Peter Roosen has quite the collection of mining artifacts. He restores a lot of his things to working order, which is nice to see. His train set is absolutely the most amazing sight! I'm glad somebody rescued that stuff, who knows if it would have been left there to rust.
Wow, those cars are works of art! Congratulations! That first photo in your last post, the one with the coal car beside the machinery, looks like an old photo even though it's a recent one. Not sure how old the machinery is but I have heard that some guys still use vintage machinery with some of their projects. The picture seems to have that vintage look to it, as though you are looking into somebody's shop in the year 1915! I've only seen black and white photos of this sort of thing....until now. I'd love to see how the tailgate and brakes work. I remember how we pushed your Lenora car down the tracks and hopped in, you cranked on the brakes to stop the car before we derailed!
Took the car by Garry Britt's place this afternoon where he said all sorts of nice things about it.
P.S. This old lathe in the Mt. Sicker shop can be used to machine wheels, axles, etc. - not just small stuff like the little shaft mounted in the chuck in this photo. The main tools used to build these 1911 cars are the heat, hammers and drills needed for working the iron into shape.
So is there any way to machine or cast a set of wheels similar to the ones used during the mining era? Surely there must be a way to recreate the old wheels.
I am posting this photo of GBritt, taken inside one of the mines we visited last summer. I posted this photo to the wall of his Facebook profile back in December. I still have to swing by and return his maps, which are probably considered 'overdue' at this point in time. I've been side-tracked quite a bit lately and have been forced to work long hours or sacrifice weekends to complete certain jobs. Weeks are turning into months far too quickly. Most of the photos I post are merely places I pass by during my normally busy work day. Not a lot of free time although it may appear that way.
Yes, those can be made fairly easily nowadays. There is soooo much more technology available to us to do things that were much harder a century ago. If you don't want to put a home foundry together, there are small artisan foundries showing up in various places. Clean and compact electric arc and induction heating furnaces to melt the metals are becoming more available so there is no need to install big awkward dirty furnaces like the ones you see in old photos or on museum sites such as the Forest Discovery Centre (formerly BC Forest Museum) in Duncan. Wheels can also be fabricated from stock materials and machined to final shapes and sizes.
Modern chop saws, welders, cutting and heating torches, hand-held grinders, drills, computer drawing and design software, digital cameras, internet, etc. make the job of fabricating and fitting the various parts quite easy. A hundred years ago, drilling a half inch diameter hole through an inch thick piece of iron was a challenge. Two hundred years ago, it was done in a fancy shop by heating up the iron and hammering a pin through it to make the hole. Now you can drill, burn or grind your way through that same piece using a tool that cost less than a day's worth of an average person's wages. You can also try it the old way as we have done in some cases to appreciate the experience. Countless hours were spent in the old days hand-filing parts to fit.
Last edited by Peter Roosen; 02-25-2011 at 09:31 AM.
Today I finally had an opportunity to visit forum member and friend Peter Roosen for the first time since my initial visit months ago. As stated, his coal car was finally complete and arrived at his home in Wellington yesterday. Together, we muscled the unit from the back of his truck onto the WCR.
The first set of photos are of locomotive Ruby II. Here, you get a better look at the seating arrangement by the controls. The engineer's seat is the larger of the two, the smaller round stool being that of the conductor. You should have those babies chromed!
The following photos show the steps taken in order to lower the coal car down to the tracks. You can see Peter Roosen setting up a come-along to slowly winch the unit downgrade to the WCR. A couple a rails were set up at the back of the truck and the newly constructed Dunsmuir coal car was lowered down with ease.
I was also able to get a couple pictures of Peter's water wheel that he was working on in his garage. It is late 1800's and I believe he acquired it from a gentleman in Cedar.
I was up there for a couple of hours and then had to go to work, which pretty much spoiled everything. How time flies....
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