Trolley Bus Painting Progress

Thanks to Richard Schauer for an update of a sudden flurry of activity on our Milwaukee trolley bus, 441, which is off-site at a contractor's shop for exterior restoration and painting.

I visited the shop on July 26th, and they had completed sanding and leveling on the entire lower section of the bus, except the front end.  The foreman told me that the guys looked over the top section and determined it would take comparatively little work, and they wanted to do a "test prime" on the lower section.  You may recall that they did this same thing on the 9631, to find any areas that needed more work.  The uniform gray color brings out imperfections in the finish that the varying paint colors can hide.  They had masked the top section, and planned to prime the next morning after all of the dust in the shop had a chance to settle.  The first four photos show it on that day.

Sure enough, when I returned on August 2, the test prime was completed and various imperfections were sanded out.  In addition, they had fitted a new piece of metal to the front end, but had not yet welded it to blend it into the surrounding sheet.

Now that it seems that 441 has gotten on the right track, I'll keep the updates coming along as the news happens.