From Floor to Ceiling

 Time for a quick report on the last two days' worth of work.  There's lots of activity at the Museum, mostly with getting ready for Thomas, of course.

We received a shipment of new mica tubes and washers for rebuilding grid boxes.  They look good.  It's very fortunate that this cast-iron grid technology is evidently not yet obsolete. 

Gregg was out again, and doing yeoman service on repainting the heater covers for the 308.

I reinstalled a couple of trim pieces in the ceiling that had fallen out, and replaced one window shade that had come loose.   The window shades on the 308 and 36 are very difficult to deal with, since they're mounted up inside the walls.  The process seems to have been designed for people with smaller hands than mine.  The later cars, such as 309 and 319, have removable window shade boxes that make it much easier.  And we worked on tuning up the seats, mostly the walkovers, and I took a seat cushion home for recovering.

The heater covers are lined up for painting outside Barn 8.

When the heater covers are removed, the heaters look like this.  The sheet metal covers must get very hot.

Here Gregg is in the process of painting them with the finish brown color, same as the floor.

Bill showed me the progress being made on the Baldy.  In a couple of weeks, the contractor will be available to pour the Mastapave (sp?) material to patch the floor.

All of the metal reinforcements are in place.

The sun sets on Yard 5.

The temporary tent city. 

The nice heavyweights get brought out for Thomas.

This is what they look like when installed.  I admit, it certainly doesn't look like the covers are painted the floor color, but who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?!?

Tim showed me the work he's doing on the floor of the 24.  The flooring is laid at an angle, then longitudinal wooden strips were fastened with flat head screws.  What you see here is mostly the many layers of paint between the wooden strips.  These strips were never replaced, and over the years people's shoes wore the 3/4" strips down to nearly nothing, including wearing off the heads of the screws.  

Among other things, I finished putting windows shades in the 36.  If any are missing, it's a very obvious eyesore.  And due to the difficulty of replacing them, on these two cars screws are installed so the shades can't be pulled down.  

And in B&G news, the curb has been poured at the SW corner of Central and Railroad.  This is where the gas station will be.

We can always use more help for the next two weekends with Thomas.  Come on out if you can!