Saturday, November 22, 2014

36 Progress


Painting in the 36 continues.  I didn't take many pictures today, so this will be brief.  Mostly, it was surface prep and second primer.




There are just so many surfaces I can stand to sand down, prime, sand again, etc.  For the insides of the hinged windows over the pocket doors, which visitors can hardly see, I think it will be enough to just wipe a coat of new paint over the old.  By the way, I noticed that at this location the two walls on either side of the door are not even parallel to each other.  The more I learn about this car, the stranger it gets.


 
Anyway, it's nice to have a new coat of "36 Middle" on part of the wall to compare to the ceiling color ("36 Upper").  The three colors used in this paint scheme are not all that different.  Next time, the rest of the end bulkhead should be complete and it will be much more interesting.  I promise.

And of course, there were lots of other things going on.  The track ballasting, in particular, just never ends.  The ballast train was running all day, it seemed.  And the facilities in Barn 4 are being upgraded in some way, but you'll just have to wait to learn exactly what.



Frank is in Boston this weekend on business.  Bill Wulfert handed me a picture from an old issue of Headlights of "Sullivan cars" on the IC, which I'm supposed to give to him.  Since I have to scan it in anyway, I might as well share it with you. Here we have the distant ancestors of the Highliners, and it's too bad none of them survived.  They would be just right for the Casey Jones engine!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My great grandfather worked for the IC Southside commuter division starting sometime in the 1890's. He saw the conversion from steam to electric before retiring in the 1930's. My father remembers trips to downtown Chicago and observing his conductor grandfather in action.

Ken MacLeod

Anonymous said...

Randall,
Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Hicks family. You are starting off the winter with a big storm back there! I guess that will be the end of any more track work for quite a while at IRM.

Ted Miles
IRM Member

Randall Hicks said...

Thanks, Ted, and best wishes to you and yours.

As for track work, I really don't know. I have not yet figured out just how bad conditions have to be to keep the track guys inside! And they have machines to work on inside the heated portion of the Cretney barn to work on over the winter, including the famous Milwaukee Road sedan. (I'm hoping they'll keep us informed of whatever gets done on it, by the way.) So I'm sure they won't be idle.