First Primer

As far as we can determine, the interior of the 36 was last painted in 1946, almost 70 years ago, and it really needs to be refinished.  The ceiling paint is actually in pretty good condition for the most part, but is faded and worn in places.  The wall paint is checked and cracked, and is the most obvious problem.  Correction: the floor was repainted in the 1960's, and the red color was a Brookins trademark.  But it's logical to work from the top down, so fixing that eyesore will come last.  This is what the smoker looks like before repainting starts.

The ceiling itself is pretty good.  The clerestory windows show weathering, particularly the metal plates for the ventilators.  I removed one window for paint matching, and replaced it with a piece of wood to keep the birds out and the heat in, more or less.

Sanding and painting with a first coat of white primer took most of the day.

On a walk out to 14 to check on the 321, we can see that yard 13 has been emptied, and all tracks have been ballasted.  Some leveling and grading remain to be done, but it looks good, almost ready for a barn to be put over it.

And the addition of twelve more rooms to our new storage building is progressing nicely.

Later in the day, the ceiling now looks like this.  This is only the beginning.

I later ran into my old friend Jack Biesterfeld, who is still hard at work on the B&M 1094, a beautiful wooden diner.  He was dragging metal panels out of the barn.  While the diner was in camp car service, and much of the interior was trashed, a large furnace was installed and metal plates fastened to the walls to keep the walls from burning up. 

Anyway, lots of great progress is being made on the interior.  This is where the metal was attached, and beneath it we see an arched window and lots of nice woodwork still in place.  The furnace weighs about two tons and will have to be disassembled to remove it.

On the other side is where the ladies' washroom was located; some of the walls are missing and will have to be replaced.  The two stained glass windows were recently produced from original plans.  Aren't they beautiful?

Today I observed again that the 321 is taking on water after rain storms, although there are no obvious rips or tears in the tarp.  Perhaps it's just becoming porous with age.  Rod has a couple of spare tarps, one of which we would like to put over the car to keep it dry for at least the next two years or so, when it can go back inside.  We would like to do this on Saturday, the 25th, and extra hands would be most helpful for getting the tarp rolled out and fastened down securely.  If you could help, please let us know.  Thanks!