Sunday, June 14, 2015

Stripes

Frank writes...

As mentioned in the previous post, I spent the majority of my Saturday afternoon painting stripes onto the side of the 205.  The stripes, like the lettering applied last year, look black but they're actually dark green, the same color as the car's roof and the bottom half of the anticlimber.  There's one stripe at the belt rail and one at floor level, only between the doors and not around the end of the car.

As with the lettering, the stripes will be outlined in silver.  Nick gave me the contact information for the man who in 2010 did the lettering on the CA&E cars acquired from Trolleyville so hopefully he will be able to help us out with the 205 as well.
Other than the silver outlines, exterior work on the 205 is virtually complete.  I still need to find canvas-backed rubber, or some similar material, to affix to the door edges, and the northwest corner end window still needs to be stripped of paint.  But the end is in sight.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

frank,
You are way ahead with details that Indiana Railroad #202 never had at the western Railway Museum. Yikes stripes!

The sister car is down off the lifts onto her restored trucks. she too is looking pretty darn good. Do not know yet if they will put the red or the blue color scheme on the car. The metal repairs around the doors was similar to what you had to do with the #205.

Ted Miles
IRM Member

Anonymous said...

Sooo, looking great, and you are nearing the finish line with the cosmetic restoration. Almost ready to congratulate you, but we'll hold off a little until you say its done. But what I am wondering, is if you already have thoughts about another big project. Would you consider something similar for another car? Operational restoration of this car? Something completely different?

Frank Hicks said...

Well, barring a $500,000 or so donation, operational restoration for the 205 isn't going to happen. The entire car would need to be stripped down to the frame and rebuilt, not a job that can be done on the cheap. My plan for the time being is to just help out on painting the CA&E cars (the 36 and 319 still have plenty of underbody equipment that needs to be painted black) and probably try and complete painting on the "other" (left) side of the 150.

Josh Sutherland said...

How exactly do you calculate the cost of a restoration of an electric train?

Anonymous said...

Joshua,
I think Frank is referring to the fact that the car which is a sister to the Portland 4001 was stored in a rain forest in Washington State. We had to replace the roof on the WRM car and found that a lot of work needed to ne done on the electrical components.

Then the trucks needed a lot of work and the wheel sets had to be replaced by a contractor.
IRM and WRM do not pay labor; but material costs add up fast.

Ted Miles
WRM Member
IRM Member