Today Frank and I finished up lubrication on the 309. Frank does all the hard parts, actually squeezing under the side sills, over the truck, opening the ridiculously difficult doors to the armature bearings, etc., while I stand around and hand him the things he needs. From my perspective, it works just fine! We didn't bother to try to take any pictures of this process, but once it was done and the car was back in its slot, it's nice to see the 308 and 309 side-by-side.
Meanwhile, the 409 and 431 were in revenue service. I wanted to check on a couple of details of the interior.
Both cars have the curved hooks over the toilet door, where the ventilator rod would be kept. So I guess these cars should each have a new rod also.
And I'd forgotten that the ventilators have these little chutes that open, much like the 36. We usually just keep them open, of course.
Frank and I went to the parts car and found a couple of the mica tubes we need to assemble a replacement grid box for the 308. Here he is starting to put the new box together. (And Joel is telling us where to find the good hand cleaner. When you get as dirty as we did, that's valuable information.)
By the time I was ready to leave, it was mostly assembled. Maybe he'll have an update to this exciting project soon!
Ed Oslowski continues his painstaking work on the forward compartment in the IT combine. Here he is carefully stripping the woodwork in preparation for repainting.
You'll notice that the window shade isn't rolled up, so we had a brief class on how to remove, adjust, and replace the window shade rollers so they'll work right. IRM is an educational institution, you can be sure of that.
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