Tuesday Progress

There are so many different things happening at IRM, even on a weekday, that it's hard to keep them all organized.  Let's see how well I can do.

I'll start with the 453.  The second shift guys are helping with this; here we see that Greg has disassembled one of the trolley bases and will be refurbishing it for service.  This is a big help, as right now there's not a lot more that can be done on the roof until the bases are in place.

I was able to remove the rest of the screws holding the baggage rack on the south side of the smoker, and with some help from John I got it down and stored in the main compartment.  Now I can start prepping the walls.  Wire wheeling, however, gets old in a hurry.

This is where the first aid box should be, but it's been stolen.  Luckily I still have some replacements that I made several years ago.

Then I remembered that there were still two brackets for cables running up through the canvas that need to be caulked and attached.  So that got done.  I will still need some assistance to solder the connectors back onto the cables.

Tim wasn't out today, but I noticed that a new steel plate is now in place on the west end of the 2872.  He certainly works fast.

Let's take a break and see how urban development is going.  Here we're at the west end of the Central Avenue paving, looking southwest where the street makes a bend.  Lots of material has been dumped and rolled.

Here is where the pad for the North Western building will be.  It's been rolled also.

To its west, there's an empty lot waiting for a customer, and beyond it is the alley that will run behind the buildings.  Contact Diamond Realty if you're interested. 

We had a pretty good crowd of visitors for a weekday today, I think.  Service was provided by two CTA singles, with motorman Fred Zimmerman (shown) and conductor Robert Neil.  

The 309 and 319 will be running both days this weekend, so I went over to clean them up, and removed the yellow ropes.  We can now run them at 100% capacity.

John Sheldon was working hard on the 306 all day, and he has really made tremendous progress.  Here he showed me various paint samples for the orange paint; the final color has not quite been decided yet.  I think orange is especially hard to match.

Meanwhile, the window frames on both sides of the car have already been painted with a first coat of yellow.

And he was hard at work all day making new wood parts for the body posts.

Steve and Samuel Sanderson stopped by to paint some parts for the Electroliner out in the barn, and also visited the 453.

Speaking of which, I took some time to vacuum up the roof a little.  When the car is pulled outside and can run under its own power, this problem will solve itself, but I can't wait that long.  Anything to get away from wire-wheeling.

And after:

And I also sanded down the latest Bondo job on the end of the car, from several weeks ago.  It ought to be ready for primer.

And I did some touch-up black on the roof.  At this point, the canvas had gotten dirty from me climbing on it.

Back on the inside, wire-wheeling the south side of the car is much harder than the north, for some reason.  Getting even this little patch down to bare metal took a lot of effort.

And I finished up one of the end panels.  If you look closely, you can see the holes where the elevated license is attached.  Now we just need to locate one that will fit.  I went into the 460 to check on the placement of all these items.

And at the other end, we see the compartment for the wrecking tools.  At some point, this needs to be supplied with the appropriate tools.

EXTRA!   EXTRA!

We should mention again that the 309 and 319 will be running in regular service on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend, June 26 and 27.  Things are getting back to normal!

But wait, it gets better!  For July 3rd, a date that will live in infamy, we should have the three-car wood train, 36, 309, and 319, in service, plus a two-car steel train, 409 and 431, plus the 460.  That's six, count 'em, six CA&E cars that you can ride.  You won't want to miss it!

The 460 is currently over the pit for inspection.

TRAVEL ADVISORY

For those of you who haven't been out to the Museum lately, we should mention that a large road project is currently in progress at the intersection of Union Rd. and Route 20, by Seven Acres.  20 is detoured for two or three miles.  And it'll take several months, they always do.  This could be a real headache on a busy weekend, if you're coming from the south or east, as most of us do.  We can suggest a couple of detours.

Coming west on 20 from Elgin, I prefer to turn onto Briar Hill Rd. at Henpeck (where Big Timber crosses 20) and head north to Harmony Rd., then jog west to Seeman and north to the Museum.  If you're getting off the toll road at 20, you could head northwest on 20 to the new Harmony circle, then east on Harmony to Seeman.  Obviously, there are other routes you could take; any other suggestions are welcome.