Getting Ready

Today was another busy day at the Museum, but most of the effort seemed to be directed towards preparations for next weekend, which will be a four-day weekend this year, and include all sorts of interesting activity.  You won't want to miss it (as we've said many times before, I admit!)

My main intention was to start repainting the interior of the 319.  It's not bad, but in several places it needs at least another coat of paint on the walls.  Working with the available lighting inside the barn, it looked fine, but when the car is outside in direct sunlight, it's obvious the paint coverage isn't uniform.  So I moved the car out of the barn and went to work.

It's hard to see in this picture, and I didn't even take any pictures of the finished product.

By lunchtime I had done about half of the smoker.  Then I noticed that another big switch move was underway over in Barn 7.  They were getting ready for the L car pageant next week.

Saturday, July 1st, will present the history of the Chicago L, starting with car 24, the first generation of elevated cars, through the present day.  We have an unparalleled collection of equipment, and it needed some shuffling to get it in position.

Track 72 was completely switched out.  This provided a nice view of the unrestored side of the 205.

This was left untouched to preserve all of the previous paint schemes in the car's long history.

So I decided it was a good time to do my own switching.  Sunday, July 2nd, will observe the end of CA&E passenger service 60 years ago.  The 319 will be running shuttle service from 50th Avenue, and the three blue cars will be running main line service, unless we get permission to abandon.  And there will be the usual trolley pageant; there will also be extra service on Monday and Tuesday.

Here's something you don't see every day:

Or this:

The 52 and several other cars will be on display at 50th:

A lot of other things were going on, as usual, which I didn't have time to photograph.  Dave has put up a nice new sign previewing the construction of the visitors' center:

Among other things, work is progressing on CA&E 451.  Here the guys are prepping two stepwells for painting.   (L to R)  Jeff Obarek, Fred Zimmerman, and a new member, Andrew Ossler.  It's great to see that the Museum is continuing to attract younger members, although of course people of all ages are welcomed. 

The B&G department has a lot of ongoing maintenance to do.  Dave Diamond and Jerry Lynn spent most of the day rebuilding a door on track 62.