Motor Prep

The main agenda now is to prepare for the arrival of the CA&E cars from Cleveland. I'll have more about this later. The main thing I wanted to do was to work on preparing the trucks from the 321, which will be put under the 319 when it arrives. The more I can do now, the less I have to do when the trucks are under the car.

Here's a view of the commutator of a traction motor. The upper brush holder is obvious, part of the lower one is visible. They're 90 degrees apart because this is a four-pole motor. I started to megger them, but decided the results were not reliable. It was raining most of the day, so there's condensation on the surfaces, which increases the skin conductivity. The two armatures I measured both read about 0.8 megs, which is less than optimal. I'll try again on Saturday, it's supposed to be nicer then. I checked all of the armature bearings and added oil as needed, and blew out the commutators.

On Saturday we'll also try to wye one of the trucks; as they sit now, they're both facing the same way. And I also want to clean the commutators with Carbosol, if it's possible to move them so the armatures can be rotated.

While we're at it, let's check the gears and pinions. They all appear nice and wet, so no additional crater grease is needed.

Meanwhile, Tim Peters was working on the 1268, Bob Kutella on the 68, Pete on the 972, Frank was cleaning up the new PCC, Gerry was doing some welding for repairs on the Com Ed 4, and so on.

And the contractors were installing the ceiling in the shop extension. After finishing the first section, they blew in insulation, and here they are installing the next section.