In July 2007 the Niagara Railway Museum acquired a 1970 built Whiting 2TMA Trackmobile, which was in rather poor condition, but complete (more or less). It was moved to storage, awaiting a rebuild, which didn't happen. In March 2013 the unit was moved into the shop for assembly of the transmission, which was given to our resident mechanic Rick, in kit form (we actually gave him a box with a bunch of parts and said, here ya go!!). Rick managed to get the plans for the transmission from Whiting, which has an operation in nearby Welland, Ontario. The rebuild included replacing all the bearings, as well as some welding and machining of the gears. It was a long and painstaking process, but all the hard work finally paid off on May 31st, 2014 when the machine was started and moved under it's own power for the first time in well over 15years. A video taken June 1st can be seen here:
http://youtu.be/nrom7uzkgL0
This has been one of our best work weekends yet, as we also managed to lay out over 100ft of rail, moving towards connecting 2 of our shop tracks at a 100lb #8 turnout. The self guarded frog was also put in place and bolted to part of the track. Other work included cutting some of the trees around the sand towers, and scraping some of the old paint off the steps and walk ways in preparation for painting.
And Sunday June 1st continued the great weekend as the Niagara Railway Museum Inc. has entered into a partnership with the Welland Historical Museum to move, store, and display a 1943 built Porter Fireless originally from Atlas Steel in Welland. The unit currently resides at the Fort Erie Railroad Museum, who recently decided it did not fit in their collection. The locomotive will be moved to the NRM site (the former Canadian National diesel shop in Fort Erie) in July.
There's so much going on at the Museum right now, and so much more news to come. The Trackmobile will be demonstrating at our open house on July 5th & 6th. Info on the Museum is at http://www.nfrm.ca
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