Not just any Saturday

Frank writes...

I was able to make it out to IRM on Saturday for a somewhat abbreviated visit. It wasn't just any Saturday; at 5pm the governor's "stay at home" order took effect, so the main goal was to make sure any projects were buttoned up for a couple of weeks. Nobody wants to leave a pile of loose parts and then come back later having forgotten where they all go! For the next couple of weeks, the only people on the property will be security and necessary maintenance staff.

I mainly wanted to check up on the CA&E cars and also on the 18. I also took the opportunity to attach the 600 volt cables to the 18's trolley base, as shown above. There are two cables to the trolley base, one on each side, just for redundancy. Once we are confident that it's safe to put 600 volts to the car, we'll attach the rope to the trolley harp and it will be ready for "pole up."

Here's a peek through the windows of the Multi Purpose Building showing some recent progress on framing out the interior walls.

A few other members of the department were around, finishing up projects and tidying up. Thomas took some time to show me the work he has been doing on CTA 4146, the "Baldy," over the past six months or so. Pretty much the entire interior of the car has been sanded and primed, with finish paint now going onto the ceiling. Here we have the freshly-painted ceiling in one of the vestibules.

Here's a new wall panel, fitted, primed, and ready to be installed. A lot of work has gone into repairing deterioration in the wall framing and window posts.

And here's Thomas showing off some fresh paint on the ceiling at one end of the body of the car. Several spots in the ceiling had to be repaired, too, where there were holes. This isn't just cosmetic: the car's forced-air ventilation system works by drawing air through the space between the ceiling and roof, so to work properly the ceiling needs to be pretty well sealed.

Michigan Electric 28 is starting to look more like its old self now that the window sills and some framing pieces have been reinstalled on the front end. The progress on this project over the last few months has been very impressive.

So that's it from the car shop until the "stay at home" order is lifted, hopefully on the scheduled date of April 7th. Tim Peters wasn't out on Saturday but left a note that sums it up.