205 Ventilators

Work today on the 205 concentrated on the car's roof ventilators, which I was able to paint with a first coat of correct Indiana Railroad dark green courtesy of the paint procured by my father during the past week. The roof vents used on this car were an odd dome-shaped type built by Brill. Unfortunately the interior parts of these ventilators were missing when IRM acquired the 205, but the only part of the vent visible from the outside is the dome itself - and we have the entire car's complement of these. They had been sand-blasted and painted by the 205's previous owner, who had also done some metal repair and patching to the more rusted ones. Here's what they looked like before:
And here's what they looked like after a coat of IR green:

These ventilators are basically sheet-metal domes with a big hole in the center which is level once the vent is mounted on the roof, which of course is itself rounded - hence their lopsided appearance. Since water would be able to get into the ventilator area itself, each vent has a small raised portion at its lowest point that would allow water to flow out of the vent and down the side of the car (see highlighted area):Our suspicion is that this did not work too well!

Now that the ventilators have received a first coat of green, the next step is to mount them to the roof. Once this is done, all that needs to be done is to install roof boards (2x6's, yet to be procured) and the roof ladder (on hand, needs to be modified to fit roof contour) and then we can mount trolley poles and bases.

In other news, Orange Empire Railway Museum trustee John Smatlak visited and was shown recent progress on various restoration projects in the Electric Car Department. I took the opportunity to snap some photos to create or enhance albums in the Rapid Transit gallery on the IRM Members Photo Site.