Submitted by Tom Nitza.
Today Rich and I worked on the flat car. The east coupler has been disassembled and lubricated. Rich evicted the mouse that was living inside the coupler and removed the mouse’s nest. The coupler now opens reliably. The knuckle is worn to the point that it opens just a little too far and sometimes the lock is able to come partially back down. This doesn’t seem to interfere with the knuckle closing.
We started both diesel locomotives and did some switching in the brisk air. We moved the trailing truck from 765 over to the north track so that it can be disassembled. The Plymouth started right up, both engines. The one engine had only been plugged in for 3 hours but it didn’t hesitate to start. The 1231 #1 engine needed some ether but it did start. The #2 engine started right up.
When we were done switching we plugged both locomotives in. All block heaters and battery chargers are running. Given the temperatures over the next week we might as well leave them that way.
Once that was completed it was back to work on the flat car. We installed the shim in the west coupler to bring it up to height and it now looks much better.
Finally we removed the service brake valve and pulled of the cover plate to fix a leak in the gasket. There was some internal rust that we cleaned up and Rich used the shop vac to remove some rust from inside the air ports. The gasket was given a coat of RTV on both sides and everything was put back together. Then the valve was reinstalled on the car.
Next scheduled work day is Friday February 1st. Not sure what’s on the to do list but I’m certain we’ll accomplish something.
