Vintage Washout, Part II

Frank writes...

As a follow-up to my father's description of the Vintage Transport Extravaganza, plans for operating the CA&E cars pretty much went out the window, given that it never stopped raining between about 7am and 2:15pm. I'd worn work clothes, as I was optimistically hoping to check compressor oil, etc, so I spent much of the day in the shop.

My first priority was to make progress on the replacement for the 18's second roll sign, which you may recall from last last year. This is the sign that goes over the entry (forward) door, and it's much simpler than the one over the exit door, with just four "destinations." The two signs were obviously meant to be read sequentially, i.e. Terminal Express, etc. In the spring, Buzz Morrissette kindly designed and procured vinyl masks so that we could make this sign ourselves, while Bill Wulfert tracked down a roll of book-binding material that is just about ideal for the backer.

The vinyl masks come with backing material on both sides, so the first image shows the vinyl stuck to the book-binding roll with the "top" backing still on, while the second photo shows all of the backing removed.

At this point it was time to spray the material. When Tim did this for NWERR 24 a few years ago, he'd had problems with the spray paint wicking or creeping under the masks, given the texture of the book-binding material. The best paint he found was black Rust-Oleum Roof Accessory paint, which either dried fast enough or was thick enough to have little or no wicking. However despite the manufacturer's insistence that they sell this product in black (repeated insistence over the course of several rounds of emails), nobody they sell it to actually sells it to anyone else. So you can't buy it. That took a while to determine.

So I sprayed the roll sign with the closest color of Roof Accessory Paint that is sold, which was a kind of gray. Then this will be over-coated with black, after which the masks will be removed. I do not know how well this will turn out, but I'm hoping it looks right. If it does, I'll work on affixing this to the original rollers out of the car and then re-mounting it on the 18.

Tim isn't usually out on Sundays, but he came out to see the regular service debut of the 1754. However due to the regrettably small crowds, the CRT wood train didn't run either. So he was working in the shop all day and I got to check out some of his "assembly line" processes for getting a lot of work done in the most efficient way possible. Above, he's already milled and cut to length quite a bit of new tongue-and-groove siding for the 1808 (though he emphasized that this is less than a quarter of what the car needs) and he's now priming all of the board edges, i.e. the actual tongues and grooves. This is done by clamping all of the boards together and using a sprayer to spray all of the grooves at once. Nifty!

Later on, he had a different set of boards laid out on the workbench and was using a roller to paint the (I think back) faces with primer.

In the afternoon I made my way over to the bus barn, and I missed seeing Richard but I did get a chance to chat with Ray, who is in town for a few weeks. I also snapped this photo of the ConnCo bus we got from the museum in St. Louis a few years ago. Richard is mostly, if not entirely, done with painting this side of the bus, except for lettering. It's blue from the belt rail down and light grey along the windows, with a silver roof and blue stripe along the drip rail.

IN OTHER EXCITING NEWS, Pullman sleeping car "John Greenleaf Whittier" has arrived at IRM! Partly due to the rain, I didn't get any photos of it, but it is on museum property, having been moved from its former location in Alamosa, Colorado. We hope to have more information, and photos, soon. Donations are needed to help defray the cost of transporting it - you can help!

I also helped Joel a little bit with organizing and sorting stuff in the car shop, including going through a portion of a collection of ephemera that was donated a couple of weeks ago. It included this rather odd coloring book. Remember, don't let this question go unanswered in your family - bring your grandkids to IRM!