Wilbur Chocolate is still made by Cargill, under the Wilbur name.
Great photos Marty, Thanks for taking the time to post them, Merry Christmas.
@MartyE Marty, nice photo. I like the long shed. I wonder if that was part of a lumber yard, and not part of the factory? To the right, we see an open-sided building that one might see in a lumber yard. Either way, the shed/ramp is very interesting.
Thanks for posting.
Tom
@PRR8976 posted:@MartyE Marty, nice photo. I like the long shed. I wonder if that was part of a lumber yard, and not part of the factory? To the right, we see an open-sided building that one might see in a lumber yard. Either way, the shed/ramp is very interesting.
Thanks for posting.
Tom
If you go on Google Maps that "long shed" structure is still there although it looks like it's repurposed and updated but the foundation is still there. Not sure about posting the Google Map image but here is the link to the street view.
These are a great look at how things were at that time.. Thanks for posting! 
@Mark V. Spadaro posted:Wilbur Chocolate is still made by Cargill, under the Wilbur name.
And the remnants of the branch still run by the ex-Wilbur Chocolate plant as well as by the Animal Trap Company of America, makers of Victor mouse traps. The now severed line ends nearly at the Victor plant where it used to continue through Ephrata and connect with the other end which now ends just outside of Ephrata.
A picture of the Victor plant during that era is also on Shorpy from the LOC collection.
A nice shiny engine. I noticed the wheels on the front truck don't match for whatever reason. One is spoked and the other is solid.
Happy New Year everyone. Thanks for posting it Marty.
Tom
Marty, Very nice. I had never heard of that before. Even with grease, I would imagine that track gets a lot of wear. This is the prototype version of our test rollers, I guess!
Tom
@PRR8976 posted:Marty, Very nice. I had never heard of that before. Even with grease, I would imagine that track gets a lot of wear. This is the prototype version of our test rollers, I guess!
Tom
Yeah I was hoping our resident engineers would weigh in on this photo. Maybe @Hot Water or @Rich Melvin.
OK, Marty! Here we go. Thanks for the invite.
When a locomotive shop did a full overhaul on a locomotive's running gear, there were hundreds of bearing clearances that had to be right. The crown brass bearings on the axles, the main rod, the connecting rods, and the eccentric rod bearings, the bearings in the valve gear, the clearances in the crosshead, and several other points all had to be correct within a few thousandths of an inch. If even one of those clearances was off by a few thousandths, it would cause problems in the running gear. Those problems would typically show up in the form of excess bearing heating, as the "tight" bearing ran hotter than its neighbors. Conversely, a loose bearing will make noise that should not be there.
Running an engine for a few miles on a slip track allowed the shop forces to confirm that everything was right and that nothing was loose or running hot. Better to discover a problem in the yard on the slip track than 100 miles down the road somewhere, blocking the main track.
@Rich Melvin posted:OK, Marty! Here we go. Thanks for the invite.
When a locomotive shop did a full overhaul on a locomotive's running gear, there were hundreds of bearing clearances that had to be right. The crown brass bearings on the axles, the main rod, the connecting rods, and the eccentric rod bearings, the bearings in the valve gear, the clearances in the crosshead, and several other points all had to be correct within a few thousandths of an inch. If even one of those clearances was off by a few thousandths, it would cause problems in the running gear. Those problems would typically show up in the form of excess bearing heating, as the "tight" bearing ran hotter than its neighbors. Conversely, a loose bearing will make noise that should not be there.
Running an engine for a few miles on a slip track allowed the shop forces to confirm that everything was right and that nothing was loose or running hot. Better to discover a problem in the yard on the slip track than 100 miles down the road somewhere, blocking the main track.
So how reliable is greasing the track? Was the locomotive contained some how in the case of actually grabbing the rail?
@MartyE posted:So how reliable is greasing the track? Was the locomotive contained some how in the case of actually grabbing the rail?
When testing on a slip track, the locomotive is chained to the track.
Even if the grease was worn away, there is no "grabbing" of the rail. If the grease wore away, it would be just like a wheel slip when out on the road. Once the wheels start to slip, the friction between the wheels and the rail is so great that there is actually a tiny pool of molten metal between the wheels and the rail. That's why an engineer has to react quickly and slam the throttle shut to stop a slip. Here's a good example, with yours truly at the throttle:
Drivers spinning without grease on a slip track would not grab the rail, but they would quickly wear a dip in the rails as the drivers ground away at the rail with no lube.
