Incremental Progress

Slow and steady progress is all that's feasible under the circumstances, but it's a lot better than doing nothing at all.  This roof work on the 453 takes me back to my early years on the 309, c. 1976, except that back then I had to work standing on a step ladder, and there were lots more nails and tacks due to the one or more layers of tar paper that had been applied over the years.   So I can't complain.

First of all, I removed the remaining two saddles at the west end of the roof, along with the grab iron, the remaining canvas, and other crud.  

Speaking of the grab irons, for future reference:

By the time that was finished, I decided it was already too hot to continue working on top of the roof.

So the next task is that we need to remove the center ceiling panels in both vestibules, so that we can access the cables, piping, and other things that project up through the roof.  Like several other things on these cars, the panels are held with about five times as many screws as necessary, so it's a tedious job.

At the #2 end, seen here, I managed to remove all but five or six screws, but those will need to be drilled or ground away.  Or perhaps a small offset screwdriver might work.  Then I started briefly on the #1 end panel, but that appears to be even harder.  Ugh.

By the way, "radial arm saw" was the correct answer to yesterday's quiz.

Buzz is making good progress on this machine.

Finally, I started removing the rest of the tacks and canvas from the #1 (east) end of the roof, all the way around to the north side. 

With a fan on the platform, barely seen above, it's pretty tolerable.

So that's it for today.