Sunday report

Frank writes...

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day at the railway museum. The crowd seemed decent and in general things were running okay, with the wood 'L' cars and a diesel train on the main line and the 3142 on the car line.

My big project for the afternoon was installation of a new end window in the 18. The window to the motorman's left was cracked in half when the car arrived at IRM but a replacement piece of glass was obtained, cut to shape, and I got it installed as shown above. This drop sash is the only one of the three end windows - and the only window in the motorman's cab - that can be opened, so it will be important for ventilation purposes.

I also helped with sorting some parts and then did a little walking around. Tim Peters has nearly finished installation of rooftop appurtenances on the 1754, shown above. In other news, Norm and Jeff were working on the 28, Zach was looking at the 354, and Good Nick was working on 4000 catchers, while Bill Pollman was visiting from Seashore and discussing some pahts-related issues with our 'L' car crew.

I also did some testing of a 360-degree camera that is on loan currently. You can now visit the 309 digitally through the magic of Google Street View:

You can go to full-screen view using the bracket icon in the corner. I also took interior shots of the 36, 308, and 319. I'm hoping to take some additional images of IRM as a way of adding to our online presence, so stay tuned for the fun.

And finally, I managed to finish up painting of an OB trolley catcher which will be installed on the 205. I just put a quick (and thin) coat of orange on the back of the thing to seal it up; Richard Schauer had previously put a few coats on the front of the thing to make it look nice. Thanks, Rich! When the 205 was restored a few years ago we weren't able to find any correct OB catchers for it so it was fitted with OB retrievers, which look generally similar but are significantly larger. This catcher was part of a recently-acquired cache of spare parts and will replace one of the retrievers on the car. So at least one end will be correct in the catcher/retriever department!

REMINDER: We still need at least one, ideally two trainmen for the CA&E wood train this coming Sunday for the Vintage Transport Extravaganza. We are planning on running three cars but we don't currently have enough crew to have all three cars open. Help!