Sunday update

Frank writes...

I arrived at the museum a bit later than usual Sunday afternoon but kept busy. The first task was to try and get more accomplished on repainting the 18. I had hoped that I might be able to run the car over to the pit lead and do some necessary needle-chipping, but on/off rain all day nixed that. Instead I did some wire wheeling, Bondo application, sanding, and spot-priming around the back of the car.

At the back right corner, you can see the results here. I didn't do anything to the angled "dasher" piece directly over the bumper on the right side of the car because there's a spot with some rust jacking that I want to try and address with the needle chipper. But the entire rest of the rear end of the car got Bondo and spot-priming as needed, and is now ready for grey paint.

At the back left of the car, you can again see evidence of past "18" and "1218" numbers. If you look really closely you can also see evidence of the yellow "hourglass" design from the car's end-of-service livery. That "1218" on the left is the last instance of the car's Trolleyville-era number to go away. Unfortunately I ran out of sandpaper after getting one window forward from the corner of the car.

The 453 may be out of Barn 4, but the 453 project lives on. Gregg had kindly sand-blasted a third and fourth baggage rack for the 453 before toting them both back over to Barn 4. I cleaned these two up and then sprayed them with primer. They're now ready for a coat of "whatever color" finish paint, after which they (and the two previously-painted racks visible in the left background) can go into the car. At some point when the interior walls get repainted, these too will be painted the correct color.

As usual, there were several people out and about working on various projects. Zach and Good Nick were working on sourcing spare parts for use on the roof of the 714, particularly metal reinforcement straps that are needed for the lobster traps. Bill was working on window shades for 4000s and Jon was working on the roof of the 65. I also saw several other people briefly including Mike S., Tim, and Dave Conrad, who reported that he's finished repairs to the air piping under the floor of the Ingersoll-Rand boxcab.

And finally, here's something pretty nifty. Coach Department volunteer Tim Fennell has been sending me some roster shots of cars at IRM for inclusion on the website, and mentioned that his interest had been piqued by the fact that we'd never figured out the fleet number of our Tri City Railway & Light car body. After a couple of emails back and forth, he agreed to tackle this mystery and headed out to Yard 15. He was able to carefully remove (and later reinstall) several window post caps, and each of them had the car number stamped on the inside: 483. We already knew the car was from TCR&L's 451-485 series built by American in 1913, so this discovery gives it a real identity for the first time in many decades. Thanks, Tim!!