A Bankers Grey Day

Frank writes...

Sunday was another grey day, but this time in a more positive sense.

Thanks to help from Greg and Joel, I was able to pull the 18 out of the barn (moving the 1374 and 4391 out of the way first) so that I had good natural light to do painting on the blind side of the car. And with this, I was able to roll fresh "Bankers Grey" paint onto the rear end of the car and onto the rear half of the car's blind side. I took the above photo after I was done, showing the fresh paint starting at the car's center line and proceeding all the way to (and around) the back end. You'll note there's still a short section near the center of the car that needs paint, but first I need to finish with some Bondo work near the bottom of the side sheets.

This photo was taken after the car was moved back into the barn and wasn't backlit any more. I also need to paint the front and rear bumpers black, but I'm glad to be making progress like this on improving the 18's appearance. Along with filling in that last section of the blind side, I also want to get fresh paint on the car's roof, which I think will make a big difference.

I also made more progress on the roll sign. I got the bottom end of the roll sign fitted to the roller, though I didn't get any photos of that. I also extracted the original roll sign from the top roller, shown here, which is a slightly different style.

A label on this roller reads "The 'Rex' All Metal Roller" ("Manufactured by the Curtain Supply Company, Chicago and New York") and includes instructions: "Wind spring in roller tight enough to take up slack in curtain when it is raised or covered. Spring should not be wound too tight or too loose as curtain will not operate properly. In either case, proper tension should be determined by trial [?]le roller is in brackets with notch turned up. After spring has been adjusted, roller should be turned over so that notch will be at bottom. When roller is placed in brackets and properly adjusted, slide lock along sleeve to end of barrel and tighten locking screw. To remove roller from brackets, lift pawl into notch by pushing pin or nail through hole in end of barrel just underneath pawl."

In other news, Joel and Greg were working more on cleaning up stuff stored under the Yard 4 East reefers, while Zach was in train service all day. The striking photo above, taken by Greg Kepka, was taken on Saturday of the three-car CRT wood train. On the west end is the 1754, which is now in service, though sometime soon it will briefly be pulled back out of service to have the correct motor truck put under the car.