205 Door Work

Today I spent the afternoon working on the two new door leaves for the 205. During the week my father cut out "window sticks," the small trim strips that hold the glass into the frame (or, in this case, into the door), from a spare piece of mahogany I picked up in the shop. These sticks needed to be sanded, cut to length and then the ends cut at a 45-degree angle so that they fit together. This first photo shows the beveled window sticks after installation in the first door leaf:
Also visible is some of the wood putty I stole from the 309 to fill in joints between the rails and stiles in the door. The holes in the upper right are where one of the barn door style hinges attaches. Bob Kutella assisted in this project with some helpful hints. After working on this project for a while, I did some final sanding on the outside face of the doors and applied a first coat of primer, priming the window sticks that had been finished as well.Other more ephemeral work done on the 205 included the procurement, with Bob Bruneau's assistance, of brass #4 RH wood screws for attaching the window sticks to the doors. I also spoke with another father-and-son team in the department, Jon and Dan Fenliciki, who are working on the "mother car," Indiana Railroad 65. They are going to have another go at getting IR orange matched (an effort last year yielded less-than-stellar results) and also provided me with a good sample of IR Dark Green, which I will try and get matched. This will allow us to paint the roof of the 205 its final color, after which I can replace the roof boards and mount ventilators and trolley poles to the car.

For those interested, I added a photo of the motorman's position on the 205 to the car's photo page in the IRM Members Photo Gallery (link). I also added photos to the pages for the B48 and 300 for what it's worth.

One final note: an interesting piece of paper was posted in the office that I took a photo of (below). It's a power use analysis of a number of different electric cars at IRM. It brings up some questions in my mind, including about how much of it was extrapolated, but it's a very interesting document and appears to be a good comparison between different cars. Enjoy!