More Seat Progress

Frank writes...

I'm sure you're already getting tired of hearing about seats in the 460, but bad news: we're still only about a third of the way there. Progress continues, though.

We got two more seats installed in the 460, with installation of a third begun but not yet finished, so we're still roughly on schedule. Above, I'm sitting in the bulkhead seat at the end of the car looking at the last of the movable seats on this side of the main compartment. The old seat back has been removed and the new seat back, visible inside its black plastic bag to the right, is ready to go in. This was one of the two seats we completed.

Bob Olson was a big help. In addition to installing two new seats, we had new screws come in that were needed for two of the seats we already installed. Here, Bob is tightening down the screws on one of those seats.

And here's an overview near the end of the day. The seat visible to the left facing away, and the one to the right facing toward the camera, are the two ones we installed today. All the movable seats on the R side of the main compartment are now done.

It's not always obvious from these "overview" photos how big of an improvement this is. Before the old seats go away forever, above is one of the seats showing torn fabric (there's another layer of fabric underneath it).

And here's a seat back. Yecch. It will be good to have all this replaced by nice, new fabric. In other 460 news, Jeff and Joseph were working on repairing side windows. The car has long had a problem with some of the side windows sticking and being very difficult to open, so those two are removing the affected windows, cleaning up the tracks and making any necessary repairs, and reinstalling the windows.

This cash fare receipt fell out of one of the antimacassars I removed today. I'm not sure of the year, unfortunately, but it was after the cut-back to Forest Park. It appears to have been issued on January 17th for a westbound trip from Forest Park to Westmore in Lombard, with a 37-cent fare and a 6-cent tax.

And now, folks, it's time for... drumroll... Gauge-a-palooza™! A few of the car shop guys including Brian, Jimmy, and Mikey were working on air gauges over the weekend and repaired several that were on the "to-do" list following the end of the season.

One of the gauges that was rebuilt on Sunday was for our very own 308, which was in service on Vintage Transport Extravaganza 2024 and likely will be again in 2025. Above, Brian shows off a rebuilt gauge with fresh, still slightly tacky Washington Blue paint.

And here it is looking a bit more recognizable. The paint wasn't quite dry Sunday night, but once it is, the gauge will be installed on the car. This is a gauge from stock that has been repaired; the glass from the gauge currently on the car will be switched over to this one. Thanks to our intrepid cub reporter Brian LaKemper, we can also report that the three guys listed above calibrated air gauges for the 309 and 409, cleaned and calibrated the 1808's gauges, replaced one gauge on the 4412 and calibrated the other. They also calibrated a spare gauge, to be available as a quick replacement, cut a new stock of gaskets out of rubber, and replaced leaky stem gaskets in motorman's valves on the 309 and 460. Many thanks to all the guys doing this often-thankless air brake work!

Elsewhere on the property, on my way in, I stopped by the future site of Barn 15 and snapped the above photo. It's hard to tell, but in the distance, you can see barn post footings going in along the north side of the barn at the east end! Fortunately, Bob Olson has come to our rescue with the two photos below, which he snapped about a week ago.

Above, the line of barn post footings extends about half the length of the north side of the building.

Here's a closeup showing the concrete footing and the metal post riser. The wooden post gets bolted to this riser slightly above ground level, which avoids the perennial problem of the bottoms of the posts rotting out. So, Barn 15 is officially going up, though it's only made it perhaps a foot above ground level so far.

Back over in Barn 4, in the eastward extension of the shop lean-to, I caught Dan and Jimmy assembling shelving. This room will be used primarily for storage. In other general shop news, Brian reports that Ashton spent time Saturday working on the end of North Shore 250 while Zach painted some trim in the new shop extension.

At Greg's behest, I took a walk out to the 306 and looked inside the car, where the weekday guys have been hard at work. The #1 end brake valve has been installed, though not yet piped in, which is exciting! Part of the extensive work to backdate this car to its authentic Fox River Electric configuration involves moving the motorman's position back to its original location on the left. Shaker Heights moved the motorman over toward the center of the car (a photo of this arrangement, exhibited by sister car 304 at Fox River, can be found here). The original location of the motorman's position was more like how the 415 is set up, as seen here.