Saturday, June 26, 2010

More Switching

The newly repainted 409 operating under its own power.

Most of today was spent switching, and we got done what we needed to do. In the morning, Gerry Dettloff ran the Joy, and with Dave Fullarton and myself we moved the 36 motor truck over to track 42, where at least it's out of the way, and also we pulled the three CA&E wood cars up to the door, so we can use a stinger to pull them out of the barn. Since there's no power in the barn right now, it's a real inconvenience.

(L) Here Bob Kutella is lettering the Com Ed 4. He's filling in the gaps left by the stencils. (R) I replaced some windows in the 319 and took others to the shop for stripping. Also, there used to be a stationary seat at this location, but it was replaced with a walkover, of a different type from the rest. It doesn't work very well. You can see from the marks on the wall that it has been a problem for a long time. I started trying to adjust it, but am not done yet.

In the afternoon, we switched out Barn 2 again. The 409 has been painted, and appeared as shown here. We used the stinger to pull the 460 out of Barn 8, and it was then switched into the paint shop. Jim Followell says he'll have it done by Friday.






More views of the 409 and 460.

I had to leave early because my daughter is playing in the West Suburban Symphony and we wanted to go to her concert. But we got a lot done today, and there were several other things happening. You'll want to read the department blogs for more exciting news.

Update: Speaking of which, the Steam Dept. was doing a big switch move over at Barn 9. Dan Gura sent me a couple of pictures. At one point the 428 had one driver riding high; it had to be greased to get through the curve. Thanks, Dan!

2 comments:

Zach said...

WOW the 409 sure looks sharp. Some pretty fine painting goin on at IRM.

And a question...What exactly is a stinger?

Thanks!
Zach

Randall Hicks said...

A stinger is a long pole with a heavy cable, with hooks so you can provide power to a car that isn't under live wire. I'll have to take a picture of one in operation. On the east coast it's known as a "bug".