I meant to post these a few months ago after seeing Ken Jones' update on the Niagara Railway Museum's CN Flanger project, at the Alberta Railway Museum we recently finished restoring our wood flanger, Northern Alberta 16601.

Niagara Railway Museum Flanger thread:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=43561

We also make our own tongue-and-groove out of standard 1x4 lumber, and have had good success treating it with Copper Naphthenate before painting.

We had to perform some fairly major structural repairs to the wood side frame of NAR 16601, as shown in my photos. I was not able to get any usable shots of the work that was done to shore up the rafters, the outside ends had rotted and disintegrated on most of them. One of our skilled carpenters came up with a splice design to replace the rotted section and bolt the new piece onto what remained of the original rafter. The car also received a new rolled rubber (EPDM) roof.

Our Flanger's blade and air system was found to be in good condition, a few minor piping repairs and some grease were all that was needed to make it operational.

I tried uploading images but the site won't let me, so Google Drive links will have to do. Here is the finished result on display outside:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rc0e4 ... Et9pwfb_tZ

The worst rotted section of the side frame:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=11wWm8 ... FOrPrUdAt-

The same section after being repaired:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MVlIU ... bsSZyzWR6R

Two shots of the side of the car. It's a little cramped inside our shop so getting a wide shot of the entire car was next to impossible:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cTH_l ... 4JBiAAbtfW

https://drive.google.com/open?id=17CNbf ... wSBvITLYCA

Apologies for the relatively poor quality of the photos, my phone does not have the best camera. I'll post some more photos of the roof and interior of the car when I get a chance.

Great job! Nice pics too, thanks for posting them. Ned

How did you attach that one section in the main beam? Surely not just glue.
Nice job BTW.

The wood beams are bolted to the car's steel underframe. For the section near the end of the car we also put in several vertical bolts to secure the replacement sections together, and to also secure them to the remaining parts of the original beams.

It is difficult to see in my photos, but several of the vertical side frame boards have a metal rod in them, running the entire height of the car. We had to cut a groove in the back of the replacement vertical board to accommodate it, in addition to drilling a vertical hole through both large replacement beam sections.

The replacement sections were made out of pressure-treated 2x10's, with a shim of treated plywood to get the right thickness. Two 2x10's and one piece of plywood were screwed together in the wood shop before being brought over to the car and having the bolt holes drilled.

The section under the car's side door had already been replaced at some point in the past by the NAR shops. That replacement section had rotted out over the years, but it was easy enough to remove and measure for a replacement. This is where we got the idea to try the same repair on the other rotted sections.

Real nice looking restoration and very cool pc of equipment. Very nice presentation and pics. From what I have seen of wooden car construction/restorations, it wasn't in real bad condition. Glad it is saved and looking so good. Regards, John.

Yes, we got lucky with this one. By the looks of it we caught it just in time.

The roof had had started leaking in several places, causing the side frame damage seen in the photos and the rafter damage I mentioned in the first post.

A cautionary tale about the importance of inspecting every part of a piece of equipment on a regular basis, and doing preventative maintenance and making repairs immediately upon discovering a problem.

More photos.

Flanger roof:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4N3Bh7PjQD8PB7Xj9

Flanger interior:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2DAvxdJo1EGDnch39

Very impressive restoration. Well done!

Thanks for additional pictures. Really nice pc of equipment. Your words of wisdom on keeping track of needed repairs or maintenance is spot on. When Mid Continent moved into the new Dorcy building/Display shed it was a God send for the equipment and the shop forces who had an ongoing battle with mother nature. Not a wood worker in MC shop but have seen the damage done from leaky roofs. Same for windows and roofs on steel cars. Beautiful job on this flanger. Congrats to your crews on a job well done. Regards, John.