Chipping and Grinding

Today was another productive day, with nice weather and good fellowship.  I would like to start on installing roof mats on the 714, but while the 453 is in the roof booth, that's the only available project.  So I did some more needle-chipping and wire-wheeling on the letterboard.  It's an unpleasant task, but somebody's got to do it.

Let's look back at where we left off last time.   And last time was in January, actually.  I had Andy Sunderland helping me back then.  And we got this far.

Unfortunately, Andy wasn't here today, so I did it all myself.  Here are a couple of progress shots.  A combination of techniques gets the job done, but it's very tiring.

Actually, as I look at these pictures, it's not clear just how far I got -- about a third of the way on one side.  By the way, below you can barely make out the original red A and N - sort of.  Luckily, Frank already traced all of the lettering.

And on the other side, there were still some plates bolted in place that should have been holding storm windows in place, but weren't.  So for a change of pace I removed them.

Well, enough of that.  Next door in the 160, Fritz the new guy continues his painstaking work on the interior, helping Pete.

The refinished woodwork looks beautiful.  A lot like the 309.

And the not-so-new guy Jon Fenlaciki is putting the interior of the 65 back together. Some of the ceiling had to be disassembled to access the roof from beneath.

John wasn't here today, but he has been working steadily, and good progress is being made on the 306.  The roof is being painted, and window frames are being attached.

Finally, let's go over to 7 and see what's happening with the Electroliner.  

The regular group of insiders continues to work on the interior.  Here we see that the entire floor of the bar/dining car has been stripped and sanded down.  Most of this will be covered with carpet.

The next car is still being used to store parts and tools, but will eventually be cleaned up.

Finally, we see some more progress on the end car, which Ed and John have been working on for a while.  It looks great.

They're ready to start installing a seat or two as a test.

So that's pretty exciting.  Meanwhile, many other things were going on.  There were several people working over in 11, for instance, but I didn't have the time to go visit them.  Maybe next week.