205 Here and There

I spent this afternoon working on various aspects of the 205's cosmetic restoration, most - but not all - focused on the car's roof. My first job was to paint the other side of the car's roof boards:These are now ready to begin installing the next time I'm out at the museum. My next task after that was completed was to retrieve the second MU jumper receptacle from the 205. The car originally had dash-mounted MU jumper receptacles (see below left), which were rarely used during service in Terre Haute, but were kept in working order as long as the cars were in Indiana. When the cars went to Portland these were removed, so we're putting them back on as part of the backdating of the car. The source for the replacement castings is South Shore 37, which is not accessioned. We took a pair of receptacles off the car a couple of years ago and suitably modified one, but we still need to modify the second one (below right) to make it look like the original.

This involved removing the rear third of the casting, which basically consists of an elbow for the wire harness; removing the pins, making the receptacle basically hollow; disassembling it into its component pieces; and needle-chipping it. The next step will be to cut off the locking ring lever (the car's originals didn't have them) and the "ears" for hanging the receptacle from the coupler carrier (ditto). Then we can prime the receptacle and install it on the east end of the car.

After this I went in search of productive things to do and came up with a couple of other tasks. First I pulled a pair of trolley bases out of our stock of spares; the 205's bases were of a "four spring up" design, i.e. the springs stayed aligned with the trolley pole when it was raised, and fortunately we had four of this type in stock. None had any obvious defects (nor were any two exactly alike) so I picked two that looked about the same, wire brushed and spray-painted them with primer. I also retrieved a wood-slat roof ladder that had been built by Bob Hively (the 205's owner from 1959 to 1993) though for what car I'm not sure; the steel runners that the slats are attached to don't match the 205's roof profile. It's just the right size to be a good stand-in for the 205's original roof ladder, though, so I straightened the steel runners and put in different bolts that will be suitable for bolting the thing through the car's current plywood roof.

Finally, before I could escape, I got Nicked. Nick Kallas had spent much of the day cleaning up spare wires, cables, and other miscellaneous junk from along the right-of-way at the west end, and I drove a company pickup truck out there for him to load a piece of "scrap" concrete into. The piece in the photo was actually too big for the Bobcat to pick up, but we got a second, smaller piece that was further west.