Grey day

Frank writes...

Sunday was cloudy, chilly and very windy - good working weather for the most part!  I didn't get out to IRM until about 2pm and started out by removing one of the two remaining un-rebuilt grid boxes from the 36.  This box is the middle of the car's five boxes and, as can be seen, was in pretty terrible condition despite the fact that it was still functional:

Those three nuts sticking out on the side of the box are split-bolt repairs, plus if you look closely you may be able to tell that some of the elements were bent over enough that they were shorting to the next element in line.  This box is unusual in that it only has two taps, at the ends, with no intermediate tap.  It was pretty rusty and took a while to disassemble, but I did manage to get it all taken apart and then needle-chipped the box castings.

We'll still need to wire-wheel them to get rid of the rust before priming and painting but good progress is being made.  While I was taking a break from that, I made my way over to Barn 7 where the gang was working on ex-Shaker Heights PCC 63, one of the cars acquired from Trolleyville.  This car was a last-minute addition to IRM's Trolleyville haul.  It was built for Minneapolis but ran for 30-odd years on the Shaker line and was modified pretty extensively there.  It has some real body rot issues but is complete and generally presentable.  Frank Sirinek and Mike Stauber spent a while after it arrived cleaning up the interior and replacing the fogged Lexan windows with ones acquired from East Troy.The "new news" for Sunday was that Richard, Greg and Joel had gotten the lights tested and working.

But the big news is that the car runs!  A couple of years ago Jeff Hakner had helped work through some control problems during a visit from Connecticut, and towards the end of the ATRRM convention a couple of weeks ago the IRM guys decided to take another look over the 63 because it had been moved inside and un-tarped to participate in a PCC-oriented convention seminar.  They managed to get it running and Sunday it got pulled outside of Barn 7 for a couple of photos.

It's not quite ready for prime time, of course.  First, the center doors don't work; it also needs the interior and exterior paint gone over and touched up, not to mention that long-term it would need significant welding repairs.  It will also need some more testing to work any bugs out of the electrical systems.  But with some work it could potentially be a "beater" in the short term, something to use for Thomas or other heavy events.