Wood Shop

This Blog entry will cover several topics not strictly related to wood shop activity, but some exciting news, and views.  To start off, Henry Vincent grabbed my camera and made the trek to Barn 2 to check on progress with painting CTS 4223, our PCC car from Cleveland.

Front

Since last reported here in any detail, the car was moved to Barn 2, where conditions are more amenable to painting.  We owe the Internal Combustion Department BIG TIME for sharing this space.  Here is the front of the car with the unique paint scheme and color separations from Cleveland.

Left Rear

The left rear in all its glory.

Right Rear

And here the right rear.  Not bad, and perhaps the dark red or maroon striping will be laid out to apply this coming week!

Let There Be Light

Henry quickly returned to our shop space and worked all day with Max Tyms to complete wiring and lighting for the shop addition.  Here, the new light fixtures are being assembled and wired, ready to be hung on the ceiling.

Windows

Tim Peters has done a lot of window work in the last few weeks.  A total of 18 new frames in three sizes have been made for Tim's project, wood CRT 1797 L car.  Here he is doing some of the trim and finish work, rabbeting and plowing out some tricky recesses to mount the hardware.  Note the stack of finished frames.

Post It

Not a POST IT note, but a new post repair for the car side. Randy Hicks has taken on the task of making substantial repairs to our Illinois Terminal 277 combine. It is planned to be in operation at the end of April for the visiting Illinois Traction Society members.

Kansas City

Mike Stauber and Frank Sirinek continue with work on our Kansas City PCC car.  Last week's post saw them working on some interior paneling, and here they have two of the rear side windows in the shop, being cleaned and repaired.  Note the two panels of glass in this one frame.  Kansas City cars were unique, I believe, in using cobalt blue tinted glass in some locations in the car.  Too bad, but the passengers were not treated to looking at the world through rose colored glass.

Frank and Mike supplied a lot of info for engineering work to continue to get new brake shoes cast for Chicago Surface Lines 3142.

Regular work continued in the shop on other projects, including seat restoration for the Vera Cruz open car, Rich Witt doing finish work to rout pockets for window lift hardware on two new windows for the Villa Falls, and more work on 11 new windows for the IC Diner 3996.  All the tenons were cut and the first new frame was custom fitted, ready for gluing.