In All Directions

Today people were in motion in all directions out at your Museum.  Let's see here, I think we'll start with the ordinary and move up to the extraordinary.

I painted the red stripes down the north side of the 36.  This makes a big difference.  Now of course the red windows and doors are not right, but at least the red is part of the paint scheme.  If they were green or yellow, that would be a real problem.  And I should remind you that on the south side of the car, the doors and windows are (or soon will be) all correct.

And then there was surface prep, and a second coat of red on the #1 end of the car.  Also primer on the tack molding, which will be painted black next time.

And there were a few miscellaneous tasks on the 36, as usual; I managed to free up a stuck window, sort parts, and so on.

Henry Vincent and his grandson Jonathan Soucek have been helping with door parts in the shop.  They stripped all the paint off these metal parts of one of the side doors, and I helped them along by priming the inside surfaces.  I need to reassemble the door by the time the Museum opens for visitors on April 7th.  They're also making good progress on the train door, and I talked to Bob Kutella about the lettering.  Thanks!

Lots of other members were working on their projects.  Rod is preparing new grids for the 141, several guys are working on doors and windows for the depot, the snow plow, the B&M diner, and who knows what else, Eric Lorenz and others are putting the Cleveland PCC together, and Frank, Mike, and Bill Thiel were preparing the Veracruz open car for service.

Of course, Tim Peters continues to work on the 1024.  There's a lot of work to be done on the roof of this car built in 1898, as your might expect.

Also up on the rooftop, Norm Krentel and Jeff Brady were working on the Michigan Electric 28.

But most of the people out at the Museum today were neither volunteers nor members.  There was a large film crew hard at work.  The Zephyr was running back and forth all day; they were still at work when I left.

There was a line of large trucks parked on Central Avenue all the way from Depot to the ladder, as far as I could see, and other vehicles parked elsewhere.

Down by the depot, they've constructed a loading platform on the north side of the main, with this nice little shelter.  I don't know how much of this we'll be able to keep.  In any case, I had work to do and didn't want to get in the way, so I didn't stick around.

They were also filming inside one of the bilevels in Yard 5, using this assemblage outside to mount the cameras and control the lighting, as I suppose.  It's always interesting to see film crews at work.  My wife will often see them in downtown Chicago.  It's a huge production.