Straight as an Arrow

 It was another beautiful spring day today, so a lot got done.  Unfortunately I was too busy to get any pictures of what other people were doing. 

The last two running boards were installed.  And as I hope you can see here, they are as straight as humanly possible, and line up correctly.

A minor improvement from what we got from Cleveland, if I may say so myself.

And I started attaching the roof cables to the running boards with leather straps, as they should be, instead of bungee cords or plastic cable ties!

Next week it's supposed to be raining much of the time, so today seemed like a good time to switch out the cars.   The 319 is still wrapped in cellophane, but I hope you notice the nice shiny black roof!

Tractive effort courtesy of the old reliable, #309.  Nothing has moved for about six months, so this was a fun thing to do.  Max has made great improvements to the wire over the yard.  

The 319 is now at the east end of 84, so I can work on the north side of the car.  After switching, the new boards were painted black.  

And another view of the straight edge.  It really wasn't that difficult to do.   The cables were being held to the boards with ropes or bungee cords for moving the car, but it's purely temporary, I promise!

And I also connected and bolted on the fuse box.

  When we got the car from Cleveland, the cables were connected via a metal bracket instead a fuse, so not much safety there!   When this car was operating on the GCRTA, they had unfused 750V power coming into the electrical cabinets.  That's criminal!

Next week I should be able to finish painting the lower canvas on the north side, then the plastic wrap can come off!  I need to finish attaching the cables, then the bases need to be lifted onto the roof somehow, put the poles in, and we'll be ready for inspection!

Sorry I didn't get any pictures of other projects.  The North Shore cars were being inspected, among other things.  And I ran the 309 out of the barn and back in again without any obvious problems, so that finishes the inspection for this car this year.

(Hey, that was meant as a joke....)