It Helps To Be Organistized

Greg Ceurvorst (who is actually an organist) was helping again today, so we got quite a bit accomplished on restoring the 319. First, I had him paint the new siding pieces which I had made with primer.

I worked on making usable locking parts for the doors on the 36. I also removed two more side windows from the 319, and took them to the shop for Greg to strip. I had to work my way into the 321, which is still outside under a huge tarp, and get two more spare windows to fill in the gaps.

The 319 had several visitors today, including Rich Block, Jack Biesterfeld, and Norm and Kathy Krentel. Norm and Kathy also toured the 36; he's planning to take a day off and drive to Cleveland to pick up some parts for the 36 that were left behind, so we needed to look over what exactly he should get.

As mentioned before, dash lights were installed in the 319 at Cleveland to backdate the car, but we needed to remove them. So some of the siding pieces on the end needed to be replaced. After a few hours, the primer was dry enough to handle, so I was able to install the new siding, as seen here. (There's a trim piece along the top, under the window sill, which I'll install next time.)

By the end of the day, Greg had finished sanding down two side windows. The orange latex paint is very difficult to remove. He then painted both sides of the two windows with white primer, as seen here. Thanks!

As usual, there were many other things going on. By the way, here's the interior of the new shop extension. It's now the easiest way to get from Depot St. to the car shop. What looks like tire tracks in front of the garage door is actually the supports for rails in our truck rebuilding shop.


A friend of IRM on the West Coast donated a CA&E headlight, and it arrived via UPS safe and sound. It's numbered 36, but that's purely a coincidence. Headlights weren't assigned to particular cars. Mike helped me get it out of the crate; it was packed with expandable foam, which certainly protected it well. Thanks!

Meanwhile, in the lounge, Julie and the Signalmen were reprising some of their greatest hits from the good old days, real show-stoppers like "GRS Position Light" from the Indiana Railroad. There's always lots of interesting things going on at IRM!

Update: A couple of things I forgot! Joel Ahrendt finished repainting the coat hooks and window latches for the 277, and gave them back to me. Thanks for the help!

And Frank and Mike are going to be finding the wood and making new saddles for the 451 and 460, so I helped them by measuring the ones on the 460. Lots of people are helping with getting the new CA&E cars into service.