General

Vera Cruz 19

A crew of three were on hand Friday to work on Vera Cruz 19.  Mike Alterio, Frank Sirinek, and Mike Stauber were fabricating and fitting new metal at the base of the front dash.  This is part of the often invisible work done by Frank and his crew for constant but incremental improvements to this car.

Buffy

Also on hand for the above efforts was BUFFY who was acting as sort of a LINE SUPERVISOR or PROJECT MANAGER.

Playground

Dave Diamond has been leading a large volunteer crew assembling components and now constructing the playset.  Kind of wet in the morning, but I bet a dozen or so were working in the afternoon and it is taking shape.

End Floor

One of the steel CTA 4000 L cars has been in the barn 4 shop areas for a number of years.  Today, Rich Block came on a visit and was fabricating and cutting metal to allow re-pouring of lightweight concrete MASTIPAVE for the end vestibules.

Priming

Victor Humphreys continues his almost one man efforts to restore the B&O wagon top boxcar.  Here the first two sections of the south side have had all rust and old paint removed and now have been prime painted.

No pic for this news item, but late in the afternoon, Tim Peters, Rich Block, and Bill Wulfert crawled under the CRT 1797 L car.  You have seen the work done by Tim and others on the carbody and now on to the underbody, mechanical, and electrical systems.  The air compressor was inspected, and they then discovered it could be rotated freely by hand.  Not bad for something that has not operated on its own for half a century.  This was truly a piece of good news.

There was a lot of activity at IRM yesterday and work around the campus stole the show.

Leviathan Arrives

The Leviathan arrived in the morning and here it rests on its specially constructed trailer, ready to be unloaded.

Tender

The tender is transported on its own special truck trailer which includes a 'box' for accessories and special tools.

On the Rails

The locomotive has been carefully unloaded using a cable winch to play out wire rope letting it move forward, and with a truck providing the pull from the front end.  This can be tricky but was accomplished safely and without incident.

Playground

The new Children's Playground area is rapidly taking form and shape.  Dave Diamond is leading this project with a lot of volunteer help on all fronts.  Here is the first structure assembled and set in place.

Another Jig

The shop area was not idle either.  Rich Witt is working to construct a special jig to cut parts for the TMS truck rebuilding.  There was a crew of three working on Chicago Rapid Transit 1797 and some of the usual suspects toiled on for the Cleveland Transit System 4223 PCC car.

Painting

Frank Kehoe snuck up behind me and captured lettering work on our Great Northern 70104 hopper car.  If only I had a steady hand and could paint a straight line!