Sunday update

Frank writes...

Sunday was pretty busy in the car shop. Most of the activity centered around two 'L' cars on the pit track, 4410 and wood trailer 1268, the latter of which was over the pit. A group including Richard, Joel, Greg, Jeron, and Chris from the steam shop, who was helping out for the day as part of his application for regular membership, were all working on running some new control wires. Some of the wiring from the controller at one end had shorted out so new wires needed to be pulled from the controller at that end to the junction box. Unlike the CA&E cars, where the wires from the controller go to a junction box under the platform and from there to the contactor box, on the 1268 there's just one junction box in the middle of the car. That means the conduit has some creative bends in it - and if the wiring has been in there for many decades, pulling it out can be interesting.

And so it was. Here Chris, Joel, and Richard take a look at the junction box before wire pulling started. By the end of the day they had to start disassembling the conduit as the old, stiff wire couldn't be pulled intact through the kinks and bends in the conduit. Stay tuned.

In other 'L' car news, Thomas and Nick were continuing to work on sprucing up the interior of CTA 4410. I failed to get any photos of their work but Nick was working inside the car while Thomas was out in the barn wire-wheeling standee grabs. And in other news, Doodlebug Bob was machining something on one of the mills while Norm was bolting more steel together on Michigan 28. The regular 'Liner crew was over in the end car doing interior work there too. And Zach was hard at work on North Shore 757; besides finishing up interior painting in the smoker he also repainted the correct air horns for the car, which were discovered in one of our parts cars.

As for me, I mostly puttered around the 18. A couple of the seat cushions in the car were badly ripped but we also received a couple of spares. I was able to swap one spare in to replace a ripped cushion; the second spare will need a bit of work to get it to fit right. I also attached some additional hardware to secure the seat cushions that had been installed last week.

And then there was this. Years before car 18 came to IRM, its keepers in Cleveland, in their wisdom, decided to take one of the large Masonite ceiling panels near the back of the car down. I'm not sure why this was necessary - all of the other ceiling panels are kind of wavy due to years of moisture but they're intact and fine where they are for the moment. This panel was left in the center aisle sitting upright, where it acquired some impressive waves and bends, plus the seat backs it was leaning against managed to punch through the Masonite. So it's now basically useless. I was hoping to reattach it to the ceiling for the time being, mostly to get it out of the aisle, and a group including Greg, Zach, and Nick went over to the car to try and lift it into place. But it's just too warped to secure in the ceiling. So instead we took it out of the car so it can be measured and a replacement panel made. The holes down the center are for vents plus one for a light fixture; all of these parts are in storage. I also spoke to Joel about the possibility of switching the 18 somewhere it can be under wire, as we are hoping to get the car running depending on the condition of its air and control systems.