Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Winter Monday

Last week it was summer, on Sunday and Monday this week it was back to winter.  So it goes here in the Midwest.

 One tree broke off in the high winds, but that seems to be the only damage. 

We want to put the 460 back into regular service as soon as possible, so I spent some time checking out the roof.  One of the horn baffles hadn't been fastened down yet; while the car was being switched a couple of weeks ago, it just stayed in place.  But it's now attached tightly to the canvas, and while the roof needs a little more paint, that can wait until it's back in the roof booth, briefly.


Meanwhile, Gregg has started disassembling the various parts of the roof on the 1702:



Pete and Fritz continue their work on door for the 757.  Here Fritz is running the big mortiser:


And the new stiles are sitting on top of the old door, which was too deteriorated to save.


And Pete was repainting another door:


John has been cutting and placing glass in the new doors for the 306:



Here's the repainted plate for the ventilator in the 360's smoker that Frank asked for:



Then we have Tim installing new pieces in the 1808:



And that's just a sample of what's going on.

2 comments:

Ted Miles said...

I am glad to hear some work is going into the #1702. I recall reading in a early Rail & Wire, back at the Hardware Foundry at East Chicago the line car was about the only warm place on the property. The first person to arrive on Saturday morning would fire up its coal stove.

And of course once there was wire up at Union it was used to take care of the overhead. More recently, the North Shore #604 has been the line car of choice, for some reason.
Good work guys!

Ted Miles, IRM Member

Anonymous said...

Ted-

1702 has never been used to maintain overhead at IRM in any real capacity. You're thinking of the IT tower car, or perhaps cart would be more appropriate. Once 604 was dug out of the line of cars west of Olson Rd., it was used. And 1702's use as a warm place was limited to a few years in the late '60s until buildings were built at Union, not North Chicago. The shop at North Chicago (not East Chicago) was the 3 spot.

R. W. Schauer