Two out of four ain't bad

Frank writes...

I was able to make it out to IRM for a few hours Sunday and managed to check off two out of the remaining four items on the 205 "to-do" list. Not bad for an afternoon's work! The first thing was to get some black paint on the step well at the east end of the car. This had been partially primed, which unfortunately made it stand out like a sore thumb. Some black spray paint took care of it. Before and after:

And then there was washing down the seats. This took a couple of hours but it needed doing; the seats in the car were horrendously dirty. I figure they probably haven't actually been clean, per se, since soon after the car was taken out of service in 1958 and the last time they saw water it was coming from the sky and being filtered through what was left of the car's roof. Some of the seats are really trash but most are okay, if not pristine. Another before and after of one of the nickel seats:

It's not a huge difference but it helps. Here's the interior of the car at the completion of the cosmetic restoration. Not a lot was done to the interior other than straightening and general cleaning.

The two remaining tasks on the car are, first, to reattach one of the nickel seats to the wall (the screws have pulled out of the seat back but can be reattached); and second, to install door edge rubber on the new door leaves. This is the process of being sourced and ordered.

My other good deed for the day was to gather up the four serviceable CA&E marker lanterns, test them, and put them into secure storage where we can get at them next Saturday. The plan is to run the wood cars after dark as part of Members Day and having four markers means we don't have to carry them through the train every time we change ends, we can just switch lenses.

BREAKING NEWS - MET CAR BEING WORKED ON

You read it here first - there's a Met car being worked on over on the pit lead!

...well, okay, it's not a real Met car. But it does say Met on the side.