CNR

A call many years ago from Bruce Larman of CN asking me to drop by and have a look at a few problems. I can still remember trying to find the orange communications tower in the middle of the Concord hump yard. Bruce was having difficulties in three specific areas. He had a circlip that was hard to remove. That was easy. Supply the right pliers. He had a nut deep in the heart of the hump that had to be removed with an Impactool. In those days a 1” gun was big and not easy to position but we managed to find a gun that fit and still had the power to do the job. The right tool for the job was a favorite saying for my father. Sell the right tool for the job and you will have a happy customer. Learn what your equipment will do and you’ll be able to recommend the right tool for the job.

The last problem was how do we easily remove a coil spring. The special tool of the day took two men half an hour to position and remove the spring and the same to put it back in. This was not so easy because we knew of no tool that was designed for this job and so we made one. We modified a large pair of compound leverage bolt cutters by replacing the cutters with a pair of jaws that fit the spring inside and out. One man could compress the spring enough to remove it and it only took about 5 minutes. Bruce liked this tool so much that had me make another pair a couple of years later just in case the first pair was lost or broken.

Solving those three problems was the beginning of a long relationship that lasted until Bruce retired. We still, after 30 years, have a working relationship with the boys in the tower.