Lights! Camera! Progress!

I had thought that the light circuits in the 277 were defective, but I was mistaken. I called Bob Bruneau earlier this week about various questions I had, and he was sure the lights worked. And, of course, he was right. I connected my resistor stinger and voila! they worked. This is a great improvement over a couple of work lights. One circuit evidently has a bad bulb, but I can replace it at some point. The resistor reduces the voltage to about 500V. The bulbs are not as bright, but they last much longer. Since these are special street railway bulbs, they're very difficult and expensive to replace.

Here's a view of the smoker. The smoker/baggage compartment still has the original ceiling and light fixtures. At the top of the bulkhead is the exhaust port for the air conditioning duct. The ceiling needs repair, but this is similar to the 309 and I will get to it eventually. In the main compartment the old ceiling was covered over by a new sheet metal ceiling with bull's-eye lighting. The lenses are opened just to make it easier to find and replace bad bulbs.




I started by gluing up a couple of places in the first "croquet hoop" where the veneer was loose, as seen here.

After the epoxy set, I put on a first coat of white primer.

I also opened the can of finish paint for the interior walls. After running it through the department's antique paint shaker, which always adds excitement to one's day, I painted the upper sash for the first sector.

I'd like to thank Frank Sirinek for his help with the roof project. He will order the canvas for the 277 whenever he can catch the awning company at work, and he will order the canvas paint for me as soon as I can provide him with a usable sample.

While the paint was drying, I helped Stan and Charlie with the project of removing Nick's spare trucks from the car line. Along with a couple of steam locomotives, we received two freight car trucks and two six-wheel passenger car trucks from Monee last fall. These were unloaded onto the car line at Electric Park because that was the course of least resistance. But they were still in the way of revenue operation.

The freight car trucks weren't much of a problem. Here we see Stan pushing them across the diamond at South Junction towards Yard 14. The passenger trucks were, however, an absolute nightmare. They are long, stiff, and derail easily when there is no carbody sitting on them to hold them down. We wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the help of Frank Devries and the Model 50 Burro. Still, after a couple of hours I decided that my contributions were doing more harm than good, so Jamie took over. By the time I left, one truck had finally been moved to the material yard and dumped in the mud where it belongs.

I was able to install the first croquet hoop, upper sash piece, and the second piece of plywood in the 277, as seen here. It looks good, and this is encouraging, if I may say so myself. (The yellow parts are the L car across the aisle. This had me puzzled too for a minute.)

I also did the parts of inspection on the 309 that were feasible in the barn. It is now planned to finish inspection on the 308 this Wednesday. Anybody who can be out there to help would be most welcome. Thanks!

Finally, here's a couple of signs we really ought to have at IRM.

(I'm joking, of course. The sign to the left is in the Petrified Forest in Arizona. The sign to the right is from the Joliet Iron Works site just north of downtown Joliet. This is a fascinating place to visit for anyone in the Chicago area.)