Soggy Saturday

Sorry, we missed any news on Friday this week. So sue me. But I hope we have enough photos from today to make up for it.  The Museum was running regular service again, and we had a moderate number of visitors considering the dreary weather.  But as usual things were busy in the shop.

Mostly I was working on the roof of the 453, of course.  The #2 end of the car looked like this:

I had picked out a piece of oak to patch up the gap in the carline and shaped it at home.

It was then fit into place and bolted.  This job requires a lot of climbing up and down, I must say.

Meanwhile, here's Jon fixing up the trolley base for the 65.

And Tim is working on various details on the 1754.  Here he is needle-chipping the truck.

I also spent a lot of time drilling and grinding out screws in the ceiling panel in the vestibule.  It's a rough job, but somebody's got to do it.

And then there's the place where the horn was mounted on the #2 end.  It had rotted out badly.

With the help of John Sheldon's little circular saw, the bad wood was removed:

Underneath, there was a block that the horn base screwed into.  This was also rotted and had to be replaced.

And with considerable woodworking and some new roof boards, it's as good as new.

Seen from underneath:

Later in the day, I got some help from a new friend.  John Partridge, who lives in Boston and is a member at Branford, was visiting and helped by unsoldering the various connectors on the ends of the roof cables.  This is necessary so we can pull the cables down prior to installing the new canvas.

As you can see, at the #2 end all of the obstructions are now out of the way.   Thanks!!!

Finally, the Steam Dept. guys were installing the rebuilt cab on the world's largest 0-4-0.

Quite a tourist attraction!

So that was another exciting and productive day.  Remember that next weekend will be IRM's one-of-a-kind Museum Showcase, so there's lots more coming up soon!