Wednesday News

First, a word from our sponsor:

Happy Holidays Railway will be here in just four weeks!  Yikes!  Some trips are already sold out! So if you want to be happy, you'd better get busy and sign up for the best event of the season.  Don't say we didn't warn you.

And now back to our usual fare of yesterday's news today:

Wednesday in the shop was its usual busy place, and I was busier, or at least more concentrated on work than usual, so this will be brief.   I only have one picture, so you have to use your imagination.

Tim, of course, was working on the 1268; Fritz and Phil were working on the front compartment of the 28 again, and they should be ready to start installing the ceiling soon.  Next time I'm out, I'll be sure to get pictures of that!  Buzz was working on some of his projects, and helped me with mine.

Finally, for the 460, I picked out one of the recently-acquired third rail collectors, cleaned it up a little, and hauled it from the dirt room (Lean -1) to Lean 2.  The bolts that hold the shoe casting are mortised into the beam at the top, and they have an unusual metal clip around the head to keep the bolt from turning in the wood, so mortising them by hand is a slow process.  I've got to come up with a better solution.  Maple can be quite hard to work, I must admit.

But the final result is this: the third rail shoe assembly is now attached to the beam.  It needs to be cleaned up some more, but that will be easier now that it's firmly attached.  And the beam got a second coat of primer.

The next step will be to install the cylinder for the sleet scraper, and that should be somewhat easier.