757 Roof Work Complete - For Now

Today I installed the replacement roof board on the 757. It's caulked and fastened with screws. I'll let it dry over the winter, and it will be painted when the rest of the roof is done in the spring. Here is a view of the completed installation.

I also finished tacking down the new tar paper along the side of the car. So my part of the 757 project is complete for now.

Then I started work on Illinois Terminal 277. The trolley hook is bolted to trolley boards which are barely attached, and indeed sort of floating in the air. (L) I began by taking a series of photographs of the roof for documentation purposes, some of which are seen here. Later I'll take measurements and create some engineering drawings. But before the car can be operated, the trolley hook, at least, needs to be fixed. Fortunately the base seems to be securely mounted.

Since the bolts were frozen, I had to remove the hook by chopping out part of the ends of the rotten roof boards with a hammer and chisel. If we want to run the car this year, I believe the only secure way to attach it is with lag screws that will go down into the saddle, since the trolley boards are pretty weak. This is not, of course, what one would do normally, but it will be sufficient for a few trips. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the right size lag screws, so I'll buy a couple and do it next time.

Here's an interesting aspect of the 277. There's a trolley base and pole located near the front of the car, but this is not a spare or for back up movements. It's only for sleet scraping; the pole has a special sleet-scraper trolley shoe. The metal plate has a bracket for holding a retriever, which presumably the shops would have mounted in the winter. It's a little late in the day, but I decided to back off the tension on the base, since we'll never use this thing. It's held to the hook with a bolt so it can't come loose.

Here's a view of the 518's roof from the 277. The 518 is a trailer with no controls, but it has one trolley pole for back up movements. The IT had turning facilities at every end of the line, but since we don't, the 277 can only be operated with the 518 along so we can back up! As I mentioned before, the trailer is in good condition. Yes, I can see there's a hole in the roof, but we'll patch it up. The cars will not be cleared to run in the rain, that's for sure.

And in the other direction, the roof of the 205 looks pretty good from up here! This, of course, is only a cosmetic job.

I also went to the container to check on our spare parts storage, and spent some more time straightening up in the 321.

Lots of people were busy cleaning up after Thomas. I was tempted to take a picture of the abandoned right-of-way of the kiddie car track. Sort of like Rails to Trails.

Instead, on a more serious note, here's a view of the War Memorial.