Sunday update

Frank writes...

I was out on Sunday afternoon as usual. The first thing to do was to go check out the new occupant of the "roof booth":

Don't get too used to that bald roof! Of the five North Shore cars that have run in recent years, the 251 and 160 still have their original "lobster trap" roof mats, 749 had its replaced, and 757 isn't supposed to have any (it may have been unique in the NSL standard fleet in that regard). That leaves the 714, which alone among the NSL fleet doesn't look right: it received new roof canvas some fifty years ago but never got its roof mats put back on. But the time is now.

Well, okay, the time isn't right now. And the person is definitely not me. Instead, I headed over to Barn 7 to put some more Bankers Grey paint on the 18. As you may or may not be able to make out from this photo, the front one-third of the car - as far as the start of the drop center section - is now freshly painted. At some point I can also paint the number on here too, I suppose. I need to do some needle chipping in the drop center section and that will mean taking the car over to the pit lead before that area gets fresh paint.

After that, it was time to attend to the erstwhile denizen of the roof booth. The 453 is temporarily in Barn 6, but while it's on public display it needs to be secured. So I cut out some blocking to secure the side doors shut and locked up the end doors. I also took a stray ceiling panel that had been left behind in Barn 4 over and put it inside the car. This car was on display in Barn 6 for a while after it arrived and had a small laminated history sign, but I don't know what happened to that. Oh well.

Then for a little bit more Shaker Heights 18 activity, the final (I hope) ceiling panel got a coat of white primer. After one or two coats of finish paint, this will be ready to install and then the car's ceiling should be closed up.

The usual crew was out and working. Joel was trying to repair one of the golf carts and Zach was working on the 757, while Greg, Richard, Good Nick, and new volunteer Mike did some testing and basic repairs on the New York City subway cars. No, they're not in line for full restoration or imminent service, this was just to check and see how bad the sit-itis was. It sounded to me like their condition was better than you might expect given that they haven't had 600v on them for about a decade.

A visit to 50th Avenue around sunset was rewarded by this intriguing sight: the Decapod, for which Sunday was its last service day of 2021, was being used for switching the steam leads after the end of service. The sunset effects and the headlights on the engines sitting in Yard 9 were a nice touch.

Zach pointed out that Barn 4 is once again very Highwood-esque, what with three North Shore cars in the west half of the building. Shown here are the 160, getting an interior restoration; 714, now in for roof mat replacement; and 757, which is being reassembled and repaired preparatory to repainting.