36 Report

More painting was done in the 36 today.  Nothing happened on tarping cars before I left.

I'm afraid progress shots of the 36's smoker are going to get pretty boring, but it may be most of what I can offer for the next few months.  At least today I wasn't alone in Barn 8.

Bill Wulfert and Fred Zimmerman started installing roof ventilators on the 4412.  It's been only a few years that our first "plushie" has been running as sort of a "baldy", as L car fans would say.   Better late than never!

I'm working on the smoker, and there are plenty of surfaces to sand down and repaint.  I went out to the 102 and brought back enough ventilators to re-equip the 36.  I'm afraid the car might collapse when they try to move it next, although the ventilators would probably survive the catastrophe pretty well. 

Here's what the first one looks like with all the old paint removed.   They're actually in better shape than the ones on the 36, since they don't appear to have been opened since the 102 was taken out of service.

Mostly I'm applying white primer, but for variety I tried out the finish ceiling paint ("36 Upper") I recently had mixed.  It matches the original extremely well.

 And here are "36 Middle"  (upper left) and "36 Lower" (lower right) on the end bulkhead.  You have to make allowances for the lighting: the car lights are off, there's sunlight being filtered through the barn's wall skylights, and the camera's flash, but I think this will turn out well.  The original paint shop records from 1946 don't offer much practical advice:

Interior Top cream
Center deep cream
Bottom deeper cream

 
I'm mostly working on the ceiling, and all of it will get two coats of white primer before finish painting starts.

 

Lots of other things were going on, of course.  We seemed to have a pretty good number of visitors for the daytime holiday trains.  The B&G guys were putting asphalt on what will be the new coal bin, alongside the steam leads.  We have all the equipment in-house to do this sort of work ourselves.  Workers on this project included Dave, Al Choutka, Jerry Linn, Carl, and one or two new guys I don't know.  Al, Jerry, and Carl I've known since the 70's.  (Ugh)

 When finished, it looked like this.  Just like downtown!