LSE Shop Report

Last week while doing some cosmetic work on our Lake Shore Electric coach #150, I removed what appeared to be one of the better clerestory windows, but the sash came apart in the process.   Here's what it looks like after a post-mortem dissection.

From the outside:  The sash is hinged at the right.   Notice that there are four wood pieces: two stiles, a bottom rail, and the upper rail includes the arch.  It's tongued into a groove in the right hand stile.

From the inside:   There are several layers of paint from the car's days as a house in two different cities, and then as a flower shop in Pittsburgh.

There is a hole through the bottom rail for attaching the opener mechanism.

The mechanism looks like this.  The outside was so encrusted with paint I wasn't sure how it was attached, but it's just two large nuts on the outside of the rail, and one on the inside.

The last picture in this post shows how it looks when mounted on the car.

The car's interior finish is cherry, and I'm sure that's what the sash is made of.   In service, it had a nice bright stain, covered with varnish of course, and in several places it's still in good condition under all the paint.  See the interior pictures in the car's history.

It's hard to get a good picture of the etched glass at home.  Instead, I have a couple of pictures taken on the car.   The strange thing is that all of the clerestory windows on the right side of the car have a different pattern than the windows on the left.  On the right side, there is sort of a floral pattern, with a clear border around the edges:

And on the other side, it's just this wavy pattern with no border.   I have no idea how this came about. 

 Anyway, as time permits, I'll make a couple of new clerestory sashes, and the hinged one should have a working mechanism.