Shuffling the Deck

They say that card playing was always the railroaders' favorite diversion, so changing the order in which cars are stored on a track was known as "shuffling the deck".  (That's also the origin of names such as "Three-Spot", but I digress....)  And today that led to one of our hanger queens being towed out into the light of day for the first time in more than thirty years.  

Here's a sight you haven't seen for that time: our Fox River car 306 outside the barn.  It was acquired from Brookins back in 1985 in rather decrepit condition.  It ran under its own power for a few trips, and then restoration started.  This was not completed, for reasons I won't try to explain other than to say nobody's perfect.  And so it sat at the corner of Barn 4 for years.   Until now.

And look, you can see all the way down track 43 to the east end.

Our first car, Indiana Railroad 65, also had to be pulled out from the barn for this move.  It's getting a new roof, so it can't run under its own power.  But good progress is being made.

By the way, this is one of the more Byzantine aspects of switching.  I don't think I've ever seen a Tomlinson-to-knuckle adapter, so we have a Tomlinson-to-Van Dorn adapter with a Van Dorn-to-knuckle adapter in order to pull the 65 with a locomotive.  

The most pressing reason for doing this was to put the Cleveland PCC over a concrete floor.  There's concrete between the rails only for two car lengths at the east end of the barn, so they wanted the PCC at the end of the track.   And the 65 needs to stay where it is, and so on.  Luckily, we have the best brains in the business to figure this all out.   Don't look at me.

And here's the fare box in the spray painting booth.  

 And in other switching news, the Decapod made its way back to the Steam Shop for the winter.