Cory Fothergill and Wayne Allen continued work on 72 (1741) this weekend. A traction motor blower had been making some noise, first motor #4 was changed out, as it was the loudest. The housing was full of dry oil, fuel, and sand mixed together. The locomotive was restarted but found that there was a similar noise coming from the other side. At that point motor 3 was removed, found to have bad bearings and also full of oil and crap from years of neglect. At the end of the day both traction motor blowers are quiet and doing their job now. The traction motor blowers on our F units and GP9 are ac motors that spin a cage to provide cool air to the traction motors to keep them from overheating and receiving damage. Each locomotive has 4 of these ac blowers. 72 was also moved to put more oil in it, and the rear axle was worked on again for prep to have a traction motor installed in a few weeks. We hope to have all 4 traction motors installed by winter.
Here is 72 on the turntable at North Conway
