Finishing up

Frank writes...

Sunday afternoon I was able to continue with some of the final touches on the 205 as well as keep going with my current secondary project, completing the repainting of the left side of the 150. First off, I was able to reattach one of the 205's "nickel seat" backs that had come loose from the wall. Then Dan Fenlaciki helped me by tightening the tension on one of the car's trolley bases a little bit. It could still use some more attention but this will help. To make a long story short, back around 2008 or so we got some rusty trolley bases from storage and backed off the tension as much as possible, so as not to put too much pressure on the trolley hooks, but we backed one off a bit too much and it won't hold the pole tight up against the trolley hook. There are worse problems to have but it's a good thing to address.

After this work I decided to head over to the 150 and start painting. Just after I got over to Barn 8 the skies opened up, as seen above. It was quite the deluge, and anyone who has spent time at IRM during rainstorms knows that the rain hammering on the barn roofs makes a tremendous din. I was glad that my original plan for the day, to pull the 319 over to the pit lead for needle chipping work, hadn't ended up happening!

And here's the result of a couple of hours' work on putting Tile Red paint on the 150's windows. All of the car's windows now have finish paint, though I'll still need the Tile Red paint for the belt rail stripe on this side of the car. Next will be some more primer, then the belt rail stripe and the cream color around the windows, then a final coat of orange and the car's left side will be ready for lettering.

And here's the reason the 319 didn't make it over to the pit: spam cans! A crew of volunteers including Joel Ahrendt, Nick Espevik, Greg Kepka, and Richard Schauer were working on hooking up newly-installed traction motors on 6656 all day; the 6600s are near the camera and the single cars, there as locomotives, are further away.

Here's Nick (under the truck) and Richard working on the installation. By the end of the day the motors were hooked up and the car ran for the first time in some three years. After inspection work is done this will give us another pair of operating "L" cars. More spam for everyone!

In other news, Jeff Brady was working on the Michigan car while John was over in the Electroliner end car continuing with interior work. The woodworking club is coming to visit in the next couple of weeks so if anyone reading this has anything they've left in the wood shop or "lean-three" then make sure you retrieve it in the immediate future before it gets thrown out or otherwise relocated!