Saturday Progress

Another busy Saturday's exciting progress is ready for your viewing pleasure.  We'll start with the 451.

The new side doors were still missing some parts.  This one didn't have the latch that holds the trap door installed yet, so I had to drill and tap some holes very carefully.

And when it's done, it looks like this.  There will be a lot of parts that need to be painted red once this process is complete.

We ordered some more carriage bolts so the grab irons on the train door could be installed.

And one more, on the same side door seen above.

The threshold casting is big and heavy.  It was held to the wooden floor by four wood screws, all of which were rusted into the casting, and broken off at the bottom.

But after drilling them out on the big drill press, new screws fit perfectly and we should be ready for installation after finishing the woodwork.

But the big question is why we only have one of these.  There are several parts like this where I can only find 3 out of 4, or 1 out of 2.  I went over to Barn 2 to see if I could find anything that got left behind, without success.  

In any case, I needed four latches for the drop sash on the side doors, and Bill Wulfert got them out of stock for me.  Luckily these are a standard item.  They were then cleaned up and taken home for repair and adjustment as needed.

Let's see what else is going on.   Since the Electroliner is now in Barn 7, I haven't checked in for months.  They're still hard at work.  Here are the two sections that are getting restored.

And a couple more of the ceiling fixtures for the 1754.

Since the contractors weren't working on Saturday, the MPG was locked up, but I got an interior view through the window.  The new walls are going up rapidly.

And the rotary tender has been repainted and lettered, and was on its way from Barn 2 to 14.  This is an astounding change if you remember what it used to look like, when it was on display on the steam leads.

Work continued on the Cleveland PCC.  I didn't get a picture of work on the truck frames, but Eric showed me the big electrical print of the wiring.  This includes everything: control, heat, light, signals, etc.  I sure wish I had something like this for the 451.  

And Rich continues to install the baggage compartment floor in the 28.

Wednesday Action

Once again, we have lots to report on.  And this isn't even complete -- I'm sure I missed several other things that were going on.

Tim is polishing up and adjusting the new castings for the ceiling light fixtures.  These are quite interesting, and decorative for a rapid transit car.

Lorne and Chuck continue work on the Cleveland PCC truck.

The floor is being installed in the baggage compartment of the 28 by Rich Castagna and Norm.

Work continues on the 306.  John Sheldon is working on the floor at the east end, while Gerry is doing welding and steel replacement at the west end.  Here we see the new steel for the window sill at the top.

But the side plate is rusted out and needs new steel patched in.  The rectangular section in the middle is mostly Bondo, which we think was put there by Jim Blower.

You can see the light coming through the plate from a spotlight inside.  Gerry will replace the rusted-out portions, as well as the angle iron behind it.

As viewed from the inside:

And then, there's more progress on the MPB.  All doors have been installed on the north side.

And inside, the contractors have just started installing the walls.  In the foreground, the steel studs have been stacked.

 Finally, I worked on various parts of the 451.  Among other things, I sorted out the car cards.  Most of them were removed for some reason, and a few got badly ripped.  I took them home to try and put them back together.

More Doodlebug

Gregg Wolfersheim sends us another informative report on the M-35:

Several days of work on the "Doodlebug" has brought about some more progress. The area below window #26 was attacked and all of the rotten wood was removed. Some priming of the metal was started. Meanwhile, weatherstripping  above #21 was made ready. In this photo is a steel strip, a strip of felt and a wood retainer. These components make a sandwich near the top of the window opening.

If you look closely, one can see, from bottom to top: steel strip, felt, car side and last the wood retainer. As the window is raised, it rubs on the felt strip. This is the upper seal.

Above the window opening is placed a piece of foam insulation board. There are 6 pins poking through the panel.

A piece of sheet metal goes over the insulation, and the 6 pins come through that. They are then bent over to keep all in place. Eventually a wood panel will be installed to cover all of this and providing a surface to mount the baggage racks to.

Multi-tasking Saturday

Another busy Saturday has come and gone, with lots of activity on several fronts.  Without our heated shop area, pretty much everybody would have stayed home.  I'll try to organize these by project.

306

John Sheldon is making excellent progress on a complete restoration of the Fox River car from the floor up, with intermittent help from others.   Here's a recently cleaned-up seat frame:

And new wood for the floor.  These are large, heavy pieces.

But we have the tools, we have the talent:

4223

The Cleveland PCC group are working on rebuilding the second truck.  Here Chuck Meter and Ed Woytula are carefully lifting an axle assembly (actually, I'm not sure what the official names are for all these different parts of a PCC truck!)

And Eric Lorenz is cleaning up the motorman's switch assembly.  This will be familiar to anyone who's ever operated the 4391:

And Chuck continues needle-chipping everything.  It's a nasty job.

1754

Tim continues work on the interior, with brand new seat backs:

Bill and Victor take a break from their work on parts for the Pennsy bobber.  

Keith continues to clean and polish whistles.

65

Jon Fenlaciki was working on windows for the Indiana car:

451

I did some more work on trying to debug one of the heater circuits, without notable success.  The parts are located inside this tiny closet, and at least I determined a couple of things that aren't the problem.  I also replaced a couple of parts in the MG control box.

36 

And while sorting out parts, I found that the 451 had all four hoses for the sleet scrapers at the bottom of a pile.  It will be a while before we build all new third rail beams for the steel cars, so I decided to take these hoses over to the 36, so at least all of our wood cars have them in place.

On the 36, not only were the sleet scrapers removed, but the big conduits for the third rail wiring were torched off, so it will take some work to replace the electrical connections.  But this is modest progress, at least.

And of course, there was more going on that I missed.  At a minimum, Bill Wulfert was working on various spare parts, and Joel and Dan worked on the 141.  As I keep saying, you just had to be there in person.