Ups and Downs

Frank writes...

Sunday was a very nice day on the railroad, 60s and overcast. When I first arrived, I stopped by the bus barn (more about that later) and then proceeded over to Barn 4. My first task was to take the two 18 windows I painted last week, one of which was the side window right behind the front corner post, over to the car and install them.

So the car now has a full set of windows on the door side, though one of them is a temporary one out of the 318. But it's getting there. After this, it was back over to Barn 4, where I spent a while helping Joel, Greg, and Jeron on the 3142. Our primary service car has been out of service so far this spring due to a cracked leaf spring binder, but that was repaired and returned this past week. The truck was put back together before I arrived, so the next step was to jack the car up and swap out the shop truck.

Here's the 3142 up in the air. Jacking up cars is always nerve-wracking for me, but Joel and the other guys have it down to a science using a couple of big pneumatic jacks. So the car went up, the old Intramural Railway truck went out (and was removed by Jeron via forklift), and then the 3142's proper truck went back underneath.

So the car is now back down at its correct altitude (the Intramural Railway shop truck it had been sitting on was too tall, so the car was sitting "down at the stern" as Greg described it). Later on, Joel, Greg, and Nick reattached the brake rigging, and I believe the final step was going to be reattaching motor leads. Unless something unexpected crops up, the car should be back in service within a week or two. (UPDATE: the 3142 has been released for service as of Tuesday evening!)

While we're on the subject, here's that Intramural Railway truck. This was built (I believe by Gilbert?) in 1893 for the world's second (by about two months) electrified elevated railway, the Intramural Railway at the Chicago Columbian Exposition. I don't know what it did for the first half of the 20th century, but in the late 1950s Bill McGregor acquired it and an identical companion for ERHS because he wanted to build a replica open trailer to pull behind the 2846. Or something. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.

After the truck project, it was back over to the 18. Priming over some Bondo patches last week revealed a couple of spots I wasn't too happy with, so I did some more sanding and then some more spot-priming. And then I grabbed the "Bankers cream" paint and painted the steel areas around the car's doors, as shown here. It may need a second coat at some point, and I still need to do the wood trim around the doors and window, but it's an improvement.

When I first showed up and stopped by the Hoffman garage, Richard was about halfway done with painting the left side of the Connecticut Company bus with a first coat of blue paint.

Predictably enough, when I stopped by later, the job was finished. It really looks nice! He explained that this is the first of two coats, and actually isn't the final color because the first gallon we had matched wasn't quite right. But it works as an initial coat. This bus will get metallic gold "Connecticut Company" lettering underneath the windows, which should be pretty sharp.

In the evening I spent a while on a worthy project, the 460, unbolting the seats in the smoking compartment from their frames. Once I got the hang of it, and located the right wrenches and sockets, it went fairly quickly. The main compartment of the 460 was largely repainted at some point but the smoker evidently never was, and the paint is flaking off badly. So I figure I'll wire-wheel and repaint the smoker walls while the car is in the shop for roof work. Thanks to Greg for helping with this, especially for hooking up a battery charger to get the lights working! I didn't get any photos, but I will once we move the seats into the main compartment. I did get a photo of this: the crew working on test fitting the angled dasher panel on the east end of the 415. L-R: Jeron, Greg, Good Nick, and Matt K. from the diesel shop, who was visiting Barn 4 to check out the neat stuff.