When the levee breaks you can finish your combine
After finding the shot of 7189 online yesterday I checked with my friend Mark P. if he had any other shots of the combine as well. Turns out that he does, including a couple of roster shots of the side of the car I need. He also filled in some details regarding why the door and stepwell on the baggage end was blanked out.
The mystery is no longer a mystery. This shot is cropped from an image taken by Mark Perry in 1978. It clearly shows the modification to this end of the car.
It turns out that this car had a diesel generator at that location to provide power for the car. As well, it had a Sinclair skate blade antenna on the roof for a 5 watt radio set. I suspect both were added due to the combine operating on remote track along with relatively slow speeds. The 7189 operated out of Winnipeg to Sioux Lookout, Ontario as well as later on the mixed trains between The Pas and Churchill and The Pas to Lynn Lake. CN also had quite a few cabooses equipped with diesel gensets instead of wheel generators for operation on branchlines with low speed limits. The question remains as to whether any other combines were equipped with gensets.
This sudden influx of information and photos required me to undo some of my earlier work on the car (again). I pulled off the wheel generator I added previously based on my photos of 7188 as it was not correct for 7189. I should have known better than to assume both were the same. As the saying goes, “if you assume you make an a%% out of you and me.”
I trimmed and sanded the doorway where the genset was located flat for a 0.020” thick styrene panel to fit flush in that location. I also trimmed off the drip strip over the doorway as well as it appears to have been removed when the car was converted. The new panel is flush with the bottom of the car body.
After I glued the panel in place I drilled out mounting holes for 5 grab irons. I have a drilling template for grab irons that I made years ago for this type of project. The bottom grab iron is inline with the grab iron on the car end, so my initial drill holes were for this mounting location. I inserted this grab iron into the car through my drilling guide and marked the locations of the other grabs. I removed the drill template and drilled out the other mounting locations.
Using a 0.020” strip to offset the grabs from the car body I glued the grabs in place from inside the car body.
There is a fuel filler and breathing pipe at the top of the panel. I drilled two 0.030” diameter holes at the appropriate location based on the photos. Some 0.030” rode was bent and filed to represent these pipes and glued in place.
A muffler for the genset is located on the end of the car. Using some additional wire and a piece of styrene rod I cobbled together the muffler, drilled a locating hole and mounted it in place. All the mounting locations are based on photos.
Overall car as of January 22nd. I still need to add another grab iron to the car end, as well as a small step below this end grab iron. These were likely added to help the car men access the genset for maintenance. As well the Sinclair antenna remains to be added, along with the steps for the baggage doors and below the genset. The combine is starting to come together nicely if I do say so myself.
Marc Simpson