Progress aplenty

Frank writes...

Sunday was one of those days when a lot got done, and on a number of different fronts too. The big news involved the 205. Professional sign painter Ron Coy (the same guy who painted the lettering on the Trolleyville CA&E cars back in 2010), came out along with his understudy Jerry and completed all of the silver outlining and striping on the car.  Painting on the 205 is now done!

Ron gets started on one of the numbers...

...while Jerry works on the pin-striping.

The silver outlines really make the lettering pop, especially when you add a little daylight. As with the 65, the 205 has dark (very dark) green lettering with silver outlines.

And here's Ron and Jerry after completing the car. They did a beautiful job!

But while painting might be done I should mention the project isn't completely done. The silver outlines were the largest and most obvious part of the job not previously finished but I still need to strip a little Portland paint off one of the car's window frames, add canvas-backed rubber to the folding door edges, and wash down the seats. But that's about it!

And the rest of the day was devoted to the CA&E cars. First, Phil (pictured above) and another guy from the Steam Shop whose name I neglected to get brought over the new tank for the 36 after it successfully passed its hammer and hydro tests. Thanks to the Steam Team for working on these tanks and getting them approved for service!

And while Ron and Jerry were at work, I switched the order of the cars. We started with (from the door) 309, 308-319, 36 on track 84. Since we want the 36 in the middle of the 308 and 309, a few switch moves resulted in the order being changed to 309-36-308-319 with the 309 still at the door and the 319 now fourth in. And more importantly, in the afternoon I brought the 36 and 309 over to the pit to finish up inspection work. They're shown above on the tail track.

Earlier in the day, Richard, Greg, Joel, Dan and Nick (not that Nick!) finished annual inspection work on the 2000s, so after that the pit was clear for the 36. My father had already finished most of the inspection work on both the 36 and 309 but we needed to do pit work (motor and truck inspection, mainly) on the 36 and roof inspection on both cars. Above is the view of Barn 4 from the roof of the 36. On the far track (43), L-R is the 306, 810, 4223, 300 and 19; on the center track are the Toledo steeplecab, 4146, 28, and 24/1024. Next to us on the pit track are a couple of Electroliner sections.

I had quite a bit of help on this inspection work. Joel completed the roof inspection on the 309 and also did the armature bearing and axle cap lubrication on the 36. Doodlebug Dan helped with brake adjustment and also helped retrieve our newly-tested air tank from the steam shop. Greg helped me fetch the other air tank from Barn 8 for priming and, speaking of that, Richard primed both of our air tanks (shown above) and offered to paint them black tomorrow - thank you! Nick Espevik also helped with switch moves to get the cars put back in the barn in the right order. It's truly a team effort. By the end of the day all of the cars had been inspected and all were back in Barn 8, in the correct order, and all trained together. While the Trolley Pageant may have been officially canceled for next weekend, we will be reenacting the abandonment of the CA&E on Sunday the 3rd in impressive fashion with all (or nearly all, depending on crew availability) of the museum's operating CA&E cars out on the railroad. There will also be a lot of other interesting electric cars running over the weekend plus the 1630, which if rumors are to be believed will be pulling some rather interesting consists.

Mark next weekend on your calendar - official shop mouser Mr. Socks says you'll regret it if you miss it!