Hello, I am new to this forum. I thought some of you might find this job I did back in January of 2017 somewhat interesting.

On one of the South Carolina Railroad Museum’s SW8s, 2015, the cab floor was getting to the point where it was no longer safe to operate, especially considering we frequently had cab riders. As the pictures show, the engineer’s seat was starting to get a lean to it, and the fireman’s seat was ready to fall through.

Engineer's Side


Fireman's Side

Fireman's Side Wall

Fireman's Seat Removed


For anyone who noticed that Variac in one of the pictures, take a big Variac and a few diodes and you have a poor man's locomotive battery charger! It may look a little, well, homemade, but that has charged many locomotive batteries over the years.

I plan on posting more pictures of the job as I find time to do so. Having to dig though the archives to find some of these pictures. Hope some of you find this interesting and maybe even helpful once I get to the installation of the new hard oak that I put in.

I noticed the Variac... and instantly wondered what it was doing there.

I've got two of them like that...

Good idea on charging batteries... variable DC voltage with the diodes.

Welcome to RYPN!

I'm looking forward to see how you solved the floor problem on the SW8.

After the engineer's seat and fireman's seat were removed, I drew a picture of how many boards there were and how they fitted together so I would have something to compare to as I installed new. I numbered all the boards as they came out in case I needed patterns. The sheet metal linings around various different parts were also removed as well as the shrouds around the sanding. I stripped the paint from all of those and repainted them gloss black which was the last layer of paint I could find while stripping them.

I should note that on our EMDs, I exercise a method of repair and restore, not modify and replace. So everything that was done on this engine was done the way that seemed closest to how EMD did it back in 1950s. The reason is that our engines are almost entirely original. They still have 567B engines in them, can stands, 6BL brakes, and the same friction bearing trucks they had when they left EMD. That's doing pretty good considering both of them went to Korea and underwent at least 2 rebuilds. They have newer horns, and 2015 has roller bearing trucks. So I want to keep the engines as original as possible because having a stainless throttle handle and reverser as well as a bronze brake handle is just fantastic (though a little cold in the winter). And the wood floor just ties the whole interior together...

So the demolition starts:



I removed the engineers side first so that I could go ahead and get it done in case we needed the engine. It was quite easy to install the wood on that side however I found that I was not going to be able to screw down any of it underneath the engineers seat because the angle iron frame seem to be chilled or hardened. Not quite sure how that happens, but I could not drill through the stuff never the less tap it. This worked out perfectly. For those of you who have ever had to work on air brakes on a EMD switcher, you'll know that floor can get in the way. So I fitted the wood in place to get the sizing right and then made a steel place that fit under the wood and screwed all the boards to it. Now we have a removable section of floor right above the distribution valve. being that the boards are all one piece because of the plate underneath them, the whole assembly doesn't move when in use.




Notice that I did not replace the last two boards or the first 3 or 4, they were in great shape and did not merit replacement in my book. More to come.

After completing the engineer's side, I removed almost all of the fireman's side floor. It was in much worse shape from years of the cab windows being left open. I would show pictures of the finished engineers floor, but it seems I didn't take any.




Notice that there are two sets of holes in the floor. To the best I can figure the floor I put in was the 3rd floor in the history of that locomotive. I thought I could simply put the wood in and then mark the holes from underneath the floor and then drill out the wood but that did not work at all. It was just impossible to get anything to line up. So I added yet another set of holes to the frame. That worked out better because it allowed me to make the hole spacing on all the boards the same.






The boards were cut and fit first, then I laid out the hole spacing. I used a screwdriver to nip the boards tight up against the front of the cab to keep it all square and avoid unsightly gaps in the floor. After that I drilled all the holes trough the wood until I hit the steel frame. I only allowed the drill to make a mark in the steel so that it could be drilled and tapped later.

So after all the holes were drilled and countersunk in wood, I removed all the wood. I started the long process of drilling and tapping many holes in the angle iron frame. Once that was done, the wood was reinstalled and screwed down with 1 1/2 long 1/4-20 countersunk screws.

That seems to be all the pictures I have of that project, but I'll take some of what the floor looks like now when I get a chance. It's looks almost identical to what it looked like when I finished it, just a little bit more dusty.

Be sure to spend an extra few dollars and use brass or stainless steel machine screws to hold the new wood floor in place. Otherwise regular plated steel screws will deteriorate quickly in that environment.

What kind of wood did you use?

Yes, I bought all new stainless screws from McMaster Carr. Almost as cheap as the normal steel fasteners. The wood was oak, in fact some of the best oak I've ever seen. It didn't have any knots in it anywhere, and there was a piece that was 3/4 in thick and 36 in wide and 48 in long, solid! I'm not a woodworker, but that kind of lumber has to be getting hard to find these days. It wasn't the finest of grains, but very strong and hard. I think it will hold up for a long time as long as water stays off of it.

The main reason that the old floors didn't last was that the crews didn't bother to close the windows. And to make it worse, when the engines were sent to Korea, they did not use spreader bars. The straps ruined the gutters on the cab and distorted the cab and battery box. So rain has more ways than normal to enter. Some of those ways have been corrected, but the gutters are just inaccessible with our current facilities(or lack thereof). Keeping the cab windows closed is by far the best preservative.