New pipefitter

Matt Allen (left) and Keith Berry trace airbrake lines under the Diamond and Caldor Railbus No. 10. Matt spent Saturday morning diagramming the undercarriage brake system. As a pipefitter, Matt will take the lead on re-fitting the brake lines for the bus. For safety, Keith plans to replace all 1/2- and 1-inch air lines.

Matt found the railway project through my personal blog at 'Round the Chuckbox. As an occasional Dutch oven cook, he was looking for recipes for his next camping trip.

As a railroad enthusiast, Matt quickly jumped to the the El Dorado Western Railway blog. He's followed the crew's effort to restore the Diamond and Caldor No. 4 Shay locomotive for the past two years.

Camino, Placerville and Lake Tahoe Speeder No. 4

The crew replaced the brake shoes on the CP and LT Speeder No. 4 during the past two weeks. The standard-gauge speeder is now fully operation and can be used to survey the Southern Pacific Placerville Branch right-of-way once we secure permission.

Brake heads

Two weeks ago, Harold showed me how the pictured template worked. He will use it to guide his hand while he adds metal to the upper surfaces of the Shay's brake heads. Once he's added the metal, Harold will use a square to guide him as he grinds the new metal to the proper height.

According to the Car Builders Cyclopedia of American Practice, 1903 edition, a brake head is a "piece of iron or wood attached to a brake beam and which bears against the wheels, and combines both a brake block and a brake shoe in one piece." The Diamond and Caldor No. 4 Shay has eight such brake heads, one per wheel.

Shay truck brakes

Last week, Keith and I paid the brake rigging out in the yard. Keith wanted to accomplish two things. First, he had to count the number of brake pins for the machine shop. The parts are set up for the rear truck. Alberto is currently machining new pins out of tool steel. Keith also needed to see that we still had all the parts.

Although I've seen the rods and levers around the engine house, this was the first time I saw the rigging parts laid out in a diagram. It helped me to see how the system works. Use this colored diagram to see how the linkage parts interact:

• Blue -- stationery rod; anchors the system to the bolster
• Red -- brake levers; the main lever (largest of the three) is bolted to the truck frame at the bottom; the remaining two levers are bolted to the brake beams in the center of the lever
• Black -- movable brake rods; two pieces make the bottom rod; they're joined by a turnbuckle
• Gold -- the brake beans with brake shoes; there's one bean per wheel set
• Yellow -- brake hangers or dog bones; there are two per wheel set or four per truck

When you're viewing the front truck from the engineer's side of the locomotive, a rod pulls the top of the main levers to the read (not pictured). That motion actuates the joined brake rods and pulls both brake beans to the center. The brake system for the rear truck is set up as a mirror image of the front truck (pictured in the Lima shop drawing).

Machining brake pins

Two new volunteers, Alberto and John, started machining brake rigging pins from a large piece of tool steel yesterday. Alberto is a retired machinist. He's a welcome addition to the machine shop. John, who's the son of board member Bill Rodgers, is a local contractor.

The first step was to cut the bar stock into workable lengths on the Racine power hack saw.

The blade and stock are cooled with a mixture of water and oil. Typical of any operation, Sam and Alberto had to unplug the cooling line before operating the saw yesterday.

Machining the tool steel into a pin.


All that needs to be done now is to cut the pin off of the excess stock. To save stock, Alberto is going to turn the piece around and mill a second pin on the stock.

Brake link rods

Links, originally uploaded by SeabeeCook.

Here are the brake link rods to the Diamond and Caldor No. 4. They are superimposed over the firebox brick.

The brake link rods are key components in the locomotive's brake system. They connect the brake cylinder to the brake beams through a series of operating levers and balancing levers.

The locomotive has its own brake system that operates independent of the train's brake system.