Thursday, September 25, 2014

Wrapping Up

This Sunday the CERA is coming to visit, and the 36 will be in charter service.  So it had to be switched out to the door.  

 
The main activity was getting the 319 ready for painting the roof.  I finished tacking all the canvas down, and then it was time to wrap it up in cellophane.
 
 I had enough to go around the car twice for good measure, and when the process was done it looked like this.  The plastic is taped to the tack molding, not the letterboard, so I don't have to worry about possibly defacing the beautiful paint job.  That took most of the day, mainly due to moving the rolling scaffold around.

Next week I will start actually painting the canvas!



It also seems like a good day to check on the 321 again.  Track 141 has been pulled, so the 321 is easily visible from the road.  Here we have THI&E 58 (I think) in black, then the 321 in silver, then a CTA work motor which was originally 4411.  

 The interior doesn't appear to have any noticeable leaks.  The stained glass window attached to the plywood bulkhead is from an IT sleeping car, but of a different type than the Peoria, so it's in storage.  This seemed like a safe way to store it.

And here's a random view of some of the underbody equipment.

Well, I'm looking forward to the CERA visit.  The 36 needs repainting inside, and a second coat outside, but it should still provide an interesting ride for the railfans. 

3 comments:

Frank Hicks said...

I believe the car under the black tarp is THI&E 58; the THI&E car that is partially tarped is the 50 (aka "Clinton") and the green car with the tarp blown off is THI&E 53, aka Indianapolis Crawfordsville & Western ("Ben Hur Route") 102.

Anonymous said...

Frank,
T here is not much on the roster about the #50. What made it significant enough to have the name "clinton" ?

Was it a parlor car at some point in its long life?

Ted Miles
IRM Member

Frank Hicks said...

Ted,

In the 1920s the THI&E rebuilt several of its older wooden interurban cars. The rebuilt cars, of which 50 was one, received an attractive new livery of chrome yellow with black letterboard and windows and a tile red roof. Most of the rebuilt cars also received sheet metal covering the upper sash windows (some were completely sheathed in sheet metal) as well as names; "Clinton" was named for a city in western Indiana at the end of a THI&E branch. The rebuilt cars were coaches, though, not parlor cars.

Photos of similar rebuilt THI&E cars:
http://newdavesrailpix.com/odds/in/htm/thie27.htm
http://newdavesrailpix.com/odds/in/htm/thie25.htm
http://newdavesrailpix.com/odds/in/htm/thie24.htm
http://newdavesrailpix.com/odds/in/htm/thie18.htm

Besides "Clinton" one other named THI&E car is preserved; the body of number 81 "Central Normal" is stored in poor condition in Noblesville, IN at the museum there:

http://www.newdavesrailpix.com/hicks/htm/hicks012.htm

Frank Hicks