Buick Switch Engine

Viewed from the Stewart Street overpass.

Train schedule. You can super enlarge just about any photo on this blog for viewing small details. The way this is done is a little different depending on which browser is used. The schedules will be very clear.

Train schedule.

Switch engine 792 in July 1984 facing west from the Stewart Street overpass. Factory #10 is at the left with #05 in the distance.

Switch engine 792 in September 1985.

Switch engine 792 in 1985. It is shown farther below in it's original color.

1956  #792.

Switch engine 818 in 1985.

The original look of #818.  Link: for possible whereabouts.

Here is Buick switch engine #522. I'm not sure of the year.

This was the fate of the 818 train from Buick. It now resides in Crookston, Minnesota near the North Dakota border.

Final assembly rail lines in 1983.

The Buick City Railroad showing #818 in it's new paint scheme. After the creation of Buick City the only factory south of Leith st. still having regular rail delivery was factory #12 body shop.

Photograph of #818 before it's transformation. The red white and blue motif was done for the bi-centennial in 1976. It was also renumbered as 1776.

Here is engine 792.

Looking north up Division Street between factories #31 / 11 and #81 / 70.  

Photo supplied by Leonard Thygesen.

David Dunbar Buick's Later Years.

 February 1918.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      1917.

Advertisements from Popular Mechanics (Feb.-Oct. 1926) shows where David Buick was working 'as an instructor' at the Detroit School Of Trades. This was where he was interviewed shortly before his death at age 74, on March 5, 1929. He had colon cancer and pneumonia at the time of his death in Detroit's Harper Hospital. He and his second wife Margaret were living at the time at 17140 Third Avenue.

 Links: Buick Carburetor 1917  Lorraine Motors 1921  Lorraine Motors 1922   

World War II Advertising

Pratt & Whitney

.

Friends in England

The same B-24 as shown below. This was the paint scheme it was wearing when I seen it in 2003.

B-24 now known as Witchcraft.

Clive Stevens in all his glory, standing next to his 1941 Chrysler Royal. That is a B-17 G model Heavy bomber behind him. The G refers to the later model with the "CHIN" turret (introduced in 1943), containing two 50 caliber machine guns, which would definitely make any German pilot, 'think twice' about strafing the belly of this Flying Fortress. Clive would appreciate any information, on where his Chrysler was built.

Clive says: Photo showing FBFW stampings on various B-17 Flying Fortress engine cowling inspection panels. You will see that I have cleaned one of these panels up pretty good - so much so that you can see a small section of olive-drab painted surface on the outer skin. This drab paint identifies it at a section of the aircraft skin from the top/upper cowling region that would reflect/dazzle the suns rays directly onto the flight deck of the aircraft and impair the pilot's visibility. Therefore, all areas of the aircraft that were likely to do this were painted in olive-drab, in order to reduce dazzling the pilots. The photo below Clive says: This picture shows a rather damaged complete nacel bulkhead of a B-17 still in the pit before we removed it to the surface. Again this was covered with FBFW stampings.

Heavy-bomber oxygen tanks and ammunition tracking recovered during the excavations in Suffolk, England.

World War II Archeology in England

July 1942. Melrose Park, Illinois. "Production of aircraft engines. Buick plant. Foreman F.I. Bowman shows Marietta Morgan how to operate this bomb-test machine used to test reconditioned spark plugs.

July 1942. 'Production of aircraft engines at Melrose Park Buick plant near Chicago. Hundreds of gears pass through the expert hands of Dorothy Miller and Sylvia Dreiser during their eight-hour working day in a large Midwest aircraft plant. Inspection of these vital cogs in America's war machine is a delicate task and one which requires infinite patience and precision'.

July 1942. Back at the Melrose Park Buick plant near Chicago. "Production of aircraft engines. Reconditioning used spark plugs for use in testing airplane motors, Mighnon Gunn operates this small testing machine with speed and precision although she was new to the job two months ago. from Shorpy

North-west view of the Chicago plant.

Main entrance during construction.

Main office of the Chicago plant during construction. View is north-east across North Avenue.

Excavation under way in England, where a group of WW II historians is unearthing parts of aircraft, that were buried after the end of WW II. Many of these parts were manufactured in Flint, Michigan. Clive Stevens is the secretary for M.V.T. Military Vehicle Trust in Suffolk, England.

Excavation underway in England, October of 2009.

Here we can see the exhaust collector installed on an engine. Also an original Buick data plate

Exhaust manifold data plate. 

If anyone can help with the identification of the data plate that clive mentions in his letter, please respond. Here is the letter in it's entirety. 

My name is Clive Stevens and I am 35 and live in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. I have a great interest in WWII and in particular the US Manufacturing companies that produced many of the aircraft and military vehicles that saw combat service.

Back in October, I got word of a local farmers field that had been used as a dump at the end of WWII by the United States Army Air Force, shortly before they returned back home at the end of WWII in the summer of 1945. With this knowledge, a group of us hired a digger for the weekend and went digging! We unearthed a mountain of old scrap from under ground, down to a depth of about 4 meters that had been dumped in 1945 and hadn't been touched since. It was primary all WWII aircraft parts, mainly Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber parts, all primarily in poor condition.

However, what will interest you is that the pit consisted of quite a number of old aircraft parts made by Fisher Body Division of General Motors! It turns out that because Boeing could simply not cope with the output required by the war effort, they farmed out much of the work to other companies. One such company was Fisher Body, particularly for the engine nacell and exhaust systems.

Have recovered a couple of inlet manifolds for B-17 Flying Fortresses and a couple of engine nacell inspection panels, I got them home and cleaned them up. In fact, I took the exhaust sections to a shot/sand blaster to have him clean them up. The end results are magnificent and as you will see from the photographs, you would not believe they have been under the ground for 65 years!

More interestingly, the inspectors stamp states FBFW 24 amd SW31. After a bit of research, it now appears that FBFW means FISHER BODY FLINT WEST and the number 24 I just don't known. The part number is 55-6184 which when cross-referenced with the Boeing parts list is Left Hand Inboard Exhaust Manifold.

The reason I am contacting you, other than for your interest in all things Flint related, is to ask you whether any of the WW II factories that produced these military related manufactured machines and parts are still in existence and whether the Flint West factory where the bits I have unearthed were made still exists?

I would also be very interested in hearing from anyone male or female who may be still alive who worked in the factories that produced the military war materials and machines.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. One shows the digging underway and the others show some of the parts once cleaned up.

Exhaust manifold collector after cleaning.

Buick Advertising

This drawing of the Buick factories is facing east, with Hamilton Avenue in the middle four-ground. This was from the Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 1, 1921.

March 1926 and the factory drawing is accurate.

This fantasy layout (facing north-east) is showing the Buick road test team. That is the Buick factory in the back-ground. This ad was from the Literary Digest, March 20, 1926.

Buick Assembly

Headlight installation on the front end sub assembly in factory #10 / #62.

Buick

Random look at the Buick factory, from the final line in 1936 to the body shop and final assembly in 1989. The top two photos are the final line of factory #62. The bottom left is the body shop 12 C. Bottom right is the first floor of factory #04.