Painting and more painting

Yesterday I drove out to the museum, meeting up with the senior partner in Hicks Car Works for breakfast at Allen's Corner beforehand. I spent pretty much the entire day lettering the south side letterboard of the 309 (the photo from yesterday's post actually shows me on Thursday). This time the car was getting One-Shot "imitation gold," which is actually more of a pale yellow. For comparison, while 308 and 309 are lettered in this color, the 321 is lettered in metallic gold which more closely resembles gold leaf. I got through the entire south side letterboard except for the letters "CAGO" and also painted on the number at #1-L corner as shown at the top of the post.


Whilst I was doing this my father was doing final lubrication under the 309 and doing a lot of touch-up painting at various places. He put a new coat of blue on the west (#2) end of the car and on all four side doors, plus a second coat of red on the belt rail stripe on the car's north side. He also installed a small wooden block at the #1 end to which the latch is attached that holds the "EXPRESS/LIMITED/LOCAL" folding signs up. Here he is seen painting a side door at the west end of the car.

During the day Barn 8 was seemingly the center of activity at the museum, as the 309 was moving in and out of the barn to line up various spots on the letterboard with the scaffold, the two of us were working on the car, and one track over Tim Peters was doing woodwork on CRT 1268. Below is a photo I would call "beauty and the beasts" - the 309 noses out into Yard 8 in the company of some homely stablemates, CTA work motor S373 and the New York subway cars.