Saturday, February 21, 2015

Let's Russell Up Some Snow

Today the guys put our CGW Russell plow into use for the first time at IRM, so let's see some videos.  Maybe it's not quite like the Sierras, but we needed to clear some road crossings between the main and the south yards for switching.  Thanks to Joel, Rich, Greg, and others for making this possible!









What your humble correspondent was doing is no doubt an anticlimax, but every man has to do what he can.


The third rail beams for the 36 got a first coat of gloss black.  Because they can be balanced on the parts that aren't being painted, there's paint on all four sides of the beams.  Aren't they pretty?


(OK, maybe your aesthetic sense is more nuanced than mine.  Please don't rub it in.)

 

In the afternoon I worked on the vestibule.  Most of the paint on the pocket door was in bad shape, so I decided to strip it all down.  It's an open question whether it's better in these cases to remove the red paint or just sand it down and put primer over it.  Either way, it takes a long time.





This narrow vestibule is not hard to warm up, so later I started painting the ceiling and other parts with a first coat of blue.  Once the flag box is put back in place, it will be nearly impossible to paint the parts above and behind it.  Since this is a flash picture, you will have to take my word for it that the paint is actually much darker than this.  As usual, it looks better in person.





On the subject of our Russell plow, Victor has been doing a lot of work.  Here is the rebuilt headlight, which will replace the sealed-beam headlight with which it came to us, sitting on top of the stove that he has restored.


And here Tim is conducting a seminar on how to install new rattan on bowling alley seats.  IRM is an educational institution, and the learning just never stops.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

For those who will exclaim "you have to remove the front coupler and the air pipe!", yes, that's right. But when you know that you won't be going through any dangerously large piles of snow, and just have to break through two spots that would be too big for the light engine, you leave them on. R. W. Schauer

Bruce Duensing said...

This beast personifies sheer, brute force if anything does. Not that I wish that the tracks get buried under ten foot drifts, but it would be quite a sight to see it tackle them. The graphics in white are more striking than I could have imagined them against the black. Thanks for posting this along with everything else. Much appreciated.

Chris said...

The IRM blog says the stove is for a PRR hack.

Randall Hicks said...

Yes, that's true, it's for the Pennsy bobber. Maybe I didn't word that very clearly. In any case, he's also been working on other parts for the plow.