Submitted by Tom Nitza
Thursday was work on the Plymouth day. Actually, it was demolition day as far as the battery box was concerned. We spent the entire day and by the end not only was the battery box off the locomotive, but a large section of the walkway had been removed. Once the battery box was out of the way, it became very obvious that the diamond plate on the walk way was in very poor shape so the decision was made to remove it as well. Putting in a new section will give us a smooth flat surface to mount the new box and batteries. Work will resume next week and continue until the job is completed. At the moment the focus is on getting the new batteries installed and restoring the locomotive to operation. Steve wants to use it to move the 765. At a later time we can work on replacing the battery cables. We won’t be saving any portion of the old box. The old one was rather crudely constructed so we’ll be able to improve on the looks and function. We plan on making it as water tight as possible but also installing some drain holes just in case. There was a drain hole in the old installation but that was only because the
walkway had rusted through.
To get involved in helping keep our diesel fleet running please contact Tom Nitza at Nitza@fwrhs.org
Removing the old battery box from the Plymouth
