Unexpected Spare Parts

Once in a while, the tides of fortune are flowing in rather than ebbing out.  But more of that later.

Painting the inside of the 36 continues as our main project right now.  Here's one of the next sections to be painted.  Surface prep takes a while.  In this picture, notice the wire attached with insulated staples at the bottom edge of the window.  This is how they would change the wiring circuits when necessary.

 The numbers at each end are actually decals.  We'll need to get new decals made, but there are several companies that do this sort of thing. 

One of the things that had me most worried was the problem of the ventilators.  They must have had a latch of some sort so they could be opened and closed, but those are all missing on the 36.  Several things like this got stolen at Cleveland, and the remaining fixtures are generally bent up because people had to use screwdrivers or pry bars to open or close the doors.  After wire-wheeling to remove the badly damaged old paint, the ventilator looks like this.   But there was no way to know exactly what the missing parts might have looked like.

 After a few hours of work, however, the ceiling has a first coat of primer and is starting to look better. 

It's time for a brief walk.  The new cutoff track looks beautiful!   I'd be afraid to step on it.  Might knock a few stones out of place.

 

I'm not sure what's planned for this location near the sand tower.

A little fall color, with evidence of maintenance work on the Springfield Ave. shelter.

And here's Tim applying paint stripper to the interior of the 24.  He's making rapid progress.  I showed him one of the ventilators I was working on.  He mentioned that it looked just like one Andy Sunderland had removed from the IC&W 102.  This was an old car body from Lake Shafer that we acquired several years ago.  It has badly deteriorated and is being scrapped, and Andy is taking the lead on recovering any useful parts.  You never know when they might be needed.

 

So I walked out there, and indeed the ventilators on the 102 were exactly the same type and size as those on the 36.  They have loop castings, which you can see, and there are more than enough to re-equip the 36.   I later ran into Andy himself, and helped him for a while with removing parts from the car.  This is a very fortunate turn of events, so we'll have the correct parts for an operating car.