Weekday Car Dept. Report

I've been away for a couple of weeks visiting my grandchildren and so on in the East, but it's good to be back.  On the way, I was able to pick up some parts that will be useful, but we'll have more about that later.  On Wednesday, after unloading the parts and cleaning them up a little, I had time to get some pictures of what other people in the Car Dept. are doing.  Here's just a sample.

Tim, of course. continues work on converting the 1268 back to its configuration during the Spanish Flu panic.  It's very complicated.  The lower sash (the larger windows) have to drop down into the wall, and the upper sash have to be raised up into the roof.  Getting this all to work on every window is a huge job, and I don't know anybody else who has the single-minded dedication to get it all done.

I asked about the danger that when the upper sash are stored inside the ceiling, they might come loose and fall down.  Here we see there's a pin on each side that latches up so that can't happen.  But getting that done on every window has got to be a lot of work.  That's why this system was later abandoned.

Frank Kehoe (not shown) is working on fabricating all these little brass pieces with the pins.  It takes a lot of work, but this will be another restoration unique to IRM that we can all be proud of.

Work is continuing on the 306, but as it happened no one on that project was there yesterday.

The other major current project is Michigan Electric 28.  Here we see Fritz prepping the letterboard on the north side for repainting.  

And the rest of the crew have been hard at work on the interior of the baggage compartment.

The car's interior suffered many indignities during its years as a house.

If my calculations are correct, the 28 spent 16 years in operation, 43 years as a house, and has now been at IRM for 53 years.  But as one of the earliest steel interurban cars, it is a very historic piece and will be another jewel in the collection.