We Know You Have Sand, Illinois

 Today's educational subject is sandblasting, so be sure to take good notes.  

One of the many current projects is restoring our big North Western crane 6363, which has been up on blocks south of Barn 9 for a while.  So our semi-portable sandblasting equipment has been moved to that vicinity so Gregg could sandblast the entire thing.

On Tuesday, as they were getting set up, Frank Kehoe suggested that they could also do a couple of baggage racks from the 453 while they were at it.  He called me to get permission, and then moved the two that had been removed from the smoker down to the work site.

Here's an example of one which has been partly blasted (on the left).

And here it is complete.

The "sand" is actually crushed glass, mixed with water.  I take this to mean we're using old whiskey bottles and broken windows to do the work, rather than excavating beaches and sand dunes.   Save the environment and recycle! 

When I arrived, Rick Marzek was helping Gregg, and he also helped with my baggage racks.  Later, project manager Mark Secco arrived.

I transported the two baggage racks over to Barn 4 and rinsed them off, then left them to air dry for a while.

Frank K. was a great help in handling these large, heavy racks, and the we managed to remove two more for eventual blasting.  It's not easy, because several of the machine screws were frozen and had to be drilled out, but we got the job done.  Here's a not-very-good picture of him in the process of driving an impact hammer on a difficult screw.

With the two racks removed, the main compartment looks like this.

And for now, the racks are stored alongside the S-105.  Next step: primer!

My thanks to Gregg, Rick, and Frank for all their help today.  I couldn't have done most of this without their assistance.  As I mentioned, these racks are big and heavy, held in with way too many screws, and are evidently designed to hold a load of lead bricks.  Not at all like the brass racks the wooden cars are equipped with. 

By the way, is anybody missing a door?

In other Car Shop news, John Sheldon was hard at work on the curved molding strips for the 306.

  

Here's his setup outside the shop, with the boiler to the left and the steam pipe on the right.  Once the 306 is finished, our next product will be "bourbon".

Oh, and after straightening up the baggage racks, I spent some more time needle-chipping the letterboard.

And by the middle of the afternoon, a lot of progress had been made on the crane.

I believe that's Marko in the white suit.

And that's what we have for another interesting and productive day at the Museum.  In a little while, I'll have another armchair travelogue for you to enjoy.

More from last Saturday

Buzz sends us some more great pictures and information from last Saturday:

While working in barn 13 on Saturday, I saw Bob and company laying track into yard 12. 

I found out the way to make straight track into curved track: give the prybar to the big guy!

I also snapped a couple shots of ArnFest.

That's Eric Hoyem in the center giving a deluxe tour of the big machines in the Steam Shop.

And the last of the demonstrations going on the Electric shops, including a 3 D printer making a tool guide.

Sunday in fall

Frank writes...

Sunday I didn't arrive until mid-afternoon but it was a beautiful day to be out at IRM. Temperatures were in the 60s, maybe 70 or so, and it was sunny out. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be much of a crowd but hopefully there will be more people out next weekend for Steam in the Fall.

When I arrived I spent a while jawing with Ray and Richard over in the bus barn before heading over to the car shop. The first thing I wanted to do was get some of the stuff we acquired last weekend into safe storage. First up: nine bulkhead windows from Rochester Syracuse & Eastern cars shown above. These aren't anything we particularly need, but it turns out that the New York Museum of Transportation in Rush is interested in preserving them, so we will store the windows for them for a while. Many thanks to Greg for helping move these into storage.

Then Greg helped me get that K-63G controller out of the car shop, where it was doing no good, and into Knoxville 419, where it will someday do quite a bit of good. When we got to the 419, lo and behold, we found that there was already a K-63G in the car! It's missing a handle (no big deal) but it turns out we now have both of the controllers the 419 needs. Hey, the car's almost ready to run now.

While we're here, why don't we take a quick look at the interior of the 419. It's actually in very nice shape, as is the body of the car, which has essentially no rust or rot at all to speak of. It wouldn't take a whole lot to make this car into a very presentable display piece. And it's our only streetcar that was segregated in service, so we could potentially use it to tell a pretty important story. But I digress.

The rest of my day I spent work on the 18. I did some sanding on the left (blind) side of the car forward of the drop center section and then cleaned it up and spot-primed it. The next time I'm out, hopefully, this area will get a fresh coat of Bankers Grey. I stopped at the center section because there's some rust breaking through the steel there and I want to try blasting some of it out with a needle-chipper. To do that, I'll need to bring the car over to the pit lead. Stay tuned. I also cut another piece of plywood to size to fill the last remaining hole in the ceiling; I ran out of time before I could prime it, but in time it will get white primer and white paint and then will get installed.

Here's Dan showing off new hinges he has fabricated for one of the motorman's doors on the Electroliner. The original hinges rusted apart, so one (both?) motorman's door has just been temporarily fixed into place but not usable. You'll note that because the side of the train is curved, each of the three hinges is a different length.

In other news, Joel was working on repairing a contact tip in the gang switch on the 4391 that has been making operation of its MG set problematic while Greg and Good Nick did some troubleshooting on one of our two substations, which is apparently experiencing some issues. And at the end of the day the rotary snow plow was moved back and forth through the yard a little to make sure it's movable for next week. It's going to be officially unveiled and will be on display all weekend, so that will be impressive to see.

Super Diem Omnibus

Today was Bus Day at IRM, and that basically means it was a super day for everybody!  So let's get started with buses, for a change.  There were several on display out by the entrance.

And several more in operation.  I won't try to name them all.

In the Andersen barn, the Bus Stop Shop was in full swing again, with lots of books, model railroad items, and other memorabilia on display.  

And many more buses not in operation were open for visitors.  Just like downtown!

And it's been a while since I've been in the Hoffman barn.  The tunnel trains are still on display.

Mainline train service was held down by the 749 and 251:

And the IT Diesel was pulling the coach train.

I spent most of the day doing some sanding on the 453 with an orbital sander, which goes pretty quickly, if we don't need to get down to bare metal.

And I also started needle-chipping the letterboard on the north side, and got almost halfway along.

Of course lots of other things were happening, most notably Arnfest.  The Arnfest people all seemed happy with the facilities, as usual.   Thanks to everybody who helped make this another successful event for the Museum!

More Needle Chipping

I would much rather be working on lobster traps for the 714, but in times like these you have to take whatever jobs are available.  And so as long as the 453 is in the roof booth, it's either continue needle chipping or stay home.

Today I decided to see how it works on the lower side of the car.  Very little of the side is accessible because of the shelves in the scaffolding, but here's one section.  I verified that Frank had indeed traced this particular number, and then started with the needle chipper.

After a few minutes, it looks like this.  The red comes off easily, but the original white primer underneath just will not come off at all.  That's actually pretty much the same results as the letterboard, except that the red is more fragile.  We believe the red was probably repainted at Wheaton after service ended, and they were making half-hearted attempts to preserve the 450's for possible resale.

I asked Pete Galayda, our paint expert, to take a look at it.  He suggests that after needle chipping, it should be sufficient to sand down the primer until it's smooth, and then apply a new coat of primer.  That sounds much easier than wire-wheeling the entire surface to bare metal.

So I spent most of the rest of the day needle-chipping the letterboard again.  I finished the south side.

One needs to take frequent breaks, or your hands will seize up.  But slow and steady progress is good.

It's sort of strange how the original red Futura lettering has survived so long.  You may have noticed this with the number 453 up above.

And after the letterboard was done, it was time to start on the end.   Before:

And after:

Working around the corners is more difficult because of the layout of the scaffold.  It's important to be very careful in this dangerous situation.   Remember, this was the first day of fall.

Meanwhile, Pete and Fritz continue to do excellent work on the beautiful interior of the 160.  They're going along so fast it's almost a blur.

And here's one of the doors, waiting for installation.

Meanwhile, tomorrow will be the first day of the annual Arnfest at IRM.  So a couple of guys were here getting things set up.  The Car Dept. graciously allows them to use the Lean-2 and Lean-3 each year, and here we can see how unusually clean and empty they both are.

So step right up, ladies and gentlemen, if you're interested in old woodworking machines we can sign you in right here.

In other news, Bill W. was working on cleaning and repairing various parts, but I didn't get a picture.

The 101 was on the inspection pit.  A couple of weeks ago, since headlight circuits have been under study, I looked at the 101 when it was over in Barn 8, but I was unable to find where the headlight plugs in.

But once the car's over the pit, the receptacle is fairly easy to find.  I hope.

So that's our educational information for today.