Thursday at the County Fair

I worked the fair this afternoon a little after noon until 7 p.m. Board member Bill Rodgers held down the morning shift. Over 40 folks , including a few who told me a thing or two about the Shay locomotive, stopped by the engine house.

Stop by tomorrow and take a look at the Diamond & Caldor No. 4 Shay. The engine house is open from 1o a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through Sunday. Bill will be there Friday morning. Keith Berry and I will be on duty tomorrow afternoon and early evening.

We have T-shirts on sale for $20, coffee mugs for $10 and train whistles for $6. Our newest T-shirt sports an image of the No. 4 number plate.

And don't forget that memberships are available for $35, $60 and $100 each (individual, family and corporate).

The fair schedule, parking and shuttle service information for the El Dorado County Fair is posted on its website. El Dorado Transit is offering free shuttle service each day from three separate parking lots to the fair entrance on Placerville Drive. Service is operated from 9:30 a.m. until midnight on Saturday. Check the schedule for Friday and Sunday. Parking is available for $5 in the fair parking lots.

Garrett Augustus (left), Dale Mace and Eric Stohl install the Sunbeam steam powered dynamo on the boiler two weeks ago.

Steam Dynamo Spins After 54 Years

"The Sunbeam dynamo lit a light bulb for the first time in 54 years," said Keith Berry, El Dorado Western Railway Foundation vice-president.

It last produced electricity in April 1953 when the Diamond & Caldor Railway ceased operation.

This morning chief mechanical officer Doug Youngberg connected the air hose to the steam intake and spun the Pelton wheel shaft. He measured output at 21 volts. Doug believes once the generator is connected to a steam line, output will reach the 37 volts these units produced while in operation.

Lead machinist Sam Thompson said the unit reached 1,800 revolutions per minutes during this morning's test. Once connected to steam, the shaft will turn at the higher 2,400 RPM, according to Doug.

Replacing the pitted Pelton wheel presented the greatest challenge to the dynamo team. Water had pooled inside the housing and pitted the wheel.

The locomotive was displayed in an unsheltered location for 40 years at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds.

"We had little hope of finding a replacement Pelton wheel, let alone finding a new one," said Keith.

An opportunity came last fall when the two located a decades-old replacement wheel at Backshop Enterprises, Colorado company that specializes in the repair and replacement of steam locomotive appliances.

Doug and Keith rebuilt the dynamo in Doug's machine shop on Tuesday evenings over the past 14 months.

The steam-powered turbo-generator will soon resume its rightful position behind the smoke stack on the Diamond & Caldor No. 4 Shay locomotive in Placerville, California.

Pelton Wheel for the Sunbeam Generator

At the board meeting two weeks ago, Keith Berry and Doug Youngberg announced that the railway had successfully purchased an original Pelton wheel for the Sunbeam generator.

"All for 32-volts," Keith commented when he learned of the $835 price tag.

"We could've bought lantern batteries for years!"
Kidding aside, the generator is now ready to test after it's first rebuild in better than 50 years.

Keith and Doug have been working on the dynamo in Doug's shot for six months. The coils were recently re-wound and new bearings have been installed. They are ready to test the unit with compressed air.