Freight Car Department

Air Brakes

John Baletto is wrestling with the air brake test valves under the tutelage of Kirk Warner (who is snapping this pic).  There are a number of checks and tests to determine possible problems and remedies before we operate a car.

Car End

And this is the business end of the car where the train line and angle cock (shut off valve) are located.

Lifting

The Holiday weekend saw the stars in alignment and a crew was assembled to place the new wine car on its rightful trucks, and to re-install the missing coupler.

Tricky Business

Tricky business to balance things and hold the car in the air safely, rolling out the old shop trucks.

Done

Done and back on the rails.  We are still looking for a few parts for the coupler and brake rods, but this is much better already!  P.S. we are still looking for donations to help pay off the acquisition expenses.

Priming

John Baletto continues his valiant efforts helping the Freight Department on this car restoration.  Here he is painting one of the truck sideframes after a substantial amount of work cleaning off years of 'dreck' and needlechipping old paint and corruption.

The Last Quadrant

The work continues - now on the east half of the south side.  This is the last quadrant of the car to be re-sided, so hurry out if want pictures of how freight cars weather, or even a sample of the old siding to take home as a souveneir!

Other recent work includes trying to reconstruct three blocks of lettering on the car ends, and there really was little to go on.  But we think we have enough to re-draw the data and use it for when those ends are repainted.