Thursday News

Another newsworthy day in the Barn 4 carshop.  And as usual, this is only a small sample of all the activity. 

I've pretty much finished work on the current crop of third-rail beams.  These two go to the 319, on what is currently the south side.  #2 is seen here from the back; I finished attaching the various parts to hold the fuses in place, and painted everything black that still needed it.  

And this is what they look like from the front.  They are just too heavy for us old guys to transport over to Barn 8.

Meanwhile, Jack was hard at work all day making new door and window frames for the UP doodlebug.  He does excellent work.  Even when the boss isn't paying attention.  :)

On the other hand, this is what can happen when you get the IRM bigwigs angry at you.  Steve Keller is trapped in a diabolical torture chamber.  Fred tries to sneak him some food when he thinks nobody's looking.

Actually, of course, they're installing the rebuilt pilot on the 306, and making necessary adjustments to the door mechanism and brake piping under the vestibule floor.  

Finally, Tim is installing seat frames one by one, and they're all different although not labeled.

This one is located over the triple valve and brake cutout.  There's a similar arrangement in the 309.

Another ongoing project is getting new leaf springs made for the 36.  We want them to be as identical as possible to the originals, such as this one:

So I made a crate of the correct size, and the spring seen above has been shipped off to a company that specializes in this sort of thing for reproduction.  We'll let you know as the project moves along.

IRM will be very busy this weekend with lots of interesting trains operating, so don't miss it!