Friday Features

 There is relatively little to report in the Car Dept. for today; I worked some more on the trap door for the 453, and then went over to Barn 8 to put the train together and fill the compressors with oil.  The three-car wood train will be operating on Sunday for Vintage Transport Day, and I wanted to make sure it was ready.  You won't want to miss it.  Bill Wulfert was the only other Car Dept. person I saw; John and Jane were working on seats for the Dover Strait, as usual.  But nothing much to take a picture of.

So on the way out I stopped over by Barns 10 and 11 to see for myself what's happening.  Here there was a lot to look at.  Out in front of Barn 10, several cars of the Museum's vast Rock Island coach fleet were placed, either being cleaned up or repainted.   They wanted to make as many of these look good for Thomas as they could, and it's pretty impressive.

Many of them look as though they've been repainted, but actually they have just been cleaned up and given a coat of Penetrol, which vastly improves the appearance.

At least one is in primer:

And another is getting its roof repainted:

Over in Barn 11, the Milwaukee Road dynamometer now looks like this:

They're getting ready to repaint it.

And I happened to run into Roger, who was glad to give me a tour of the Dover Strait, which is really making progress.  The exterior NYC paint scheme is excellent.

Inside, the parlor compartment is nicely done, and ready for service.  The floor needs carpeting installed eventually, and some of the furniture will be replaced, but most of the interior restoration is complete.

Roger said they were planning to make a brake test on the car later today, and he hopes to have it in service by Labor Day.

Here is one of the roomettes, with its upper berth and private washroom.  It's too compact to be easily photographed.  But as I told Roger, now all we need are manikins of Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint.

And then I met Buzz, so here is some of the lettering he's been doing on the freight cars.

And finally, the ex-Soo Milwaukee caboose.

And as usual, I'm sure there's lots of other things I missed.  But this is enough to show that the work never stops at IRM.