Monday, March 21, 2011

First day of spring

Springtime came to IRM with a fury: Sunday was a series of thunderstorms and lightning strikes, including at least one or two strikes on the property and a brief loss of power at one point. But there were still plenty of hardy souls out at the museum working.
I spent most of my afternoon working on the west end anticlimber on the 205, shown above. It had previously been needle-chipped and about one-third had been wire-wheeled and primed, so I tackled the other two-thirds and got the entire thing cleaned up and primed by late afternoon. I also spoke with Frank S. about looking for Ohio Brass trolley catchers for the 205 (currently it has retrievers fitted to it, which are too big) and spoke with Tim P. and Rod about looking for canvas-backed rubber for the folding door edges on the car. Any readers have a source? Please let us know!
The shop was pretty busy; Andy was fiddling with the compressor for the 1100, Greg was hunting up trolley base parts for CA&E 451, Jon F. was stripping and polishing more windows for the same car, the Michigan crew were working on traps for Michigan 28 while Dan F. polished window latches, Tim was working on windows for the 1797 (above), and Rod and Frank S. were working on various projects. Max was even out installing power outlets in the "lean-three" shop extension now that all of the lights are installed and hooked up.

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