Anticipation

 

Today was mostly spent tacking down nearly all of the center canvas on the 319's roof, as seen here.  It seems to be going well.  The ends will require extra care due to the compound curves, but canvas paint should not be far away!  I was told many years ago that the canvas should be tight enough so that on the lower deck, at least, you can easily see the outlines of the individual boards.  Looks good to me!

While we're up here, you can get a good view of the 309's clerestory.  The window hardware is still in place for opening the window, as you should be able to see.  These windows were fastened shut sometime in the 1920's, and haven't been opened in about 90 years, but the parts were left in place.  I'm sure the 319 had something similar.

Speaking of the 309, I took the opportunity to turn the 308 and 309 around and make up the train with the 36, in preparation for next Saturday.  Paul Cronin helped as switchman.  We'll be running the three-car blue train in revenue service again, so don't miss it!

Here are some closeups of the 972 truck.  The wheel hubs and axles have not been changed, but new tires were pressed onto the hubs, and you can see how the new tires have a smaller back-to-back than the original tires, because we now have standard profile wheels.

Bill Wulfert and I discussed the part on the left shown by the yellow arrow -- we're not sure what it was for.  Bill though it might be part of an earlier dirt guard system.  I thought perhaps it was for an axle brush, but we just don't know.

Meanwhile, Max has made good progress on the new trolley bus loop.  The car line crossing is complete (L) and the frogs are in place farther east on Central (R) and you can see the insulators needed for the reverse loop -- just like toy trains!

Some more work needs to be done on the curve from Central onto Railroad Ave., but the guys were running a bus to test it out.   The track guys were busy loading ballast and running it out to the Deep South, and of course many other projects were being worked on.  We had a good crowd of visitors.

Did we mention that next weekend is our Museum Showcase, otherwise known as Member's Day???  Operations will (weather permitting) include the CA&E wood cars, CRT wood cars, the Decapod, the Zephyr, the bilevels, and who knows what else.  We'll have food, fellowship, nighttime operations, what more could you want?   I can't wait!