It's Too Darn Hot

It was hot and humid today, being the middle of summer, so not a lot of heavy lifting got done.  Anyway, I started by working on the hole in the roof of the 460.  I had hopefully tried steaming some pieces of wood and home and bending them into shape, as seen here in my workroom.  But they didn't stay bent enough, and the first one snapped while I was installing it.  

So I now have a different plan for filling the gap, but I'm not going to tell you what it is until it actually works.

I cleaned up all the tools and parts I had used for installing the air tanks under the 36.  After that was done, here's a more rewarding task.  From pictures, it appears that all of the folding signs on the wood cars originally had a latch that looked like this:

But this is the only one we've got.  The one at the other end of the 309 disappeared, as did both of the latches on the 308.  Here's one I made from hardware store parts several years ago.  It's OK, but not great.

But while looking through the 321 a few weeks ago, I happened to kick a loose part on the floor.   It was a brass casting we had made as a test several years ago.  Unfortunately, the surface was very rough and it was set aside as unusable.  But I took it home, filed it down somewhat, and then applied Bondo over the surface, and sanded that down.  Much better.  And today I installed it.  It will need at least another coat of blue, but it should look much like the original.

And while I had the blue paint out, it's time to fix the lettering on the 308.  Somehow, we had thought that this message read "Do Not Board a Moving Car" but it is certain that the last word is "Train".  I determined that this can be easily fixed.  "CAR" is reduced to "AI" as seen here, and will then be expanded to "TRAIN".  The 36 should probably also have this message by the side doors, and it would be good to have them both correct.  And I touched up some of the recent lettering in the 36.

The 309 had been having problems with the controller at the #1 end; it was arcing excessively on the fifth point (full series).  There is no real way to adjust the tension on the controller fingers, so I tried swapping the finger with one that is used only in parallel, which we don't need.  The problem seems to have gone away.  And then there was some more sorting of parts and cleaning.

Tim showed off the hardware for the gates on the 24, all parts of which are now in position at both ends.  You can see the castings recently installed with shiny screws that stop the gate from swinging too far.  He also worked some more on the window shades and other parts.  It's getting closer to completion!

Pete Galayda and John Faulhaber worked on sequencing the control system for the Charles City engine; it's mostly functional, but there are some contactors that aren't coming up in parallel when they're supposed to.  Some adjustments to the reverser also need to be made, but it's getting close to operation.

John Arroyo and Ed Oslowski continue to fix up the Electroliner, inch by inch.  It's nice in here, due to the portable air conditioner.  

Ed explained how he had to reset the tiles on the floor in this corner, due to water damage.

Brake shoes made a handy set of weights for gluing the tiles.

Patching up the ceiling.  They were trying to determine exactly what material this is.

The motorman's cab will be next.  It sure is a strange shape; you can't see it from this, or almost any picture, but there is a triangle extending out to the left that is inaccessible to man.  The carefully stenciled warning "Do Not Spit In Cab" is also striking.  What was it with the North Shore?   Out in the western suburbs I would think that people, or at least motormen, were more civilized, since this message wasn't needed.  But I could be wrong.