Mike Decker and all,
I've seen one way that a Barco self-recalibrated itself which was most
effective. Working as a fireman on #614, way freight out of Galesburg, we
were switching the north side at Earlville about this time of year.
Standard power was a couple SD-9's (at best) on these jobs. I was running
the engine because the engineer was on the ground as well as the head
brakeman. While stopped waiting for head brakeman Bob Bradley to walk up,
the light bulbs used for illuminating the face of the Barco kept flickering.
The circut was opening and closing in the small lightbulb holder. As the
Barco's had oil in it, for it was a mechanical device, the oil found had for
many a trips found its way in, out and around the speed recorder. The
circut at the Barco's light bulbs kept arcing and as I sat there, the oil
around the light bulb holder caught fire. A small flame about the size of
tiny candle. I thought any moment the flame would simply falter and
dissappear. Instead, more of the old, caked on oil caught hold and now a
small flame was a big one. While the fire continued to grow I thought as
bad as this trip was turning out, here's certainly something to lauph at.
About this time Bob had walked up and when under the cab window, I slide
back the window and yelled down at him, "Bob, the speed recorder's on fire!"
He looked up, grinned and yelled back "Yea, sure!" Once in the cab, he was
startled to see the speed recorder ingulfed in fire. A couple blast from a
fire extinquisher and all was well except for the speed recorder and it's
speed tape. Guess it really didn't matter as we pulled a hundred cars to
Eola at a blistering 30 mph. Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Decker" <mdecker@g...>
To: <BRHSlist@egroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 12:23 PM
Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Recalibration
> Hi Leo:
>
> The method of choice out here on the Alliance division was a hollow rubber
> kid's ball, about 1-1/2" in dia., with a slot cut in it so's it would fit
> over the recording arm on a Chicago Pneumatic. The speed movement was top
> to bottom, slow to fast, and you would put the ball under the stylus arm.
> With the little bit of "spring" that the ball gave you, the tape would not
> have a "flat" speed line (a dead giveaway) but it would bounce up and down
a
> little as the arm fought a losing battle with the ball to show a higher
> speed. Leaving the lid open was a good way to remember your "attachment"
>:>) There were also lots of speed tapes decorating the sagebrush, like
> rolled out rolls of toilet paper :>) I still have a half-dozen speed
> recorder seals stuffed inside an old speed tape cardboard core that I used
> to carry in my grip.
>
> Best,
>
> Mike Decker
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <BRHSlist@egroups.com>
> To: <BRHSlist@egroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 3:28 AM
> > From: qutlx1@a...
> > Subject: Recalibration
> >
> > Gabe and others. While I, of course, never saw an old mechanical speed
> > recorder "recalibrated" I did hear many stories of how it was done.
>
> (Snip)
>
> >One did need to remember to remove his device upon arrival at the crew
> change >point. There are also many stories of tapes disappearing after
> certain unfortunate
> > incidents and various rivers and creeks became repositories for speed
> tapes.
> > Also if you go far back in this lists archives there is a discussion of
> the
> > fireman's duties on #21 @C.U.S. I believe that the first duty was to get
> the
> > morning papers for the "paper route" and the second job was to go done
in
> the
> > nose of the unit and adjust the overspeed.
> > Leo
>
>
>
>
>
>
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