job.
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That sounds perfect for in there...
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Walking on even fine stone can be a problem for the handicapped. I miss seeing a lot of what is being accomplished at the museum because I am unable to walk on the irregular surfaces. It may mean barring access to some areas to comply with the Americans with disabilities act. Wheel chairs certainly don't like stone, but even folks with leg braces take a risk walking on the uneven surfaces of stone and gravel.
Part of the museum's mission is education. What message does it send to a school group if only some of them are invited to watch a restoration in progress? And those with disabilities are once again left out in the cold......
Keith
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Keith;
Your point is well taken. When we did the Long Range Plan there was a lot of discussion and consensus that we needed to make as much of the Museum as possible accessable to physically challenged visitors (and members). It's good to be reminded of this every now and then. As I write this I am hobbling around on my left foot due to a fall last night so I am acutely aware of this issue. I think anything that is done in Bays 1-3 will be an improvement over what we have now but before anything is done consideration needs to be made about access.
Dave
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perhaps as future project we can remove the wooden ties and pour the floor in the old shop like we did in the new shop. this could even be done one bay at a time as funding allows. The joints between the sections of concrete could be done with expansion rubber. then we get our nice working surface, with sure footing and excelent durability. And if we do it one bay at a time we don't loose all of our storage/work space for a few months.
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Vincent has the right idea take up the rail and the wooden ties. Dig out the rock and dirt to the necessary grade then replace the rail upon steel ties add rebar and wire plus the new concrete floor. One bay at a time most of the effort is supplied by our great volunteers and a great floor for a life time. Fred L. Kuhns