Katy Dickinson

SEED Selection Tomorrow

Tanya Jankot has received HR's verification of the SEED mentoring program applicants' information (titles, job grades, hire dates, performance ratings, etc.) and is checking that against the submitted information. The SEED Selection Committee meets tomorrow, on 28 November 2007. We expect to pick about 40 participants out of the 104 applicants. I will announce final selections tomorrow.

More information on the SEED Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 02:22PM Nov 27, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Caboose Restoration Update

During the Thanksgiving holiday, between cooking and coming down with colds, we worked on WP668, our backyard caboose. We added bits of wood trim, pulled wires and installed conduit, outlets, and switches for the new electrical system, and continued painting. I have three colors of paint: red primer for metal bits, rust-red base color, and safety-yellow trim. Each day, I made a round with each color, painting newly-cut bolt ends, dings and splats, new welds and wood trim, and putting a third coat of yellow on each of the thirty or so handle bars.

We also placed the final order for the stencils to re-mark WP668. After negotiation with the stencil cutting company, we settled on Trade Gothic Bold as the currently-available font closest to the original WP668 letter forms. Our new reusable stencils have now been laser cut on durable poly film and shipped and we are waiting for them to arrive. We ordered the following:

• WP (12" tall - for the bay centers)
• 668 (10" tall - for the bay centers)
• LT WT 47700 (3" tall - for the lower rims)
• SAC. 2-67 (3" tall - for the lower rims)
• WP 668 (3" tall - over each door)
• BLT. 10-43 (2" tall - for the lower rims)

We took these markings from the 1973-1974 historic photos of WP668. Here is what we think they mean:

• WP stands for Western Pacific Railroad
• 668 WP's individual number of our caboose
• LT WT 47700 WP668's last official weight: 47,700 pounds
• SAC. 2-67 February 1967, WP668's last test inspection date
• WP 668 the official name of our caboose
• BLT. 10-43 October 1943, WP668's built date - when WP668 was converted from a 1916 boxcar into a caboose

John and I discussed whether to have the built date be 10-16 (as we have seen on several of WP668's sisters) but decided to conform to her 1973-1974 markings. There are also several other sets of small inspection markings dated from 1958 to 1973 we will paint on. However, those are in the kind of cut-letter font readily available in stencils at local hardware stores. We are trying not to be too finicky (model railroaders who must get everything exactly perfect are derisively called "rivet counters") while remaining true to WP668's history.

When FREDs (flashing rear-end devices) came into use in the mid-1970s, railroad cabooses became much less needed. Cabooses served as a the conductor's office and crew break room as well as a way to check on the back of the train. Cabooses had either cupolas or bay windows so that the conductor could oversee that all was well. In the mid-1970s, US railroads began taking cabooses out of service and chopping them up for scrap. A few cabooses, like WP668, were lucky enough to end up in museums. At some point between 1974 (the date the last historic photo we have was taken in Sacramento, CA) and December 2005 (when we first saw WP668 at the Golden Gate Railroad Museum in San Francisco), WP668 had her ladders chopped off - presumably to avoid providing an attractive and dangerous nuisance (an easy way to climb onto her then-fragile roof).

Last night, Chris* the welder came over with the first leg of the steel pipe replacement ladders he is fabricating for us. John and Chris tried it out and it fits WP668 as it should. One end of the ladder slots into round cups welded onto the steel of the back deck; the other end bolts onto the roof and connects to the rooftop walkway. Once the ladders are done, we can put the metal skin on the new roof, then build the roof walkway on top of the metal.

* Chris Gremich "The Iron Expert" of CG Designs in San Jose, CA, phone: 408-313-3706

Posted at 12:57PM Nov 27, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  |