Southern Pacific 9010
Cab Interior Work
Page 2
-- Update September 25, 2010 --
One of the many on-going cab projects is finding replacements for the missing cab gauges.  Our friend Richard Oed in Germany located, purchased and shipped two Deuta speedometers which are electrically identical to the missing tachometers.  He then produced 2 beautiful replacement tachometer faces which were applied to the mechanisms.  Bob Zenk produced a paint formula and the paint for the needles and we soon had two lovely replacement tachometers.  It was interesting to find that the movements are DC voltmeters with a built in bridge rectifiers which are needed because the tachometer generators on the engines produce AC.  Richard also contributed the pair of Engine Hour Meters.

Dan was found working on the bathroom door.  Two of the hinge pins were broken  and there were some 20 unused screw holes in the door surface.  There sure were a lot of things hung on there over the years.  Liberal applications of paint remover and elbow grease produced a nice clean surface and then a bit of welding and body filler took care of the holes.

Dan also took on the task of striping the interior of the bathroom and preparing it for paint.  We removed the right side wall in order to make the work easier and to get access to the ceiling panels.  After removing all the garbage from the floor, Dan discovered that the base of the toilet was broken in a multitude of pieces.  That's just one more darn thing to deal with.  The door in the back wall of the bathroom was something of a mystery and the only explanation we could find was that it was an emergency escape door.  That is until we got an email from our friend Carl-Peter Zander.  He explains the door as follows:  "
The UIC code asks for an escape opening, if there is no direct door from the drivers compartment to the outside, or if the side door in a hood type unit is more than 7 meters from the front end of the locomotive. Both are not the case in the ML 4000.   To explain this small door, we have to go back into the history of the prototype units, which in the very beginning of their operation, suffered from some trouble in their diesel engine governor/regulator, which is a very sophisticated mechanical item. The Maybach specialists were able, to do some setting or repair in the locomotive, but it was very difficult to reach the vital parts of no.1 engine. Therefore SP asked to have this door for the second locomotive type.  Problems  with the governor were overcome , and I do not know whether this door was ever used."

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

-- Update October 29, 2010 --
Dan has been doing wonders in the bathroom area.  He stripped nearly everything, applied rust neutralizer, primered and painted.  This is the first area of the cab interior to have the "new" look.
 

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

Dan Furtado Photo

-- Update October 30, 2010 --
Guest Worker Bob Zenk, filing this report from Location: Brightside.

Restoration on the cab interior is progressing rapidly. So it's time to start making sense of the cab window frame system.

'System' is not an exaggeration. The side window frames were originally supplied by the German firm of Happich/GHE, a major supplier to this day for transit hardware. They are designed in the German style, which favors aluminum exterior brightwork. It's a signature look for SP 9010.

There are four dozen separate pieces of aluminum extrusion making up the six cab side window assemblies. Sorry -- 'systems'. The sliders, for example, are made up of three separate extrusion profiles in a rubber-sealed sandwich, six pieces total not counting the center dividers, glide rails, or glass. They are also milled for drainage.

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

SP 9010's windows suffered a number of indignities through the years, not the least of which was having the large sliders cut down by 9" in an effort to control cab heat and rain ingress. The shop forces were likely instructed to, well, git 'er done. That nobody fussed too much is clearly revealed by the vise marks in the center dividers.

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

The clear anodized bright finish tends to fend off corrosion to a certain point, and then it develops metal leprosy. We used cloth polishing wheels and compounds to try and bring back some of the less crusty pieces. A couple turned out okay. But once anodizing goes bad, it stays bad, and the surface has to be cut completely.

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

There's also the problem of aluminum being softer than most of the things which tend to hit it in a railroad environment. Some of the pieces are dinged-up badly enough that the marks can be seen from fifty yards away. No amount of buffing will fix that. They have to be taken down past the damage, and that eats time.

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

The upper rear frame on the Fireman's side had been painted over by the SP in 1969 to combat heat, and the paint stuck real good! We removed it with paint stripper and elbow grease -- and when we were done, we wished that SP had painted all the windows like that!

Now... how to replace the missing nine-inch gap? SP threw away the pieces they cut out, obviously. But in doing research, we found that other German locomotives use the same extruded part. Contacting our fearless European Away Team resulted in enough spare parts from a salvage yard to at least make the 'plugs' for the exterior.

There is already one factory joint in the sliders, matching the 70 degree slant of the verticals. Making a test cut and fitting a salvaged section to the gap, we determined that a second joint for the patch plug will be nearly invisible, and suspended any plans to weld or otherwise try to make the new repair joint disappear.

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

There will be more salvage parts required: the middle and inner sashes are also missing nine-inch segments. But first we have to determine if those are custom parts for the Series units, or if we might be able to tap our resources in Europe again.

Moving on, the frame sandwich 'system' is useless without the custom rubber parts which seal the glass, allow the sliders to slide, and channel the water to the drains instead of the cab floor. There are eight different cross-sections of custom rubber which do that job -- and all are either rotten or completely missing.

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

Laying them out, cutting sections for samples, making extensive notes so we don't get confused, consulting a Happich/GHE drawing provided by our friend Franz Wunschik -- a lot of head-scratching will determine which parts we can service with U.S. substitutes, and which parts we'll need to source from Bavaria.

The window frames were designed as a complete and self-contained glazing system, since the cab structure is just a double-walled box with naked cutouts, waiting for these parts and their rubber seals to be fitted.

Bob Zenk Photo

We wrapped up our Fall 2010 Field Trip with a complete inventory of parts on hand including missing pieces, and then engraved the parts locations on all window frame bits so that they can be easily identified. They're put away safely while we gather parts and materials, and prepare for refinishing.

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

Bob Zenk Photo

Which is now what's being investigated. We've determined that simple polishing won't repair the damaged pieces. Cutting the surface and polishing it back to bright aluminum won't prevent immediate corrosion. Clear-coating will eventually flake off. The original clear anodizing technique is best done with new metal, is expensive, and doesn't last forever either -- we have proof!

Best choices being considered right now are in the powder coating realm -- there are aluminized finishes which look for all the world like bright metal, and are hard as a rock. This sounds good... don't want to do this more than once, ever!


-- Update July 15, 2011 --
Good grief, it has been over 8 months since this section has been updated.  This is mainly because all our efforts have been going into the exterior body work .  But, we have a new crew member who just happens to be a cracker jack machinist.  Bill has taken on the job of restoring the cab side window frames to a state of usefulness, for which I am truly grateful.  His current task is making the "plug" sections that Bob mention last update.   The plug in the third photo is a work in progress but, it is in progress after all this time wondering what we were going to do.


-- Update November 21, 2011 --
Bill continues on the window frame project.  He has completed the main machining work on the engineer's side and is now working on the fireman's side.  The plugs are being made from sections of window frame sent from Austria by crew member Gerold Eckl.  These have saved us a tremendous amount of work fabricating the plugs from aluminum bar stock.  He is also creating the window divider bars which were removed during Camera Car conversion.

-- Update August 01, 2012 --
The KM's were notorious for the cab temperature they could maintain.   The flat metal surfaces coupled with the huge window openings formed a fairly effective oven.  The cab is insulated with a product called "glass wool" which is like a dense fiberglass.  We decided that we would try to cut down the heat that was transmitted by the metal walls as much as possible and turned to our fiends in  the steam locomotive crowd for advice.   We learned that a spun ceramic fiber blanket was often used to insulate locomotive boilers (and furnaces) and was obtainable locally.  I picked up a couple of rolls of 1/2" material and began gluing it to the cab ceiling and side panels.  The black material seen on the inside of the side panels is a coating used on the inside of water tanks.  It will hopefully keep the rust away.

There is a plate in the front step well that forms the step up into the cab and covers access to the front cable conduits.  The plate had been removed while we were putting all of the cableing back in the conduits but that is completed so the plate was reinstalled and then the area was cleaned and primered.  There will eventually be linoleum on top of the step.

All of the interior perforated metal side panels needed to be removed as they were rusty, bent and the glass cloth lining their insides needed to be replaced.  The engineer's side panel happened be trapped behind part of the brake stand so the stand was cut apart.  While cleaning the cut off piece, I noted the remains of a bracket that had been welded to the stand.  Research leads us to believe that this was originally the Automatic Train Stop Valve.  Once the panel was prepared, it was reinstalled, covered with a protective piece of cardboard  and the brake stand was welded back together.

-- Update September 03, 2012 --
And so, in the due course of events, it became necessary to paint the window sills.  This was because I wanted to have the new front windows installed but did not want to put the new rubber glazing on bare or rusty metal.   As things usually happen, I wound up cleaning, stripping and painting the entire front part of the cab.  Life is never simple.  Our friend Wes Brubacher came down from Gyserville to spend a day masking the exterior of the cab so my spraying of the interior green did not settle on the fresh exterior gray.  The cab exterior looked as though it were mummified.  Now, work is progressing on painting the engineer's side cab exterior and putting the front part of the cab back together, starting with the perforated metal ceiling.  What a difference this has made.  By the way, the flash I used accentuates the white color of the fiberglass cloth glued to the backside of the perf metal.


-- Update October 29, 2012 --
As if Bill did not enough to do, he took on the rebuilding of the cabs water cooler.   Upon taking it apart, we discovered that the SP had converted it from a 64 volt DC  motor to a 120 volt AC motor.  I am sure this was done during the Camera Car conversion as the unit carried a large generator at that time.

Bill started working on the Barco speed recorder as it had to be put back in place before the water cooler could be returned to the cab.  It has suffered some damage and had a leak somewhere, judging by the oil mess around its mounting location.  These instruments were very common in US locomotives in the 1950's and we have two of them still in service in our museum fleet.  But, the one in the 9010 is the first I have ever seen of this type.

We knew that the units were equipped with a "remote" speedometer located on the dash board but had no idea how it worked.  Today, that became clear.  The Barco has a synchro device which is driven by the positioning arm for the speed indicating needle.  The speedometer gauge would have had an identical synchro device.  When the Barco device rotated by the movement of the speed needle, the device in the meter would have moved an identical amount.  It is now leak free and back in its proper place.


Once done with the water cooler and Barco, Bill took on the window regulator project.  When we got the 9010, there was only one window crank mechanism, on the fireman's side.  Richard Oed in Germany located one which could be modified to suit our needs.  Bill took Richard's  basic mechanism and created a mirror image of the one we had.  He had to manufacture the horizontal element and one of the control bars as well as the rollers which ride in the window bottom channel.

I continued working on the engineer's control panel.  A pair of rebuilt air brake gauges have been installed in the panel with new rubber cushion rings around them.  The brake pipe flow indicator was refurbished and put back where it belonged and the warning lamp panel was re-assembled and is now functional, although needing labels, light shields and knobs.    The control switches were reinstalled along with temporary label plates.  New plates duplicating the originals will be made later.
  Another challenge was the remote speedometer mount.   As originally designed, the speedometer was mounted flat in the panel.   Sun light through the front window no doubt proved that to be a bad idea so the angled mount was installed.   The sun shields for the 4 gauges were installed at about the same time.  The speedometer mount will be finished at a later date.


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