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LVT 1030 - IR 55

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, December 6, 2015 7:52 PM

Yes, 1030 is still in LVT paint. Needs some paint touch-up, and there's some talk about completing some corrosion repair, but it runs nice and has a tremendous horn.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, December 3, 2015 3:33 PM

Was not only the high voltage but also accelerating too fast producing to much armature coil current, made posible by the high voltage.

I assume 1030 is still in LVT paint wih the roof headlight.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, December 3, 2015 2:26 PM

Seashore's parts guys have lots of trucks, including some commonwealth trucks - even some with third rail gear.  The IRR trucks were specials for ACF and most likely never left Pennsylvania.  1030 has been on the LVT trucks since 1941.  Of some interest is the use of the motors that came to LVT with the car.  They were installed on the truck frames that came from 1004, used under 1030 (1004's motors were probably damaged in the fire that destroyed the car).  The LVT preferred the GE motors which were set up in series as 300V motors.  The lower numbered ex-C&LE cars all had GE motors, but had GE PC-10 control.  The higher numbered ones had Westinghouse HLF control and Westinghouse 600 V motors.  On the P&W, third rail voltages as high as 740V caused a lot of issues with the westinghouse motors, including the complete destruction of 1022.

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Posted by Buslist on Thursday, December 3, 2015 1:58 PM

daveklepper

I can conlfirm that.  The shoe beam arrangement used by LVT would not fit on the Commonwealth droip-equalizer trucks.  It might have been possible to engineer a different arrangement, but the whole frame on the Commonwealth trucks would have been closer to the third rail, with less room for the wood beam that not only was the mounting for the shoe but also acted as the insulator between the shoe and the truck frame.

Now the question is, in the interest of one thing or another, did Seashore somehow find a pair of Commonwealth trucks and restore them as original?  I was at Seashore a long time ago, and don't remember that detail.  I would question why they would do so, since I believe the car has been restored to its first full-parlor LVT configuration and not to its earlier Indiana Railroad configuration and paint.

 

it was on its LVT trucks , complete with 3rd rail beam on the rear one a couple of weeks ago.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, December 3, 2015 9:17 AM

I can conlfirm that.  The shoe beam arrangement used by LVT would not fit on the Commonwealth droip-equalizer trucks.  It might have been possible to engineer a different arrangement, but the whole frame on the Commonwealth trucks would have been closer to the third rail, with less room for the wood beam that not only was the mounting for the shoe but also acted as the insulator between the shoe and the truck frame.

Now the question is, in the interest of one thing or another, did Seashore somehow find a pair of Commonwealth trucks and restore them as original?  I was at Seashore a long time ago, and don't remember that detail.  I would question why they would do so, since I believe the car has been restored to its first full-parlor LVT configuration and not to its earlier Indiana Railroad configuration and paint.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, December 3, 2015 7:31 AM

The Cincinnati trucks the car ran on while on the LVT are the ones that came with it to Seashore.  Ron Ruddell's book has photos to show the car on the Cincinatti trucks in LVT's shop before it entered service there.  My best guess is that this was done because of the third rail shoes required for P&W operation.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, December 2, 2015 9:47 AM

So the car has Cincinnatti arch-bar trucks at Seashore?

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, December 2, 2015 9:30 AM

Ron Ruddel's new CERA book (REALLY new.  Not even on CERA's web site yet...)on the LVT makes it very clear that 55 arrived on the LVT property in 1941 with its original trucks, which were promptly swapped out for Cincinnati arch bar trucks from LVT 1004, which had burned up on the P&W some time before.  The original GE motors from 55 were installed in the Cincinnati trucks, easy because both 1004 and 55/1030 had GE motors.  Unlike the GE-motored ex-C&LE cars which had GE PC10 control, 1030 had Westinghouse HLF like the cars in the 1020 series.  The car ran on the Cincinnati trucks during its entire life on LVT. The car came to Seashore pretty much unaltered. LVT had replaced the parlor seats with coach seats in the late 1940s.  Ron's brother Tom was instrumental in the car's restoration, including recovering enough parlor seats to return it to its parlor configuration.  No word on the disposition of the Commonwealth frames.

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Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, September 20, 2014 4:54 PM

Apost on the Classic Trains Forum indicates that when the car was sold to the scrapper who saved it for the Seashore, it d the original commonwealth trucks.  The scrapper changed to get the added metal value from the Commonwealth trucks.   It is possible that LVT changed back when the shoes were no longer necessary after 1949 and there was not much wheel wear on the commonwealth trucks.

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Posted by Buslist on Friday, September 19, 2014 9:44 AM
In the NRHS photo the car is clearly equipped with the arch bar trucks. Note on the forward part of the rear truck the spring between the bottom of the axle box and the top beam of the truck is clearly visible. These springs are not present on the Commonwealth trucks. In addition the drop equalizer on the Commonwealth trucks is far enough outside the rail that there wouldn't be much room for the third rail beam (the reason for the truck change out?) Note also in the NRHS photo track brakes are also very visible, don't see them in any other photos.
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LVT 1030 - IR 55
Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:22 PM

A visit to the CERA website yielded a number of views of 1030 on LVT that clearly showed arch-bar Cincinnati trucks.  The 1941 NRHS Convention photo doesn't make it clear because all one sees is the long third-rail-shoe mounting wood board with the truck frame behind in shadow.  But other photos clearly show the archbar trucks, which again, are very different than freight-car archbars.

But is is also possible that at one time it did run on LVT with the GRS Commonwealth trucks.

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