The Open Car and Other News

Here are some pictures of our new open car, Veracruz #19, in Barn 4. There are some issues that need to be addressed, but basically the car is in good condition. Frank and Mike Alterio are going to check that the lights can be run on 600V. At Trolleyville, the lights were run on 120V AC while the car was in the barn, so it needs to be checked. There's also a broken casting for one of the truss rod anchors, which had been that way for a while; a new one will be fabricated.

Frank already found a replacement controller cover, as seen here. He also has a Brill seat frame casting of the correct sort. If you look closely at the upper right hand picture, you will see that at Veracruz the castings were replaced by bent pieces of rebar welded together.

Mike Alterio also spent some time working on the door mechanism for the West Towns 141. It's a real Rube Goldberg mechanism, but progress is being made in putting it back together.

I spent some time sorting IT parts, and I also went to the container to check on the parts there. We're hoping to do the truck swap on the 321 this weekend, and then tarp the car. While looking through the stored parts, I found a few IT antimacassars in storage; Bob B. had forgotten where they were. This will help restart the repro project. Here's one of the better ones in place on a 277 seat.

I also found a collection of paper items which had belonged to Maury Klebolt. It's mostly timetables and few Official Guides and so forth, but this picture of a Wabash Hudson caught my eye. Probably this should all go to the Strahorn.

There has been some controversy about the rebuilt South Shore sign from Gary, which will be installed between Barns 3 and 4, as seen here. (Of course, the sign itself is an artist's impression...) I don't think it will block the signal display to any noticeable extent. In any case, this decision is literally set in concrete, as shown to the right.