Sunday Scorcher

Frank writes...

Sunday was another day of about 95 degrees with a heat index around 105 (that's 35 and 40 C, respectively, for our overseas readers). A stiff breeze made it livable outside, but the crowd for Trolley Weekend was still pretty small.

Nevertheless, the museum put on a good show. The Class B was pulling the coach train, ComEd 4 pulled a caboose train, and the 277 - newly restored to service with overhauled brake rigging - pulled the three-car "Tangerine Flyer." Above, our dump motor, D13, made a few laps around the streetcar line. When it was heading back to the barn, a magnet valve coil failed that prevented it from going past the second point, but by the end of the day that item was already on the bench in the shop for repair.

Thanks to Gregg Wolfersheim and Keith Letsche, who ran the 319 in 50th Avenue Shuttle service all day.

When Nathan and Drew brought the D13 back to Yard 7, the first order of business was to unload the picnic tables being used for seating and reload several pallets of spare parts that normally live in the dump section to keep them inside the barn and out of the weather. Here, Nathan has dropped the side of the dump section. Although the tilt mechanism for the dump body doesn't work, the doors do drop open and can be closed by a pneumatic spool that pulls up cables at both ends of the dump section.

Voilà! After I observed this, I briefly helped Good Nick with switching the 24 with CA&E 431 and 460 before heading over to Barn 7 to do some painting.

Voilà deux. With a second coat of maroon on the belt rail stripes, the masking tape could come off. Of course, this is only about a quarter of the car - next up is masking and painting the left side and the rear half of the door side - but it's progress, and it gives an idea of how this livery will look when complete. I also painted the drip rail under the standee windows on this side of the car maroon.

In other news, the CTA 2400s were on the pit and with help from a CTA employee who came out to troubleshoot, the guys were able to get the 2400s to where they should be operable again. Fingers crossed! Air-conditioned cars like the 2400s will be pretty popular on days like this.

And in exciting Buildings & Grounds news, the posts have started going up on Barn 15! The trusses are already staged and can be seen in the foreground.

And it looks like the property improvement work at the west end of Yard 5, in front of the office, is just about done. The nice new asphalt, "sidewalk" for the benches, and bollards are all installed.