Monday Progress Report

HELP   WANTED

For the Vintage Transport Extravaganza on Sunday, Aug. 6, we'll be running a three-car CA&E train.  We need at least one trainman, so let us know if you can help.  You do not need to be rules qualified. Thanks!

And now, back to the news:

As Frank mentioned yesterday, the contractors are building the storage tracks east of the Barn 4 extension, and that work is proceeding rapidly.  Looking west towards the barn:

And then looking east:

On the left, track 42 meets a switch onto 41 and thence to the car line.  On the right, track 43 will be a stub, but I'm not sure how far it will go.

Meanwhile, back in the old barn, people are hard at work on various Car Dept. projects.  Here Fred (L) and Norm (R) are hard at work on wiring the motor circuits for the 306.  It's not easy, but somebody's got to do it.

These are the seat pedestals for the 306.  Pete (not shown) was getting them ready to be primed and painted.  The beautiful brass emblems need to be carefully taped up.

And John continues his painstaking work on windows for the 306.

Meanwhile, Gregg continues to make good progress on the roof of the line car.

And Tim was hard at work on the 1808, until his bicycling buddies showed up and dragged him away.  Chacun à son goût.

Buzz is making new windowsills for the Milwaukee Road business car, which you might easily think was a caboose.  But you would be wrong.

I put the three-car train together for Transport Extravaganza -- 309-36-319 -- and spent the rest of my time on a couple of different projects on the wood cars, such as the door closers.  Sorry, not much to see here, folks....

But I promised you some news about moving trees.  As you probably know, the space between Barns 7 and 8 has always been a large grassy area, but all of a sudden:

These trees didn't sprout overnight!  Where did they come from?

Well, that's because there's been a lot of work going on at the south end of property.  We haven't shown many pictures of this because it's so far away.  But the berm is being cut back for new construction of an additional storage unit.  There are plenty of trees along the south edge of the property, so the ones on top of the berm could be moved to better locations.  And there are several more around the property.

Here we're standing on top of the berm, looking northeast.  The area for the next warehouse is in front of us, and beyond that, if my calculations are correct, is the site of Yard 16.

And it looks like the lead to the yard is already inching along.

If you turn your back at IRM for as little as a week, there's no telling what you'll miss!