Overspray begone

Frank writes...

Sunday was the second of the two Diesel Days but there was plenty of electric car work being done too.  I arrived at the museum midway through the diesel parade and was able to run the 319 (and 36, which happened to be in the way) over to the pit for some needle-chipping.  Many thanks to Richard Schauer, who helped with the move, and Greg Kepka who acted as ground man.

I've been meaning for a while to get started on repainting the 319's underbody, not least because it has patches of red overspray on it.  It may not jump out at you immediately but, once you notice it, it's hard not to see the pink hue to the step wells and circle iron (and other underbody parts).  So I went at it and spent most of the afternoon stress testing my teeth by needle-chipping the entire #2R step well, the outboard face of the #2L step well, and the MU sockets and pilot supports at the #2 end of the car.  We put our nice new blue flags to good use too.

Here I've done most of the step well except for the bottom right portion, which is still alligatored paint.  The circle iron was covered in grease but I scraped it down too.  The result was fairly gratifying, but of course this will all look much better when I've wire-wheeled it and it's been painted black.  And I still need to do the pilot.  There's always plenty more needle-chipping!

And here's the "after" photo.  Afterwards Dan Mulvihill helped me take the train back to Barn 8 and that was it for me.  The car shop was pretty active over the weekend, though.  On Sunday, Jeff was hard at work drilling holes in the new side sill for the Michigan car while Richard and Greg were working on the CTA 2400s.  These, the newest 'L' cars (actually the newest electric cars, I believe) in the IRM collection, were made fully operational on Saturday and made their first-ever trip to Kishwaukee Grove.  Richard was also able to get CTA Marmon-Herrington trolley bus 9553 running for the first time in about five years on Saturday so it was certainly a productive weekend.

And how do these guys manage to be so productive?  By letting the machines do the work, of course!  Or in this case, why push something by hand when you can tow it by golf cart?

And at the end of the day a couple of us dropped by the Steam Shop for a visit.  The Shay has had its flues reinstalled and Tom said they are hoping to hydro it later this year, along with piping work and reconstruction of the smoke box.  With luck - and a lot of hard work - it may run next year.  Hard work is the only kind of work the steam shop guys know, methinks, and the fantastic progress they're making shows it.