Busy Wednesday

There was lots of interesting activity today, too much to cover it all.  But I'll do what I can.

The Charles City Western locomotive #300 was pulled over to the pit lead for the installation of a new, functional compressor.  Pete gets to pretend he's running it.  (Hey, I've done the same thing....)

With the 300 out of the barn, we have a much better view of the 24.  It's starting to look quite convincing!

And then there was somebody up on the platform around the Michigan Electric car.   I wonder what he thinks he's doing?

And here we see the crew helping place the new compressor inside the hood of the 300.   Rod is running the big fork lift and directing the operation.  That's three compressors swapped out in the last two months or so, and we're getting pretty good at it.

 I walked out to the 321 to check on it again.  On the way, we may notice that the ballast has been placed for the new cutoff to the south yards.

The 321 is pretty much the same as before, only more so.  Dark and damp.  This sort of reminds me of the scene in "The Boys from Brazil" where Gregory Peck goes to revisit the abandoned laboratory in the jungle.

Mostly I worked on tacking down the canvas on the 319, as usual.  It's almost done on this side.

 And several of the Steam Dept. guys were busy putting coal and water into the 1630.  This is a very labor-intensive process, I'm afraid.  Perhaps that's why they invented coaling towers.

And then rumor has it that a popular TV show will be coming to IRM in a couple of weeks to film a segment, using one of our CA&E wood cars as a location.  That's pretty exciting!   But you'll just have to watch this space to find out the details.