fixing a railcar

[jerky]

this is just the cutout from the other end of the car



and the piece thats going back in



the sky was doing some tripy things that day....



my little apprentice welding the jacket on. every piece needs to be welded fully around.... very time consuming.



side jacket is on, and you can see the top gaurd rails are all bent and broke. there is supposed to be a ladder coming down, but it got ripped off. ill have to fab all of that later. as of today though, the other side ladder needed to be fixed as well and i have already repaired that. ill get some more pics monday



here is the side almost finished



HERE is the fill pass weld on the bulkhead, the other pic was just fitup..





so thats what i do for a living. this RWD or railway damage car is actually fun from the regular maintence we usually do on the cars. lots of fab work. this was all done in the first week, i forgot to take pics of last week, but ill do that monday.

heres what the car should look like when im done...

[zoama]

Are the black parts painted or a phosphate finish ?

[jerky]

Are the black parts painted or a phosphate finish ?

everything is just industrial paint, nothing fancy.

[jerky]

A end(minus the galvinized insert that isnt in yet) from the side



front pic of the end



completed A end... except for the insert.



the right side ladder, this was a quick fix as the top half was still in good condition



this is the insert, as you can see i did very little cleanup to it.



horizontal closeup



vertical closeup



this is the flux core wire we use. i remember a different post about 75/25 AR/CO2 gas, and i said i would take a pic of our wire, so here it is. i forget that post so it goes here...

[jerky]

just getting the frame tacked together. if anyone is curious i used 3x4x3/8 angle for the back and 3 1/2x3/8 flat bar for the front. the little sides are 4x3/8 flat.



got it on the car, dam thing was heavy.



the side support is 3x3x3/8



this end has all the air brake equiptment, so i had to make alot of supports, still lots to go on, but i think i had a fairly productive day today.



here is a side view



this is some of the mangled air brake equiptment that came off. new stuff will go back on. i had almost nothing to go off of when i was making the frame. one little drawing that didnt have everything on it, so i had to keep all the old stuff to reference off of. it was not fun.



same stuff

[Tritium]

Great Pics. Now I am wondering about making a smoker out of one of those .

Thurmond

[jerky]

i forgot to take a picture after i removed all the slag, and now the car is gone. SO this is what the tank actually sits on. what i had to do was weld a stainless ring into the bowl as a wear liner. im really upset i dont have the after pic cause it turned out to be a nice weld with lots of color. but here is the during weld pic... also that thing sitting on the top is just a vaccuum for the fumes....



here is the rod i used, i like the big stuff cause i can burn it in really fast. it also helps as i can crank my heat up and burn some of the crap out of the base metal. we try to clean the metal as much as posiable, but theres always stuff left behind.




that tank car i was fixing last week has been moved out of the shop as ive gone as far as i can with the material i had. were waiting on more parts to arrive so we kicked it out. so now this is what ive been doing the past two days. its a small hopper car that was side swiped. as you can see in the first pic here, there is not too much damage. the thing on the gound is called the 'side sill'. its basically a stiffening and strength beam. it was the thing most damaged and needed to be replaced. not so easy of a job as when they make the cars, some of the side sill is welded from areas that are now covered up and there is no way to access it all to remove it. the small piece on the gound i cut off the replacement part because that is still on the car from the last sill. if you look closly you can actually see it still on the car sticking out. there was SO MUCH grinding and prep work on this, i had two of my little grunts on this all day yesturday and half of today.



so ive got the sill in place and am tacking it up. ive had to use two of our cranes to get it in place. then i had that little jack, and a forklift. wasent fun but it fit perfectly. now, the sill is 1/4", and 36' long.both the top and bottom need to be fillet welded fully, and where i cut the piece out, ive got a backing strip along the whole distance to be welded. that will be a full pen butt weld. tommorrow is going to be a very long welding day.

[sportbike]

And Here is how they get that way.
I am a volunteer firefighter, this was about 3 years ago in our service area.
One of the older guys in the department takes pictures / video / etc often.

[67cudafb]

Cool link enjoyed the pic's.

[cbmkr]

Been there done that,Anyone that does not feel for those of us that were and are volunteers needs to be on call for a couple of months to see how demanding it can be. I was on for 7 years Quint aerial operator driver,105 foot stick and water rescue, From the looks of the area ,you had to haul water and use a porta tank that makes for a lot of work.Looks like the yellow tank might have been part of a foam applicator.We were always nervous of scenes like those as it gets hard to tell whats in the cars that are on fire. Looks like you all did a great job hats off to all from one firefighter to another.