Scout Encampment

This weekend saw a huge Boy Scout encampment at IRM.  The Scouts were camping out both Friday and Saturday nights, as far as I can tell, and all day today they were everywhere, exploring the grounds and being instructed in various aspects of railroading, I suppose.  

I don't remember anything like this before, and in any case I didn't take much time to photograph it.  But the leaders of tomorrow seemed to be having a good time!

As for us, the leaders (or not) of yesterday, we kept busy.  Larry Stone was helping me again.  We removed the last side door from the 36 and brought it to the shop.  Larry stripped most of the old paint off the frame, until my heat gun finally gave up the ghost.  I'll just have to buy a new one. 

Meanwhile, I worked on the roof of the 319.  I glued some more sisters onto the carlines of the roof on this side.  The ends of the carlines tend to split, and in order to hold the new tack molding in place securely, some new sisters are needed.  And I did more work on the curved tack moldings for the end of the car.  They were then taken home for final adjustment.

After the door project cooled off, Larry went to work transferring window lifts from the 319 to the 36.  The 319 lost all of its window lifts in Cleveland, and we have been unable to find where they went, so I removed all of the parts from the 36 and installed them in the 319 back in 2010 so we could put the 319 into passenger service.  The passengers have to be able to open the windows.  But this year the 36 will probably be in service sooner, and in any case these are the car's original parts.  We're assuming the 319's lifts must have been the same, since they have the same footprint, so the replacements we're having made will be installed there.

 

While he was doing this, I also installed one of the new first aid boxes in the 319.  Thanks again to Rich Witt for making these!

And then I worked on various minor tasks in the 36, installing more screws in various places and straightening up.

I'm not sure why the seats in the 309 have had more problems than any of the other cars, but we're working on fixing them up.  After Larry had left, I did some more adjustments and lubrication, and the three new frames from the 300 that I installed last fall now seem to work OK.  There are still several frames that probably need to be replaced, but thorough lubrication (grease on the slides, oil on the bearings) certainly helps.

We ran some trips for the Boy Scouts with a North Shore car today, and tomorrow will be the first regular service day of the season.  Spring is here already -- imagine that!