New Year, New Seats

Frank writes...

Due to the holidays and various other obligations, Sunday was my first day volunteering out at IRM in nearly a month. Fortunately, together with the other shop volunteers, we were able to make some real progress.

Above is a photo of the big news: we got three more seat backs installed in the 460! Greg and Good Nick were instrumental in making this happen, and a huge thank you to Richard as well for making a couple of tapered 1/4-20 bolts to use in starting/centering the oval-head cap screws. Getting these seat backs installed is a real chore, especially with the antimacassars. When we get the seats done for the 451 and install those, it should be somewhat easier, because that car won't get its antimacassars back since it's being backdated.

Nick snapped the above photo of me fighting with an antimacassar while Greg takes a breather in the background.

After we wrapped up work on that, I installed a new lock on New Jersey Transit 4, our ex-Minneapolis PCC. Above is the old method of securing the doors: a pair of 2x4s, one inside and one outside, bolted tightly together. This keeps the car secure from random passersby, but there are two problems with this system. First, the only people who can get into the car are people with a wrench to unbolt the 2x4; and second, anyone with a wrench can get into the car.

Above, a pair of wide boards and a wide U-bolt with a padlock will keep the car much more secure.

So that's what I was up to; what else was happening around the property?

Above, there was a switch move in Barn 4 to clear the inspection pit for incoming equipment. CRT trailer 1268 needed to be moved further west on track 42; we moved it partway by muscle, but once it was under wire, motor car 1808 moved into the center section of the barn as shown here to drag it the rest of the way. Afterward, Fox River Electric 306 was moved from track 43 over to 42. You'll note the framework around the 1808: this will support large curtains that will partition the western third of the building off from the eastern two-thirds. Ironically, this is exactly where the original east wall of Barn 4 was when the first section of the building was constructed back around 1971 or so.

Greg and Jimmy helped me carry some old seats removed from the 460 over to the 451 and return with reupholstered seats. While we were over in Barn 8, we encountered this unusual site: huge sonotubes that will be used to pour the concrete footings for Barn 15. They're just being stored in Barn 8 for the moment to keep them dry and out of the weather. The contractor was on-site earlier in the week drilling holes for these sonotubes. Construction on Barn 15 has officially begun!

Back over in the Barn 4 "lean-three," Zach and Ashton were working on fixing up the end of North Shore 250.

They found some graffiti dating back to the mid-1930s on the inside of the end sheet, where nobody has seen it for some 90 years. Perhaps Svede and Finn were probably nicknames of workmen deriving from their countries of origin?

Nathan was working hard on installing ductwork in the shop lean-to extension. This room will be used as a storeroom, but before the pallet racking (already on hand) can be set up, the HVAC needs to go in. Others not previously mentioned who were working on various projects included Joel, Brian (who among other things ran the Army 45-tonner to move the 306), Richard, Tim, and Mikey.