Submitted by W.D. Miller.
Started the day with a contact from a Father and his Sons asking how to join the efforts to work on Project 358, I directed them to the website for a membership and then volunteer form completion; BOLO for their “paperwork”.
Delivered a donated cart from the Ottoville Lions Club, we’ll use this cart as a mobile work bench for Project 358 and likely store some tools, parts and books on it as things progress.
My day consisted of chasing wires on the locomotive. Started in the long hood removing some of the engine room work lights; brought a couple of the glass globes and protective cages home to see how much they’ll clean up.
Switch for electrical cabinet light is broke needs replaced.
Chased and confirmed the following circuits
- Cab light over engineer works
- Long and short hood work lights
- Headlights from back wall to control stand
- Road and gauge lights from back wall to control stand to include the dimmer (fancy for 1957)
- Radio from back wall to control stand
- Utility circuit from back wall to the terminal strip at bottom of electrical cabinet (LOTS of other stuff connected to this circuit…I’ll circle back to chase them all down)
- Air dryer circuit that was installed for the RCO, confirmed the route of the power cable, and removed it completely (with the connector intact), it is now on the air dryer in the short hood and we should sell or swap it.
- Located several what appears to be factory, or near factory wires that were cut at some time and left for dead. Started to pull some of those out of the way. The last few though were a bit larger and were near the spot where the Aux Gen and Aux Gen Field switches once were. So decided to leave them in place for now
Carson worked on the step well engineer side removing 3 shop vac loads of dirt and debris. I want to give a shout out to Joe Knapke for helping Carson get the airlines setup and stretched since the locomotive was a ways out from the building. Thanks Joe for the assist!
Carson did accidentally hit the front, engineers side sand line that goes down to the truck, barely hitting it with the needle scaler and blew right through it. I guess we’ll need to replace those eventually too. He marked it with some really BRIGHT orange tape…you can’t miss it.
Brandon was at the shop to size up some metal to take to a fab shop to have a compound bend put into the piece for the portion of the cab roof and side wall that needs replaced. He’s hoping to have that ready to go by next week for the official scheduled work day of May 5th.
Removed the tarps that were to protect the engineer side of the battery box, but they have had enough abuse from the Fall and Winter.
Don’t forget to log hours (I have to remind myself, so I figured I’d remind everyone too) for Project 358 or any other projects worked on in the shop.
