More Cleanup

Frank writes...

Sunday was a reasonably warm, with highs in the low 60s, and I brought out my lettering paint with the idea of painting some numbers on the 18. But for better or worse, the Car Department is really under the gun to get the east half of Barn 4 cleared out so that grading and track work can commence both inside and outside the barn, so I helped with the "company project" all afternoon instead.

Here's a look west down track 41. I spent much of the time with Greg or Nick shuttling random piles of parts to various storage cars spread around the property. Given how nice the weather was, it wasn't unpleasant work.

Greg and Mikey were working on the 160 for part of the afternoon, disconnecting underbody equipment in preparation for pulling and replacing a motor. We have a couple of spare rebuilt motors for North Shore standard cars on hand, so this will be a quicker job than it would be for almost any other car at the museum.

As the sun was setting, I helped Nick run the L4 from the tail track around the car line and park it in the west end of track 41 coupled to that reefer.

Next to where we tied up the L4 is the 1808, which sports some fresh brown and orange paint on it west end. It appears that it will match the 1268, with CRT brown and tall end windows.

I caught the 160 and 749 heading back to Barn 6 after sunset. Sunday was the first day after we set the clocks back and hour, so the sun set earlier than we were used to.

Back in the east end of Barn 4, while we were waiting around before dinner, I snapped this photo of track 42. This section of track will be removed, re-graded, and replaced, as will the portion of track 41 visible to the right. The track in the west half of the barn, where those cars are sitting, is not being replaced.

Bob and Greg whiled away the time by pulling spikes. Thank goodness for our Track Department volunteers who are willing to do this kind of work!