We've Got Connections

 One main priority right now is to get the 36's train door put back on the car, now that the barn is open to the public.  I installed the hardware on the inside and gave it all another coat of brown primer.  And talked to Henry Vincent about painting it with a first coat of blue, which he plans to do this Tuesday or Wednesday.

And this is a metal plate for one of the side doors, which needed a coat of primer on the inside to keep it from rusting.  The fresh paint makes a nice reflector for the incoming sunlight.

An electrical problem I wanted to address concerned the gauge lights on the 319.  The gauge light uses a small low-voltage bulb wired into one of the interior light circuits, so it's in series with five 36W bulbs running on 600V.  The wires from the socket run through the air, taped to the plumbing in a couple of places, and connect to the snap switch.  The gauge bulb is turned off by shorting it out.  At this end, at least, the insulation had started to crumble, so I needed to replace it with newer wires.  After making the new connections, however, I still find that neither gauge light works on this car, although all the interior lights are lit.  It's possible the gauges were disconnected, but I'd have to get up into the attic to check that out.  In the meantime, we seldom run at night, so this won't impact operations.  Both gauge lights work on the 36, and our other cars, though.

And most of the time was spent hoisting two more contactors into place in the center box.  This is not easy, but by the end of the day they were all bolted and wired in place, and I was able to check the connections.  So that's another step forward.