In Tent City

Day Out With Thomas will be here before you know it, so there's a lot of in tents activity at IRM to get ready, as usual.  But we can keep the in tent city under control....  OK, I'll stop.  Just be sure to either bring some small children to ride the Thomas train, or volunteer to help out.  You'll be glad you did!

Here's the Thomas Tent City being readied for the festivities:

Paul and Gregg were working to put the two coach trains together:

Milwaukee streetcar 972 was our regular service car for the day.  We seemed to have a very good crowd, and most trips were nearly packed.  Fred Zimmerman is one of the regular weekday operators.  I hadn't gotten a chance to operate this car before, so Fred gave me an opportunity to get qualified today.   So I really appreciated that.

Here Fred is giving the car talk down at the grove.

I spent some time cleaning up parts I'd left lying around in Barn 8.  With the heat and humidity, anything much more strenuous wasn't feasible.  On the other hand, here we see Tim working on installing more parts of the new roof on 1754.  It will look great.

He has decided that horizontal siding will be a welcome change from the vertical siding all the other wooden cars have.  Don't worry, you'll get used to it.

Pete Galayda continues his work on doors for the Class B.

And Rich Block, one of our compressor experts, spent the day refurbishing a D3-EG which will be installed on Northwestern Elevated car 24.

Well, no wonder it wasn't working properly, with this rope wrapped around the commutator:

Here we see Rich making a new gasket for the valve head.

And Bill is painting all the special bolts and other parts for the compressor.

And I brought out a repainted and refurbished controller cover for the 308.

And I guess that's all I have for today.  But there are several major projects happening rapidly, and we'll have updates as they become available.