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A subset of the Friends of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with the mission of preservation, restoration, and interpretation of CTSRR historic assets. The Springs group is primarily involved in restoration. See below for blog archive of older postings.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Welding - January 19, 2013


This Saturday was welding day for the steel running the length of the car.  It was a "January thaw" day which made for very good conditions.

We missed Craig for this work session, and we wish him a speedy recovery.

In the photo on the right the tie rods have been pulled back to the left (north) in order to bring the steel on the right out of the car to weld.  We had a water hose handy as well as fire extinguishers, hopefully not to be used.






We brought the steel piece out of the door of the car, over the end sill and supported it on a sawhorse.  The tent flap was lowered to keep the wind at a minimum so as to not interfere with the welding gas.







All contacts of the splice piece with the larger pieces were solidly welded.  For all of us except the welder it was a hurry-up-and-wait day.  We worked to move the tie rods, then get the steel out for access.  During the welding we caught our breath.







Now the welded piece (truly one piece now) is back in place, and the tie rods have been moved to the right to free up the north steel.  The jacks were used to take pressure off of the tie rods in order to slide easier.












We slid this piece under the end sill and welded in this position.
Fortunately we had a good crew for the moving.














Here is a good look at the end result.  The welds were ground smooth along the edges.  The bolts will remain in place and be torqued.  We moved the steel back into the car and called it a day, saving repositioning the tie rods yet again for another day.

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