Clackamas update 18 Sept 2012
Last week our first car ran under its own power for the first time. Unfortunately I missed it due to the need for Pat and myself to fly back to NY, and then drive 2600 miles from New York to Oregon, which took us four days.
By the time I got back to Oregon I was told that the car had run about 25 miles on the circular test track, badly scoring the flanges on one side of the car due to the lack of gauge widening and the incorrect installation of the lubricator sticks.
Today, however was another milestone in that the car operated on 24v battery power for the first time. (This is required for manouvering past dead sections of wire or in and out of the depot.) The track brakes work but sometimes have a habit of turning on unexpectedly during start up of the car, making everybody jump!
All the doors are now working almost right, one of the three air conditioners is dead, and there are no interior lights and won’t be until I finish redesigning their layout. We had a last minute change from Fluorescent to LED and we are now relying on a Chinese Canadian fellow to deliver us some LED tubes and some people in Finland to provide some new parts for the fittings. The battery is in a temporary box and the circuit breaker for it is held on with wire zip ties!
Tomorrow we have the people from Knorr here to sort out the hydraulic brakes (spring applied) and also we have to meet with Portland City tramway authority to iron out some technical matters.
This weekend is the opening ceremony for the inner city extension and I am assuming some of the replica heritage cars will be out there together with the Skoda cars since none of ours are finished as yet.
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