Spring into Action

Since painting in the main compartment of the 36 is essentially finished, at least for now, work started to shift to the #1 vestibule.  But first, I opened all of the little ventilator chutes, sanded the sides, and painted them with primer.  When I have car lighting available, I'll get out the ceiling paint and finish the little doors and do any touch-up required.

 Then I installed the replacement buzzer cord.  The cord that came with the car was just ordinary cotton rope without the wire center, and it broke near the end of service last year.  So I got a replacement rope with a wire core from the 321 a while back; it was too short for use in the other cars, but fine for the 36, a "shorty".

At the #2 end, you can see the remnant of the older rope in the bracket.  But the bracket is in an unusual location, and the incriminating evidence is obvious.  The rope must have broken once already, and the bracket was moved to a new location so the shorter rope could be reused.  This is a "Clevelandism" at its finest.

My "new" wire core rope has been attached in the correct position, and at some point I'll decide exactly how tight it should be and then trim the end off.

Bill stopped by and provided me with a spring-loaded catch to replace one that had been stolen at Cleveland.  The 36 has several hinged bulkhead windows that need to be opened to clean the glass, and they all have two of these little latches.  I immediately latched onto it and took it home for prep.  This is another little detail that had been bugging me; they just don't show up in antique stores.

And then it was on to stripping and painting in the vestibule.

 By afternoon, I was able to put a coat of primer on this side of the bulkhead, which includes the electrical cabinet.  These vestibules are small, and picture taking is not easy.  I also worked for a while on the air piping and so on, but no picture.

While the paint is drying, let's see what other people are doing.   In the car shop, I notice that they're working on Pullman tray tables.  This is interesting because of the great trouble and expense I went to earlier to create one for the 36.  These are bigger and fancier, and Roger says they're a standard size so they fit the various cars such as Mt. Harvard, John McGloughlin, and so on.  In the lower right picture, it may not be obvious, but they have different style castings.

Out in front of Barn 4, Max, Joel, and others were planting new poles to improve the overhead.

The track dept. guys were setting out ties on the main line near Spaulding.  Larry Stone was out today, but he has applied for regular membership and has several hoops to jump through, and today's hoop was Track Dept.  But somehow his picture disappeared.  

Bob Olson shows us the new control panel at the east end of the Spaulding control point.  This really looks nice.

And the signal crew (Bob, Mike Alterio, and John Naglich) were testing the new crossing gates, and were proud to show them off.   It was a grey day, so the lighting isn't great, but I think you can see all the flashing lights.

If not, you'll just have to take my word for it.