Saturday Report

Today I did most of the remaining work on installing the reupholstered seats in the 319.  I replaced the material on the nickel-seat cushion at home and brought it out.  

Before:

After:

Another seat back was replaced, and the seating in the smoker is now complete. and up to CA&E standards.

Then I started installing new seat backs in the main compartment.  One interesting improvement is as follows.  At the location shown below, opposite the toilet compartment, this car originally had a stationary bench against the wall, as the 308 and 309 still do.  But at some point this was replaced by a walkover seat.  However, because of the wall construction, this seat frame is different from the rest of those in the 319, and seems to be the same as those in the earlier 300's.

But the seat back (as received) was not the correct width, and as a result the brackets didn't fit properly, so the seat was always coming out of the track, and among other things some of the wood on the arm rest got chewed up.  This has been a constant headache since we got the car.  I blame Cleveland, but I really don't know for sure.

In any case, I realized that I could replace the seat back with one from the 300 that we got from MCRM, and that ought to fit.  Here it is after I repainted it at home, and installed it today.  It seems to work perfectly, so that's one problem solved.  The arm rest needs to be replaced at some point.

Anyway, all of the new seat backs have been put in place.  Getting all the screws tightened up is very time-consuming due the tight clearances, so that's not finished yet.  Wait till next time.

Of course, several other things were going on.  Here's just a small sample from the car shop.  Tim continues working on the 1808, and here he shows off all the clerestory windows recently repainted by Fred Zimmerman.

And Bill was working on windows from one or two of the 4000's.  These cars have always put in a lot of mileage since arriving at IRM, and constant maintenance is necessary.