Frank writes...
Sunday was opening day of our 2026 regular operations season, though we were open starting at the end of March for the Bunny Trolley Hop event. But in either case, let's go back to Saturday, when I wasn't at the museum, for a quick prologue.
Here's another view that was sent by Ted Kuhn. A huge thank you to everyone who worked on the 309 inspection and on starting the 319's inspection!
When I arrived, I briefly stopped over at the art exhibition opening, then snapped a photo of the season's first regular service car on my way back.
In Barn 4, the guys had started working on the 319 late Saturday. The first job tackled was the trap at the #1R corner, which had started to pull out of the body corner post. That's no good. Here we see the trap support bracket removed; thanks to Joel and Zach for drilling out and dowelling the holes so the bracket could be reattached securely.
Zach also noticed that the floor latch wasn't working right, so he and Richard removed it, as shown here. Thanks to Zach for replacing the spring in the latch! The traps on the CA&E Jewetts and all the steel cars are basically the same as on North Shore cars except that the latch is mounted to the floor next to the trap instead of to the trap itself, and consists of a pedal you step on to release the trap. When they work, it's great - you don't even have to bend over to raise the trap.
On Saturday, the Diesel Department guys dropped off a gallon of red paint with a revised color match, and Good Nick wasted no time getting to work on the two doors off the 460. Here he is scuffing up the previous coat of red...
...and here are the doors after a mirror-smooth application of fresh red paint. Next weekend, we hope to take these out in the sunlight along with some older samples to confirm that we have the correct shade. If we do - fingers crossed - then these doors will get their outsides painted before reinstallation, and then the 460 will be ready for service.
For a CA&E fan, it's hard not to like this view! The 451 on the left is seen with its baggage racks, on which wire-wheeling is just about done; then the 319 is on the pit; and the 306 is on track 42. Joel surveys Wheaton West.
As always, there's plenty going on. Tim was hard at work installing floor slats in the (1)268 while Brian and Will were working on rebuilding a handful of M23 motorman's valves they pulled out of storage. Joel was cleaning stuff out of the west end of Barn 4 so it can be opened for public viewing. Speaking of which, Kansas City 755 has seen more attention from Tim, Mike, and Greg. Above, the battery compartment has been cleaned up and painted, and they've reinstalled one of the two smaller outboard markers on the back of the car. These were removed when the car went to Philadelphia. The rooftop markers, which were installed by Philadelphia, were also removed from the rear of the car.
The 755 has its share of rust, which was made more plain when the floor-level rub rail was removed. But this was anticipated; new steel will be welded in as necessary. Tim and Greg also removed the vertical rub rails, which were installed at Philadelphia, one of which was formerly located on the right side of this photo.
And that brings us to Sunday.
I didn't take any photos of the regular inspection work, but a huge thank you goes out to Ashtin and Will for inspecting the #2 truck and both controllers, along with some other things. Ashtin and I spent some time trying to get the feed valve working; since the 319 arrived, it's had the wrong type of feed valve, but it worked fine until last fall. We tried two different feed valves of that type before giving up on that avenue. Many thanks to Brian, who had a nicely rebuilt C6 feed valve (the correct type for the car!) on hand, and Richard, who cut a threaded stud to install it. The 319 now has the correct type of feed valve and, even more importantly, it works. We didn't get the car's inspection work completed, but we got most of it checked off, including truck inspection and brake adjustment on the #1 truck as well as inspection and some repair work in the contactor box.
Finally, at the end of the evening, Greg and Nick helped me schlep the 460's fourth third rail beam - the one we didn't get installed two weeks ago - from Barn 8 over to Barn 6. We'd left the beam conveniently located next to the car, but then the car went and moved itself two barns over. The nerve. Anyway, it turns out the hole spacing is ever so slightly off, just barely enough that we couldn't get it bolted onto the truck. It won't be a difficult fix, but we ran out of time so this will have to wait.
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