Here's a sample page of the CA&E paint shop ledger book from Wheaton Shops, now in the Ralph Taylor collection. There's a new page for every time a car was brought into the paint shop.
Here we see car 36 being repainted on the outside in 1950, in the final paint scheme of Brilliant Red and Aurora Gray. The interior was only touched up. This page includes accounting information; the job took a total of 99 man-hours, a typical result if little was done on the interior. Hester and Miller were veterans by this time, so they knew what they were doing. You can calculate that Hester made $1.59 per hour and Miller made $1.56. The whole process took nine days, which is pretty fast. Sometimes a car might be in the paint shop for more than a month.
Here we see car 36 being repainted on the outside in 1950, in the final paint scheme of Brilliant Red and Aurora Gray. The interior was only touched up. This page includes accounting information; the job took a total of 99 man-hours, a typical result if little was done on the interior. Hester and Miller were veterans by this time, so they knew what they were doing. You can calculate that Hester made $1.59 per hour and Miller made $1.56. The whole process took nine days, which is pretty fast. Sometimes a car might be in the paint shop for more than a month.The book starts in 1936; presumably there was an earlier volume which may not have survived. It comes to an abrupt end in December 1956.
Our thanks to Ralph for making this information freely available; it's been a great help in restoring the cars correctly.
3 comments:
Wow, another great example of inter(urban) museum cooperation. I have to agree - thanks Ralph!
So, when was the interior of the 36 painted tan? Was the 1950 painting the last time the interior was touched up?
The interior was last repainted in 1946, when the streamer sash were removed. 1950 is the last time it was in the paint shop.
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