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This is the sixteenth year I have written an annual report and every year as I look back on what we accomplished during the prior twelve months, I think it’s been one of the busiest years ever on the A & P. This year isn’t any different; it was a very busy year.
Most of our track has been on the ground for twenty plus years now and some of the lag screws are starting to work themselves loose, some ties have started to deteriorate and some splice bar bolts have loosened. We spent a great deal of time this year addressing these issues. We replaced some of the worst ties and lag screws, repositioned tie plates, trimmed rail junctions, serviced splice bars and gauged the rail.
Instead of continuing to replace ties here and there, we started a five year plan to replace all of our ties. You might think how long could that take. We have approximately 1950 regular ties in place and ten switches with 17 switch ties each. Each tie has a minimum of four tie plates with lag screws and the switch ties have at least twice that number. It is a time-consuming process. We got started this year, but still have a long way to go.
The type of acquisition that we cover under this caption is that of equipment and significant parts; we acquired quite a bit of both this year. Although I purchased one of our E10s and a G12 late in 2018, it was August of this year before we traveled to PA and picked them up and transported them to Arizona. Later in the year, I acquired E10 engine no. 26, a coach car and an observation car in Indiana. We acquired a great amount of E10 and G12 track with our PA purchase. I purchased a Wisconsin BRN motor in Kansas that had been replaced with a new motor in a G12 operated there by the Rotary Club.
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We acquired several crates of NOS Miniature Train Company G12 and E10 parts and tooling with our acquisition in Pennsylvania.
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We acquired several G12 parts this year from Jeff Waltermyer, Rick Nairn, Gerry Warner, John Nunn, William Nusser, Ed Janulionis and Ron Witt and appreciate their assistance in these projects.
We degreased, disassembled and cleaned five E10 coach trucks. Broken bolts were extracted and missing and damaged leafs and hardware were replaced. We also disassembled and cleaned five E10 power trucks. Several of the power truck frames were rebuilt with new bushings and rivets. The saftey bar assemblies have been removed and will be completely rebuilt.
A BRN engine was acquired for the G12 and was thoroughly cleaned, brake rigging cleaned, added and assembled and a fluid clutch changed out.
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Smaller fabrication projects, carburetor rebuilds and other small shop projects are covered under the specific piece of equipment this year.
The Coconino has been an interesting challenge ever since she returned to service in May of 2000. From the day she first operated on the Flagstaff and Middle Verde Railroad, overheating has been an issue. The Wisconsin engine was assembled from parts of three Wisconsin motors and some of the parts weren’t a perfect match. The distributor wasn’t the right one for the completed engine, some of the internal distributor parts were modified and she still overheated, but ran pretty smoothly.
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In 2017, we replaced the Wisconsin engine with a recently rebuilt unit from our parts cache. We reused all of the bolt on parts from the previous engine and at first we thought we were fine, however, very quickly this engine also developed an overheating problem. There are only two things consistent throughout the operation of this locomotive from 2000, the hydraulics and the distributor. We replaced the hydraulic motors and hoses a few years ago and saw no difference. The hydraulics are oversized for this application and shouldn’t be an issue. Last fall we retimed the engine and are now leaning toward the modified distributor as the source of our issue. I have three different types of distributors on the parts shelf and one appears to be the right one for this engine. In 2020, we will either have the problem resolved by swapping out the distributors or start looking into other hydraulic components as the source of the issue.
The Phoenix required very little attention this year. We added fresh gas and additives, replaced the battery and rebuilt the carburetor. These are all normal annual maintenance activities on this railroad.
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The Red River also required very little attention this year. We added fresh gas and additives, replaced the battery and rebuilt the carburetor. These are all normal annual maintenance activities on this railroad.
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The Sandusky ran well this year and was largely without any issues. As long as the batteries are charged, she is a great running train and pretty much problem free.
We replaced the battery on the Tucson, rebuilt the carburetor and added fresh gas which is all pretty routine annual maintenance. She ran pretty well this year.
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We didn’t operate no. 582 much this year. We changed the battery and installed the lighting for the two Stewart Warner vacuum gauges. We still have a flat spot with cylinder 2 that we hope to get resolved in 2020.
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We installed the instrument panel and all of its gauges and Dave wired all of the gauge lights and the ignition and light switches. We also installed the Wisconsin engine and transmission, neither of which are functional (just cosmetic).
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When the “Limited” trains were originally produced, the operator ran the A & B units from the cockpit of the B unit. Our B unit is not powered, but provides a great ride and experience for junior engineers. The B unit instrument panel is complete and functional and the hand valves are complete, but not functional. All operation controls are in the cockpit of the A unit.
Other than routine maintenance, the track inspection car received very little attention this year and ran well.
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We will utilize the two power trucks that we rebuilt a couple of years ago and the original drive line tunnel in our restoration. I have the original drive lines, but they are really rough and I will have replacements built.
We have the BRN motor ready to install, but we are lacking some linkage and springs for the brakes, but have some leads on acquiring same.
We have the original battery tray which is in bad shape and we will fabricate a duplicate. We obtained a very nice G12 gas tank in PA this year.
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We have all of the switches, push buttons, ignition switch and the ammeter gauge for the original instrument panel.
We have the hood horns and art deco hood release button.
We have acquired the headlight lens and bezel, side screens, some of the portholes, exhaust surround and the throttle and brake control handles.
We have four coach trucks completely rebuilt and repainted and have one more to go. We have acquired the window frames, window and door shades, door handle ends, rear side markers and lenses and an observation car drumhead.
We have disassembled the five power trucks that we will rebuild. Four will go under two of the E10 engines and 1 that will go on display. We have 5 original E10 32 volt electric motors; we will utilize the best two in two of our E10s. We had two drive line tunnels fabricated. We have all the switches and buttons for the instrument panel and have all of the handle ends for the exterior trim handles. We also have the hood horns. We have the original drivelines, but like the G-12 will have new ones fabricated. Our third E10 will be a display for now as we need another power truck.
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We have acquired the door handle ends, rear side markers and lenses and observation car drumheads.
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We acquired a couple more variations of the MT & RR Co. torque wrenches for our collection and upgraded another one. I hope to expand our torque wrench display in upcoming years so that more of that collection can be displayed; I am just not sure what form that display will take yet.
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Dave purchased another collection of press release photos that included several early S16 photographs as well as photos of some other manufacturer’s equipment.
We added some additional vintage park train advertising to our collection.
We also expanded our collection of MTC and AH literature during the year and added to our park train catalog collection. I need to figure out how to display more of that material too.
We added a MTC 14 inch gauge wheel, a Glen Ellyn E10 wheel and an early G12 Addison wheel to the Miniature Train Company wheel collection. We also added several Hurlbut wheels and three Crown Metal Products 24 inch gauge wheels to our park train wheel collection.
We were able to add several builder’s plates to our collection this year including those of Wagner and Son, Williams Amusement Device, Severn Lamb, Chrysler Locomotive and Hodges Handcar. We also added a Journal box cover from the Disneyland Railroad to one of our displays.
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It gets a little difficult sometimes to separate the railroad related projects from those that are indirectly related but I think both of the below are related to the A & P experience and require time and money that would otherwise go toward railroad operation.
Organizing and cataloging the massive cache of E10 and G12 parts we brought back from PA was a huge project. I pretty much have that task completed with the parts separated by train model and then by the assembly group. We have dozens of some specific parts and none of others, but we are very happy to have what we have.
I have designed racks that will display the E10 and G12 equipment up above the S16 equipment in the engine house. We will prototype the racks out of wood for the look and height and then I’ll buy the material and the cutting, welding and grinding will begin.
Dave and I traveled 3200 miles as we criss-crossed the US after our flight from Phoenix to Philadelphia as we picked up our E10 and G12 and transported them to Peoria, Arizona. We stopped in North Tonawanda, New York and visited the Allan Herschell parts replacement business as well as the museum which is nearby. It was great meeting Ed and Ron in person. We also visited Rensselaer, Indiana and the site of the MTC factory there (1947-56). We met some great local folks and toured the local museum. We also traveled to Addison, Illinois and visited the location of several of the early MT & RR Co. buildings there (most are empty fields now). The Glen Ellyn locations will be a future trip. We visited several railroads and equipment storage locations along the way. We saw several G12s, a handful of G16s, another E10, multiple Crowns, a Cagney, an International, multiple S16s, a Custom Locomotive product and others of unknown origin. I was invited to run several pieces of equipment; it was pretty amazing!
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The railroads Dave and I visited this year were the:
We had the opportunity to host many friends and guests during the year and look forward to more of the same next year. Scheduling conflicts with my corporate world schedule, didn’t work out for a few potential visitors this year, but we hope to catch up in the near future. The majority of our visitors are local, or at least AZ and CA, and you know who you are, but we get guests from all over the country.
This year the role of visitors who traveled the greatest distance was reversed. Dave and I traveled farther visiting railroads as far east as Philadelphia than any of the guests who visited the Arizona and Pacific did traveling out here.
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Plans:
Longer range plans include:
Wish List:
Our A & P website has been on the web now for 17 1/2 years. We finished 2019 with 143,782 unique hits since we established this site in June of 2002. We finished this year with 5,887 unique viewers by our counter which is 16.1 per day. The goal is to get that number back up over 19 viewers per day. The first half of 2019 we were having issues with our web site host and its security certification. The last half of the year our viewership increased to 17.6 per day.
To our long-time viewers who have traveled with us on this almost 18 year internet journey thank you. The Arizona and Pacific Railroad will celebrate its 25th anniversary in September of 2020; it is hard to believe that we have been at this that long.
Happy and safe railroading everybody!