Mo' Snow

Frank writes...

The big news Sunday was, of course, Happy Holiday Railway, which ran on schedule despite another 5" of snow having fallen overnight. A huge thank you goes out to all the volunteers who spent the morning clearing snow! I didn't arrive until late in the afternoon, but managed to snap some photos of progress around the Electric Car Shop.

Above, Michigan 28 is currently the subject of exterior as well as interior work, as the front end of the car appears to be getting repainted orange. Just a year ago this kind of work would have been impossible in the cold weather, but the heated Barn 4 shop area opens up all kind of possibilities.

Two tracks over, the shop guys were able to complete installation of two more wide-tread wheels on NJT 4. These are the two wheels on the left side of the rear truck. Three down, five to go! Progress on extracting the last two intransigent bolts on the #1 axle, left side, was also made, though the bolts aren't out yet.

And smack in between the 4 and the 28, Tim was hard at work on the 1268. One side of the car, as shown, now has all new tongue-and-groove siding, while the other side of the car has all sub-siding repairs done and looks ready for new T&G siding of its own.

Here's the "third rail beam cart," with the two beams my father has completed so far as well as the hardware for the next two, barely visible between the two finished beams. This set of four beams will go onto the 460.

More progress was made during the week by Mike S. on our air compressor wagon, AX545. The wheels and other "underbody" areas were primed.

As for me, I spent some time taking measurements for an upcoming project, and then spent a while longer sand-blasting and priming more parts for a spare grid box. This work is time-consuming, but that's the point of having it done in advance: if we need to rebuild a grid box in short order, which periodically happens, it's nice to have this part of the work already complete.