S aturday (5/15)

     Mark Hurley, Carl Merson and Justin Thillman cut the lawn at the Visitor's center. Mark and Rick Williams completed reinstalling the photo exhibit in the auditorium. The photos needed to be moved to allow the Trolley Theater to be installed.

     Sunday (5/16)

     Carl Merson was Dispatcher with Bob Cohen, Carl Thistel, Tom Phillips, Andy Blumberg and Jim Robertson as crew.

     Mark Dawson and Buster Hughes were hard at work on 3550 cleaning internal handrails.

     I packed the main axle of 1164's truck in the shop as we ready it for the anticipated swap with 3828. Lubrication of the axle is very important for allowing any of the streetcars to operate. The end of each axle must support the entire weight of the car, less the wheel and axle. To prevent the metal from wearing away, the bearing floats above the axle on a very thin film of oil.

     To get oil on the axle the bottom of each journal box is packed with wool yarn. The yarn is called waste, but it is brand new yarn that is soaked in oil. To assure that the oil is wicked through the wool and onto the axle, it is packed into the journal box as tightly as is possible. If it is too loose the oil will not wick up to the axle and the bearing will be dry.

     It only takes one bit of dirt to prevent the bearing from floating on the axle so only new fresh wool "waste can be used to pack a bearing. If the waste looks dirty, its only because the fresh oil is a dark gray color.

     After packing the axle I removed the telephone boxes from both 25th and 27th Street. Radios have replaced the line telephones that were used to communicate with the Dispatcher.

John