Frank writes...
My primary focus on Sunday was painting more of the 205 orange. I removed the side windows from the car and painted the entire side of the car from the belt rail up, the posts and letterboard. With this done, the entire side of the car is now orange with the exception of the doors. I also finished painting the retrievers with a first coat of orange and touched up a few spots on the car's ends and doors with primer. Note that we still don't have the correct OB catchers for the car; we're using OB retrievers, which have the right look but are too large. Know anywhere we could get a couple of correct-type catchers?
So regular readers of the blog know that there are never any photos of our regularly-operating CA&E wood cars posted on here - with so little coverage you may find yourself in danger of forgetting what they look like! But the above photo is one I guarantee you haven't seen before. It's the first time the 308 and 319 have ever been in Barn 9. They were in operation in the morning but rain threatened and access to Barns 6, 7 and 8 was blocked by the Zephyr, which was undergoing welding work on the tail track. So we stashed them in with the steam engines until the rain had passed. I think that the only time any of the CA&E cars was ever in this barn was when the 321 was stored here briefly back when the building was still Barn 8.
There were other things happening too. Ray Bellock (shown above with microphone) officially dedicated the Bellock Playground, which was designed and built by the Buildings & Grounds Department with funds generously donated by Ray. And the famous "Santa Fe" sign from downtown Chicago arrived within the past week and was set next to the west wye, where our Warbonnet FP-45 was placed to be displayed alongside the new sign (below).
I'd like to thank the guys who made the unusual move of putting the wood cars inside Barn 9 possible. The rails aren't bonded, so electric cars cannot operate under their own power on this trackage, even with a stinger. They had to coast into the barn, and were later extracted with a locomotive. So I appreciate the care that was taken while I was away.
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