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To: "oermsignal" Subject: Orange Empire Railway Museum Signals Update - 6/7/2004 This email is our semi-regular update about signals work (installation, maintenance and restoration) at the Orange Empire Railway Museum and is a collaborative effort -- the information for this e-news issue was provided by Gene Cranston. If you have information that would be of interest to others, please email it to me and we'll include it in our next newsletter. If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, please email me. Likewise, if you know someone who would like to be added to this list, please have them email me. If you receive duplicate copies of this email, please contact me and let me know your preferred email address. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ JUNE SIGNALS MEETING NOTICE: --- SATURDAY JUNE 12th --- Gene will not be at the museum on the 12th so anyone who plans to work needs to make arrangements for any tools or supplies needed. For tools and supplies from Area-51, Gene can have them set out (contact him ahead of time). --- SATURDAY JUNE 19TH --- Gene will be at the museum all day on Saturday the 19th. Anyone with a project (or no project who wants to work with him) is welcome to help out. --- SATURDAY JUNE 26th --- This is our regular work day. Mike will be in charge. Work will progress as normal. Also Gene is usually at the museum most Fridays if that better fits your schedule. Call or email him for confirmation of the date. 2038 SIGNAL: Darrel and Gene completed installation of the style R head on signal 2038. Visibility is a now a lot better. The curve is quite sharp so visibility is limited but quite adequate for the 5 mph speed limit. An approaching train should see the signal adequately to very well from the time it comes from behind the tree branch that obscures it (about 150-200 feet) to just visible from a train stopped at the signal. The attached file (oec2038.pdf) is the up to date drawing for signal 2038 (it will be added to the website with filename oec2038). It is a basic use of a retained neutral polar relay (DP14) to control a colorlight signal with a polarized line. Just like a searchlight signal control, positive polarity gives the higher speed aspect, reverse polarity gives the lower speed aspect, and no line voltage gives a red signal. ALPINE CROSSING WIG-WAG: The Paul Orton and Paul Khoury team analyzed the needs of the left wig-wag at Alpine. Paul K robbed a new set of contacts from a donor motor which made the wig-wag start well and operate very vigorously to the point we may have to add a current limiting resistor (we are operating 8 volt equipment at about 11 volts). In the background as we worked we could hear the rifle and cannon fire of the Civil War on Broadway. One cannon caused many car alarms to operate each time it was fired. CROSSING INSPECTIONS: Gene finished the monthly crossing inspections from May and confirmed Paul K's finding that the batteries at Members' Crossing are bad. Electrolyte is adequate but about 2/3s of the cells were 0.0 volts after 2 minutes with no charge. If no other cause can be found we will need to change the entire battery. Perhaps this will be the first battery to be washed out to refurbish it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For additional OERM Signals information, visit the signals website at: http://gsee.sdf-us.org/signals. Previous editions of these email newsletters are at: http://gsee.sdf-us.org/signals/enews/enews.html . Questions or comments regarding OERM Signals should be directed to the Signals Superintendent Gene Cranston. |