Springtime Sunday

Frank writes...

Okay, so it's late February and not springtime - but it felt like springtime on Sunday, with a high temperature around 60, I believe. Sounds like time for some painting!

We have four ex-Shaker Heights cars, and the two that are destined to be restored as SHRT cars are currently next to each other on track 73. (Coincidentally, the two that aren't destined to be restored as SHRT cars are also next to each other, but on track 41.) The one that's currently distracting me from the 18 is PCC car 63, shown above. I went around the car with white primer, trying to cover anywhere that the paint had popped off and bare metal was visible. Above is shortly after I started.

And here's the end of the job. I didn't do the area along the standee windows or the roof, because I hadn't gone along with a paint scraper and knocked off loose paint. That will wait for next time. Ideally, we should also source new windows for those doors; the original Lexan (roughly 1' x 5' x 3/16") is badly fogged and really ought to be replaced at some point.

We took a look at the orange paint for the 63 that the paint shop matched, but it's too dark. You can see a splotch of it pointed out by the arrow. Especially since the entire car will be painted this color, we want to it to be right. We'll go back to the paint store for another try.

I painted the four windows removed from the 18 a month ago with Bankers Cream paint. These are now ready to go back into the car and another batch can come into the shop for refurbishment.

In other news, my wife sewed some white flags, which I nailed to old flagstaffs that had shown up with the Brookins collection. The hope is that when car 18 runs this year, it will boast a fender, whistle, and flags that it lacked last year.

There were plenty of other things going on and the place was practically buzzing with activity. Some of the guys were working on inspecting CSL 144, shown here on the inspection pit with Fox River Electric 306 behind it. Others were working on rebuilding the box for the 600V overhead line cutout switches that go next to the substation, plus there was a work crew over in Barn 2 working on the 415 repainting project. The Electroliner crew was hard at work, there were people working on Milwaukee trolley bus 441 over in the Hoffman Garage, and others were working on fixing up electrical parts in the shop.