Sunday update

Frank writes...

Sunday saw some more incremental progress on the 18. One thing I wanted to check on was the fit of the new longitudinal seat frame. Success! Many thanks to my father for building this.

I was able to find a spare piece of sheet metal of the right thickness that will form the seating surface for this, and atop that will go a layer of felt (or something) and then the rattan. Eventually. I ran out of time before I could cut it to size and drill holes for the nails, but hopefully that will be relatively straightforward.

The next order of business was to sand down the windows I painted last week for a second coat, and also to paint the two additional windows on hand. All of this seemed to go just fine, with the result that we now have four windows that should - depending on how they look when dry - be ready to go back into the car, nice and freshly repainted. I also removed two more windows from the car that will be next in line for stripping and repainting.

And I trooped over to Barn 7 to gawk at the interior of the F305 again with Joel. This is the view from the center door toward the east end of the car. The large black block on the left is the bumper block that hangs under the frame at the east end of the car. It was built some years back, it just never got installed.

Back in the car shop, there's some exciting news on the D3-EG air compressor for the 36. Our air compressor guru, Dan, was obviously back at work on this and he has the motor portion all reassembled. Next up is working on the air pump portion, so as you can see, the pistons have been removed for inspection and any necessary work. One thing he told me that was a requirement of his was that once the pump is rebuilt, it needs a fresh coat of paint before it goes back on the car - we want it to look as good as it runs.

As for other activity, Thomas was working on rebuilding a retainer valve for the Pennsylvania Railroad bobber caboose; Greg and Bob were out on the railroad finishing up the project to restore power to the railroad following a downed tree last month; Tim was working on doors and window sash for the 1808; and Nathan and Mike were working with Joel on various projects. 

I also made a quick trip over to the Hoffman garage to pick up another information file from the Scalzo Collection, so keep your eyes out for another article. Richard was putting another coat of silver on the left side of the Connecticut Company bus, as shown here. He's also been stripping paint off of the bottom half of the bus preparatory to repainting that portion blue. By the way, we're interested in feedback on the steady diet of "smaller electric lines of Illinois" historical articles we've been publishing on the blog. Let us know what you think of these, good, bad, or indifferent.