Smoker Painting

Painting the smoker progressed nicely again today, in spite of the cold.  It's not too hard to warm up the smoking compartment to a comfortable temperature.  All of the end bulkhead, including the inside of the pocket door, was prepped and primed. 

Since the subject of the baggage racks came up, I decided to try a section.  The front rod was scraped down, and the other parts were wire-brushed as much as possible.  This is more of a challenge than the usual woodwork. 

After a first coat of primer, it looks like this.  Painting the wire network is difficult, and may be unnecessary.  The railroad painted all these parts without primer, and that may be part of the reason the paint is flaking off so badly.

On the subject of pocket doors, the one at the other end had a spring catch of the type usually used for swinging doors attached near the top.  The spring part is missing, though you can see where the screws were, and I'm sure that's because it was an accident hazard.  Anyone taller than myself could easily bump his head into it and get a bad scrape.  It may have been installed by the railroad, but is certainly not original and no longer needed.  The CA&E may have had problems with pocket doors rolling back and forth during high-speed travel, but that doesn't seem to be an issue under our conditions of service.  Anyway, I decided to remove it.

And here Tim is varnishing the new clerestory window frames for the 24 in the shop.  And work continued on ballasting the south yards in spite of the sub-zero wind chills.  Dress warmly!