Sunday, March 12, 2023

The 451 Runs

Well, sort of.  It can now be used as a control trailer, which is a big step forward.  Eventually the mechanical problems will get fixed, and having it at least partly operational helps it move up in the queue, I hope.  Here we see it outside Barn 6 with the 409 and 431 providing the horsepower.

There's nothing now to keep us from coupling the 460 onto this train.  As I mentioned before, we would at least like to have it lettered by July.  And there are a few parts I still need to install on the roof.

And Dan Fenlaciki wants you to notice the nicely polished window frames.  Jon spent about two years polishing them all up, many years ago.  This is the way the St. Louis cars looked when delivered.

Meanwhile, of course, there were a lot of other things going on.  Here we see Tim working on window frames:


And Bill was cleaning up a headlight casing for one of the wood L cars:


I spent some time after closing up the steel car train on the 460 door.   Yecch.


But there's lots more exciting news of progress to come.   Don't go away!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randall,

Is the 453 scheduled for a paint job in the near future?

Ken MacLeod

Randall Hicks said...

I'm afraid not. Right now there are limits on how many cars can be worked on, due to the reconstruction and expansion of Barn 4. But once that's done, we'll have better facilities for projects like the 453.

Frank Hicks said...

I'll expand upon that a little - that's correct that we don't have plans to repaint the 453 in the near future, but it's absolutely on the to-do list after work on Barn 4 is complete. Besides paint it will need a compressor rebuild, chasing down a short in the battery charging system, and at some point it will need motors overhauled, though it could be used as a control trailer in the interim.