Visiting Veterans

Today I drove into Chicago to pick up Bob Bruneau and bring him out to the Museum. Health problems have prevented Bob from attending regularly, and he is now the Car Dept. director emeritus, but of course he still has a lot of valuable knowledge and insight. He helped me with finding parts for various projects, and here we see him selecting which trolley bases we should use for the Indiana Railroad 205. He located some spare windows for the 277 and 518 which I would never have noticed, hidden as they were behind other parts in the paint shop. And I also borrowed a folder of 277 pictures, similar to the earlier 518 folder, so I will start on a history of the 277 soon. Also we got some in-service photos of the 205, which Frank will need to complete that car's cosmetic restoration. We'll probably try to do this again sometime soon.

Another old-timer (I'm sure he'll love that!) hard at work today was our long-time friend Steve Iversen, who was visiting from Oklahoma. Here he is helping Frank Sirinek by repainting the roof of the 3142.

And I had some time to work on the roof of the 277, although it was still hot up there. I must say that the new line breakers installed by Max are easy to lock out and tag, and it makes me feel much better knowing the power can't be turned on inadvertently while I'm up there.

I also varnished several more window frames, and installed the first completed 518 window in the car, as seen here. Unfortunately, now the window shade won't go up, but I ran out of time to fix this problem. Till next time.