Sunday Coda

Frank writes...

My father described the morning operations and abandonment reenactment on Sunday, so I'll see if I can pick up where he left off. I ended up sticking around into the evening.

First off, I got this nice shot of the 1630 departing on an eastbound trip while the 309 and 36 were in the tail track. This was another day with a lot of trains moving at once - on one of our trips, we were pulling out of Station 1 pacing the 1630, which was right alongside us pulling up to the east end of Station 2, and meanwhile ComEd 4 was passing both of us westbound on the main with the caboose train. Neat stuff! Dispatcher Larry Stone kept everything moving smoothly all day. After the CA&E cars were put away around 1pm, a North Shore train and the three-car IT "Tangerine Limited" held down service in the afternoon.

After changing into work clothes, I was able to get some help dragging the canvas from the 460 off the car and onto the lawn between Barn 3 and Yard 4 east. Many thanks to Nick, Greg, and Mikey! We decided that we hadn't gotten enough of the sizing out of the canvas, so that meant power-washing it. This was certainly a warmer job than the last time we tried this. Shown here is Nick, who with help from Greg got out the power washer and set it all up.

In the meantime, CTA 30, which has been restored to its 1960s appearance complete with bow trolleys, was on the pit lead for inspection and some tweaks to the couplers. Here Nick (L) and Greg show off the bent-up hinged cover to the couple button box, which protects the electrical connector buttons from debris and weather damage when not in use and folds underneath the coupler when MUed to another car. The official CTA name for this item is the "diaper." So now you know. Later in the day, after trolley bus operation ended, Jerry came over and was working on this car along with Greg and Nick.

The power washing took about three hours, and then we left the canvas until after dinner so that it could air dry a bit. A large group of eight or nine people including Nick, Greg, Joel, Mikey, Zach, Brian L, Lee E, and Doodlebug Bob (and maybe one or two others - my apologies if I'm forgetting anyone!) carried the now-heavier canvas back up onto the scaffold and laid it out on the roof of the 460 to dry. This is Lee from the Diesel Shop, who probably doesn't get a lot of time atop wooden roofs over in Barn 2. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped with this!

And Joel, helping get the canvas spread out. Some work is also due to be performed on the car's tack molding, so for now the canvas was left somewhat bunched up to permit that work to go forward. And finally, after this I spent about an hour wire wheeling more of the smoker interior inside the 460. I got the rest of the smoker/main compartment bulkhead done (well, the visible part - there's a section of this wall hidden behind seats, so that may just get a quick overcoat instead of the full down-to-bare-metal treatment). Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the progress; oops.