Workshop May 2019

Late April there was some significant shunting and a change of cars in the workshop. Cosmetic work on PCC 1014 is complete, however, the electrical repairs needed to the car are waiting on parts, so the car was moved out to make way for other work.

1014 was replaced with 141s who’s bogies are going to be swapped with 1111, as 141s has good wheels and is rarely used, 1111 has worn wheels and is a popular car.

Sydney C37 also swapped with 11W so that the broken trolley bridge can be repaired, along with a faulty compressor. This will enable the car to be used for track cleaning duties instead of 134S.

Photos by Martin Pinches

May 22nd

By Wednesday May 22, 141s was out on shop bogies and replaced by Milan 1692. 1692, like 11W is in for a quick work over to get it running, in 1692’s case the refitting of the pantograph it had in Melbourne. It had been planned to put poles on this car, but replicating the trolley bridges the car used to have before conversion (x2 as it’s now bidirectional), turned out to be complex task (the roof isn’t strong enough on it’s own to support poles). With the impending overhead work to allow pantographs to run at Loftus, it’s much quicker to refit the pantograph and get the car driveable again. When the overhead completed, the car will operated as a pantograph car in museum service. It needs minor door repairs and will be fitted with Sydney brake valves to make it closer to a Sydney car in operation.

The motors from 141s have been removed from the bogies and are being overhauled before being refitted to O1111 to ensure long term trouble free operation for 1111.

Photos by Michael Hatton