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CA&E Car 316 News Part 2

December 12, 2022 8:10 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

The weather is changing and that means it is the busiest season of the year for the Museum's car restoration team. 

You see all of us in our winter wear. Jeff, Andre, Thee, and Joe can all be seen working on the south end of 316.

John diligently stripping paint, and Andre, well who knows what he’s doing, but he’s having fun!


Oh ya now I remember what Andre was doing, bringing over arm loads of clamps to align and install the east side main sill.


Cole and Fred B. worked to get all the seat frames out as well as heater boxes and heater box covers.

Here we have the FIND OF THE DAY.
It’s obvious the car had this checkered flooring at one point in its life. (It was filthy and we cleaned it for this picture)

Being that removal of the entire seat frame is quite a difficult task, we can assume that the CA&E never removed the seat frames to re-floor a car.

We are guessing that this car flooring possibly came from Jewett Car Builders originally in 1913. No one is sure about this and we are still seeking info on what the original floor looked like and what other floor variations may have been in the car.


With many of the seat frames and heaters out, Jeff pauses to snap a selfie.

Cole is organizing parts that will be sent out to Kyle, our off site guy that does sand blasting and other stuff for the Museum.

This shot has taken to show what a “hot seat” was.

Many of you may know, but I bet a lot don’t. My crew had no idea what it was and also had no idea why there where these burned areas behind the heater insulation. Well, the original designed heaters were wire wound ceramic tubes, that when 600 volts of trolley power was put through them, would turn red hot and heat the car. When one of them got something combustible in it or if the wire broke, a small fire would ignite under the seat of the problem. The bottom part of the seat would start on fire!

Fairly commonplace from what I understand. It would then be the conductors job to open the window, and throw the burning seat cushion out. I’m told that during the winter, along the line it was common to see fully burned seats. What a different time huh?


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