Less of an Enigma

A couple of weeks ago I asked if anybody knew what this mysterious plate was. Today I decided to find out what I could. It turns out that there are two rotary snap switches behind the plate. They're missing the knobs which would just screw onto the shafts in the usual fashion. But what are the switches connected to? I'm guessing it's the light circuits, so you could turn off some of the side lights but not others. But for now, that's still sheer speculation.

Now to something more productive. I finished painting the roof black, except for a few square feet at the west end, where I don't have access just now, since the car is up against the door. But we're pretty much ready for painting the car, whenever it happens to be possible.

The S105 is a Very Useful Engine. I stood on it to take this shot.

Then I made my way out to Yard 14 to get some parts out of the 321. I keep telling myself this is the last time, but noooo.... As you can see here, it's stored amongst Shafer cars, the 4001, and other derelicts. I also wanted to check on the tarp. I climbed up an adjacent box car to view the roof, and everything looks fine. Just getting inside it under that tarp, however, is a test of my abilities as a contortionist.

One thing I decided to do was to replace the third rail knife switch in the #1 electrical cabinet. This was removed at Trolleyville. I probably wouldn't bother, but the heads of the carriage bolts that hold the big knife switches in place are inside the car, and if they're missing, there's just some holes in the wall. That looks pretty stupid. (Enigmatically, my picture of the back of the cabinet didn't show up.)

I had a switch from the 318 in the 321, so I retrieved it and installed it in the 319. It now looks much better. The connections at either end were amputated, so there's no reason not to leave the blade in place.


I did some finish sanding and started priming the window sills which Al had stripped last time.

And finally, I put primer on the two grab irons that Chris and Dan had stripped for me. Little by little we're getting there...