Saturday, July 3, 2010

Down to the Wire

We were working hard today to get everything ready for the Trolley Pageant tomorrow. Here's just a brief glimpse of what was happening.

First, Jim Followell and his team finished painting the 319 and 460 yesterday, and this morning we pulled them out of Barn 2 and ran them over to 50th Avenue for lettering by Ron Coy.






This is the 460 before lettering began.

I met lots of people, some of whom were old friends I hadn't seen for a while. Randy and Betty Anderson were visiting from North Carolina, and John Smatlak from Orange Empire.

I also went down to 14 to fix the tarp on the 321. Joel had made up a kit of clamps to hold the tarp better, and we applied a few. I was helped by Steve Foglio, his son Brendan, and their dog Niko. Too bad I didn't have my camera along.





Update
: here's a couple of pictures by Betty Anderson. That's Randy on the far left. Unfortunately my pictures of them didn't turn out well.







After the Car Dept. meeting, I put a first coat of silver on the headlight brackets on all three cars. They'll need a second coat, but you have to wait 24 hours. I also painted the retrievers red, as seen here.



I had to leave, but Ron and the others will continue to work until the job is done. For tomorrow, we're planning to run the three wood cars in service, and I don't know what else. You won't want to miss the pageant!



In totally unrelated news, I'm sitting here on the patio grilling steaks and enjoying a martini. Naperville's Ribfest is going on a couple of miles away, so this little plane is hauling an advertising banner in a circle, and flying over our house every five minutes. It's a delightfully antique form of advertising.


And speaking of advertising, here's a birdhouse from our favorite tourist trap. It's currently occupied by a couple of chickadees (not shown). Maybe that's what we need for the ornithophiles among us: a "Visit IRM" birdhouse!

In any case, have a happy Fourth of July!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From all the work I saw during the day Saturday, that's one WELL DESERVED martini !!

Nice to know that the "real" train guys do it like the model train guys,, finish painting the cars right up to the last minute and then operate !

Simply beautiful cars, can't wait till tomorrow

John C