A friend is starting to bring a Kalamazoo gang car back to life. It had a tough existence on the railroad. At some point the Wisconsin air cooled 4 cylinder engine was replaced with a Chevrolet six cylinder! I was asked to assist with new assemblies to stop this speed racer. All the existing OEM liners are paper thin. Equally, the wood blocks are also at the end of their lives. The car is an excellent candidate for applying Fairmont A5 cast liners. All I had to do was prototype a commensurate block that would work with the existing Model 27 brake rigging. We put together a pine test assembly and sent it to the customer. We just learned that it fits. So now we will add a dozen or so Kalamazoo blocks to our current Fairmont M Series oak block production occurring this week. I’m sure it won’t be a big seller but it’s nice to get an old car back on the rails again and it just might help out a future Kalamazoo refurbishment.
ThunderHill Services, LLC 