Back On the Saddles Again

There was plenty of sawdust and noise in the woodshop today as I was making new saddles for the roof of IT 277. These were made out of white oak, and I can tell you that 8/4 white oak stock is heavy! Making the saddles required jointing, ripping, some cross-cutting on the radial arm, cutting to shape on the big bandsaw, and belt sanding. At least there was no planing. I made 15 saddles to support the running boards, and two for supporting the fuse box, as seen here.

Bob Kutella looked at the material that the IT put under the saddles, and we decided it's not leather but probably neoprene. So that's what I'll plan on using when the new wood is installed.

Later I started placing some of the saddles in position. I need to buy the correct size of wood screws for installing them. I made final measurements to determine the size of running boards I'll need.

The weather was terrible today - cold, rainy, and gale-force winds. So I didn't do any painting, as I had hoped. Too bad for the Santa trains.

In other news, the planets finally aligned just right to get the benches out of the 321, as mentioned earlier. Here we see Phil Stepek and Shelley von der Schagen resting after their labors in squeezing the furniture out of the car. The benches will be stored by the Coach Dept. until they can be refurbished for use in a parlor car.

And Rod Turner and Stan Wdowikowski looked at the trolley harps for the blue cars with me. Some adjustments will be necessary, and Stan will get another kit for me to complete the set. Thanks!

Currently the North Shore line car #604 is over the pit for inspection. You've probably never seen a picture of its underbody equipment before!