North Shore Push Pole Wanted

Today we'll start with the IRM Want Ads.  Buzz and Lorne have been working on the North Shore caboose, 1003, which they plan to have open for the public this year with various displays.  It's located in Barn 6.  Here Buzz is patching up the side of the car next to the barn wall, which was badly rotted.  

Lorne is standing by to hand out tools and parts as needed:

Below, a customer appears at the window and puts in an order.  As always at IRM, you get quick, courteous, and reliable service.

By the way, we were discussing the exposed tie rods you see against the wall.  I can't believe these are part of the original design of the car, but they've probably been there a long time since the North Shore installed them.  Buzz wanted to know whether anybody has interior pictures of a North Shore caboose in service.

Notice the two big brackets on the wall ( red arrows).  These must have been for supporting a push pole.  We would like to have a push pole mounted there as part of the display items.  It doesn't have to be a North Shore pole, I suppose, any type would do.  A couple of our locomotives have one mounted under the tender, but of course we don't want to take one from the Steam Department.  So if anybody knows how we could acquire one legitimately, preferably as a donation, please let us know!

The subject of push poling is an interesting one.  I wonder if anyone now living has ever tried it successfully.  I can think of lots of things that could go wrong and almost nothing that could go right.  And almost all of our yard tracks are too far apart to even consider something so preposterous.

So what's going on in the shop?

 Jack Biesterfeld continues to work on windows for the Green Bay car, which is now known as the 109, we are told.  

Tim is making patch pieces for the letterboard of the 1754.

And here we see a crew of shopmen installing the new baggage door in the 213.

It's not easy.

But with enough brains and brawn, it gets done quickly.   Below:  John Faulhaber, Gerry Dettloff, Paul Cronin, and Pete Galayda.  Gerry points out that the door will be painted with a final coat to match the rest of the car.

I spent most of the day sanding down the grey and red areas on the south side of the 308.  It should be warmer on Saturday, so I hope to start repainting the grey color then.

A rebuilt train door for the 1565:

John F. continues to work on windows for the Sand Springs 68:

Ed Oslowski and John Arroyo continue to make progress inside the Electroliner:

Ed proudly shows off this nicely polished cover for a switch in the motorman's compartment...

... which is almost blinding with all the reflections from the metal sides:

Next door, Jeff Brady continues work on the 28.  Finger points to recently welded patch.

Pete is putting a first coat of grey on the door for the Class B:

By the end of the day, I did some spot-priming on the 308.

And finally, the spare switch group we saw last time has had many useful parts removed and put into storage.

And as usual, there were several other projects going on that I didn't catch on film:  Victor and Dave Rogan working on the Pennsy cabin car, Dave Diamond fixing building doors, Bob Olsen working on Pullman car windows, Bob Olson working on signals (I hope I got that right!) and so on.  What fun!