Labor Day Preparation

Labor Day weekend is almost here, and that means another of our Museum's annual celebrations.  CA&E cars will be running all three days; we'll use two wood cars unless rain threatens, in which case two steel cars will be used instead.  Either way, you'll get plenty of opportunity to ride and take pictures.  And if you're a blog reader, be sure to stop by and say hello.

First of all, let's meet some visitors.   Chuck Lind (in the blue shirt) and his friends visited IRM on their way to a Narrow Gauge Convention coming up soon.  Chuck used to live near Elgin, and he wanted to donate a scrapbook filled with CA&E paperwork and pictures he took near the end, in 1962.  He said he was sure his children wouldn't want it, and so he wanted to find a good home for this material.  We certainly appreciate donations of this sort, and when I've had a chance to look through it and scan in some of it, I'll post it here.  Thanks, Chuck!  And of course we encourage anybody else with a collection of historical railroad material to consider donating it to IRM.

On Sunday evening the CA&E cars will be operating in the dark until 9:30, so I wanted to make sure we're ready.   Here are two marker lights and a tail light, with the burners lit.  

And even on a Thursday, Car Dept. work continues.   Tim is sanding down various parts of the 1754; you can see where much of the end is newly painted.

In the Electroliner, John is applying white primer to most of the surfaces inside the motorman's cab.

And here is the door to the cab in white primer.

Nick continues to install wiring for the DC lights on the 50th Avenue platform.

And I checked that the headlight circuits work, as well as the oil in the compressors, flags, and so on.

 I also coupled up the 36 and 309, since we may want to use these two cars for publicity purposes sometime soon. 

This bracket, holding a window shade for the pocket door, got bent somehow and had to be straightened out.  

When the door is closed, this shade would have been pulled horizontally across the window at night.  

As for Labor Day Weekend, you'll want to read the IRM website for details.  The approximate operating schedule for the CA&E cars will be as follows:

Saturday:   10AM - 3PM

Sunday:      3PM - 9:30PM

Monday:   10AM - 5PM