IRM on the Road

One of our many far-flung reporters, Jon Fenlaciki, reports on another remarkable IRM preservation project:

The IRM crew headed to M-K Signs on North Elston Avenue in Chicago to acquire shelving, table saws, and other industrial items being donated.  M-K Signs is going out of business.  M-K over the years had restored the museum’s various railroad signs.  Participating in this were project leader Dave Diamond, Nick Kallas, Al Choutka, Gerry Dettloff, Carl Illwitzer, and myself. 

Dave

Gerry

Al and Nick

Carl

Dave and Al

Restored Rapid Transit sign from the Johnson collection, restored by M-K.  This sign is perhaps from the Marshal Fields loop store's access to the L. 

Easy Does It

It isn't often that a project turns out to be much easier than expected, but it does occur on rare occasions.   Now that the 714 roof mat project is done, our next customer will be CA&E 460 to get a new roof.  That move is currently planned for this Saturday.  But one thing I could do beforehand, over in Barn 6, was to drop the center ceiling panel in the #1 vestibule, so that the roof cables can be pulled down and then pushed back up after the new canvas is in place.  

On both the 451 and 453 this took days of effort.  The steel panels were held in place with Phillips machine screws, and almost all of them were rusted in place.  Many of them had to be drilled out or ground down, and it was hard to do working straight up.  And these panels have about five times as many screws as I would have thought necessary.

Imagine my surprise to find that the panels in the 460 were held in place with slotted machine screws, all of which came loose without undue effort - mainly using my brace and bit.  Why this car is different is anybody's guess, but I was glad to take what comes.

Actually dropping the panel is not feasible for one person to do, so I left it in place, still held by a few screws here and there, as seen below.  And since the car still needs to run itself over to Barn 4, it's probably better to wait until it's in the roof booth before exposing the attic with its power cables.  Come to think of it, this would be an excellent project for the second shift!

So a project that was expected to take days was done in 1 1/2 hours.  Nice!

But wait, you can't go home yet.  There are always more things to do here at IRM.  I got out the wire wheel and cleaned up the other half of the 36's compressor cradle, then painted it with primer.  It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.  I guess.

By afternoon it was pretty warm on the upper level in the barn, so I was able to touch up the lobster trap at the west end with spray paint.  There were some places on the saddles that were still in primer, if you look closely, and I did what I could.

Afterwards it looked better.  Even if you can't see this from the ground, the car will be operating in the rain at times, and I want to protect the wood as much as possible.

And here it is with its ropes attached and cleated properly.   Ready for service!

OK, let's see what the others are doing.  John Sheldon was making new saddles for the 306.

And Paul Hough was needle-chipping and cleaning the roof ventilators.

Tim continues to work on the 1808 -- these are parts of the clerestory ends.  

And Gerry was doing more body and fender work on the end of the car.

When he's done, it should be good as new.

And by the way, a note on technology.  I've been dragged against my will into the 21st century by the phone provider, so I now have an actual smart phone with a built-in camera.  And I used it today to take these pictures.  It seems to work well enough, but I still have my old SLR that I could probably put into service if I had to....

Sunday update

Frank writes...

It was a quiet day in the car shop on Sunday; most of the regulars were out of town, so the only people there were Tim, Doodlebug Bob, and myself.

I'd been hoping to do some more Bondo work on the 18, but Saturday temperatures in the 60s turned into Sunday temperatures in the 30s so I elected to skip it. But I did manage to accomplish something I'd wanted to do at some point, namely remove one of the 18's brake shoes. We will need to replace one or two of these, but they're a very weird design that's held to the brake head by a pair of cotter pins rather than the usual flat bar keeper. After comparing this with other brake shoes we have in stock, I came to the conclusion that we don't have anything that we could reasonably modify. So that means we'll need to look into getting some of these cast. Oh, joy. We'll let you know how progress goes on that. For what it's worth, this shoe appeared to have a casting number of M3386 or maybe M3336.

I also pulled two more windows out of the 18, brought them into the shop, and stripped the paint off of their exteriors. They're shown here following a bit of epoxy repair. Next week these will get sanded and primed. I was going to put a coat of finish paint on the previous two subjects but ran out of time. However we're quite close to having all of the windows on the door side of the car (and a handful on the blind side, so far) repainted.

And this is exciting - a huge Thank You to Buzz and Bill for providing invaluable help with the project to replace the 18's third roll sign. Buzz has procured a vinyl mask, shown here, which we will be able to use to paint our own roll sign. And Bill came up with a roll of book-binding material, which we have successfully used on recent roll sign replacement projects. So the next step will be to cut the material to size, then mask and paint it. This sign goes in the little sign box over the front (entrance) door to the car.

I'm not sure how new this news is, but it appeared that some progress has been made on reassembling the second truck for the Cleveland PCC.

And it doesn't look like much, but Tim pointed out that this crummy wooden cabinet is slightly historically significant. It's the last of the "furniture" that Ray Neuhaus had in the various wooden 'L' cars when most of them were full of shelves, parts, workroom accoutrement, and other stuff. But every 'L' car that dates back to North Chicago days is now either fully restored or - in the case of the final car, the 1808 - in the shop for restoration. So Tim carted this out to the dumpster.

South Shore Catenary Towers -- Updated

Jon Fenlaciki sends us a picture of our guys hard at work, at 7:30 this morning in a snowstorm, unloading four catenary supports from the South Shore's "Ideal Section".  

Besides Jon, left to right are Bob Olson, Gregg Wolfersheim, and Andy Sunderland.

This is real dedication, you must admit!  Thanks, guys!

Line Car 1702 Report

 Gregg Wolfersheim sends us another exciting report on repairs to our Illinois Terminal line car:

A few years ago I refinished the doors on the line car, 1702. This past week while temperatures were rising, I installed the weatherstrip in the doorways. Starting with a strip of leftover roofing canvas, a few tacks hold it in place. It's folded over with the fold acting as the seal.

Here we see the end result with a piece of half round trim holding it in place.

The side beam was fully removed this week. Some of the horizontal threaded rods can be seen sticking out from the steel inner frame. And, the vertical rods are exposed too.

Another view of the frame. The steel has been wire wheeled and is ready for primer. The nearest vertical rod is exposed for about three feet. The wood post here was pretty well rotted out and was removed. Next step will be fitting the new wood beam into place. Many holes will need to be located and drilled for all the rods to go through. Fun times are ahead!

It's always nice to have something to look forward to.   So stay tuned!

Next!

I'm glad to report that the lobster trap project on the 714 is complete, at least in my humble opinion, fellow citizens.  The entire structure at both ends got a nice thick coat of gloss black, which you can see here.  Of course, there are a lot of surfaces that are hard to see, so there may be some gaps, and perhaps if I get a chance some touchup can be done.  But for the most part, and since just about every unbiased observer will be viewing this from the perspective of the man on the street, as they used to say, it should look pretty good.  Or your money back.

Once the paint is dry, the ropes can be connected to the poles (via the mysterious "monkey links") and then the 714 can run itself out of the barn.

And today's work included final installation of Zach's nifty vent guards.  Safety first!

So I was too busy racing for the finish line to take any pictures of what was going on in the shop.  Pete, Fritz, and Lorne were working on the 160.  And I should mention that Lorne helped me by standing on the platform to identify bare spots that needed painting, while I was on top using the roller.  It's too complicated to explain, you had to be there.   Later in the day Bill showed up to work on bobber parts.

And Tim was removing everything that can't be saved from the roof of the 1808.  As he says, it's like peeling back the onion.  But don't let it bring tears to your eyes.  Anyway, for the time being he's leaving the poles in place, so the car can run itself out of the barn and around the streetcar curves at the west end of the barn.  Since it still needs a lot of structural work on the ends, pulling on its coupler could be disastrous.

And then I spent some time cleaning up the scaffolding in the roof booth.  Once the current occupant of the ICU decides to wake up and go home, we'll be ready for another patient.  Next!?!

Report on Painting, and More!

Monday was another productive and rewarding day at the Car Shop, and warm enough for painting in the barn.  To start with, though, I put a coat of gloss black on the 36's compressor, as seen here.  It won't be this shiny for long!  I also painted half of the cradle black.

As always, other projects are moving along.  Here are some doors Tim has been refinishing for the 1808.

Pete and Fritz were working on doors and other parts for the 160.

Jon Fenlaciki was working on the interior of the 65, and John Sheldon continued making parts for the 306.

Today Tim started work on the roof of the 1808, removing old canvas, nails, and whatnot.  By the time I left he had done most of one side of the car.

Gerry continued his structural work on the end framing.  Here it is after grinding.

And in the next picture, he shows us the patch plate which will be welded on soon.

After I finished the compressor, I started painting the roof mats for the 714.  Here is the #2 end with primer on all the surfaces.  My little trim roller, seen at lower left, is just the right tool for this job.

And here is the #1 end, partly completed.

(Photo by J. Fenlaciki)

By the middle of afternoon, the #1 end was completed, and the rope guard was installed.

Followed by drilling holes for a temporary installation of the vent guards at each end.

In a couple of days it will be ready for finish black, and that should be completed in a day, thus finishing the lobster trap project.  Then I will be able to start whining about the 460 not being in the roof booth.   So stay tuned!