Ah, Spring!

Hibernation is over, and it's time for the beasts to start waking up.

Before

I started by replacing the triple valve on the 308. The valve that came with the car had some problems, so it was expertly rebuilt by a friend of our who wishes to remain anonymous. This is the replacement valve we had been using.

After

The rebuilt original valve now works much better. I checked the compressor, pumped up the air, and ran the car out and back a few hundred feet to check the operation of the brakes.

Then the car cleaning crew showed up and did a thorough job on both the 308 and 309. Here we see Rich Witt (L) and Phil Becker (R) doing windows in the 309.

I also checked out the walkover seat frames and lubricated all the working ones. Unhappily, several in the 309 still don't work properly.

Greg Ceurvorst (L) helps Jim Nauer with vacuuming, and Paul Sprenger (R) is mopping the floor. There were several others helping out besides.

Thanks to all those who were cleaning cars today! If you missed out on the fun, you can join the team next Saturday.

I also did some more inspection items on the 308. By the way, here's a technical note for you mechanism fans: The normal M-15 brake valve has three "apply" positions: slow, medium, and fast. However, the valve at the #2 end of the 308 has only two positions, which seem to be fast and faster. I have no idea how this happened, but it makes it harder to control the train. So I always try to make up the train so the #1 end of the 308 is on the outside.

I then started working on the roof of the 277. I finished the laps and trimmed the running boards to length. Then I attached them at each end and started drilling holes so they will line up correctly after the canvas is installed. Here we see the roof starting to look more complete.

I had to stop when a large switching crew came along to shuffle the El cars. (Lots of featherbedding on this railroad!) So I did some sorting of parts in the 321 and watched the trains go by.