|
|
Sunday, July 3. 2011Wagon Top Boxcar Update - July 2, 2011 The Car In this undated photo we are looking at our car shortly after it arrived at IRM in 1991. We show a built date in our roster of 1922 but that may be misleading. Parts of our car certainly date from that year, but the wagon top design was a home built upgrade to allow recycling of older rolling stock. In some cases more than one extensive rebuild was done to the same car, and they often resulted in re-numberings to make tracing individual car histories a challenge. The B&O came up with their own distinctive design for these cars, basically consisting of a modular inverted U shaped hoop which was prefabricated. It could be assembled in many different variations on a more or less standard car frame. Thousands were built mainly in the B&O shops at Cumberland and at Keyser. Sharp eyes will detect faint traces of the car lettering in the above image including a large B&O in panels 2, 3, and 4 from the left. That is the scheme which is being used on this project.  Herald On the second panel to the right of the door, the famous B&O capital dome graphics are seen. The slogan LINKING THIRTEEN GREAT STATES WITH THE NATION appears in the outer circle.  Wire3 Wheeling We started early to try to beat the worst of the predicted heat. Victor Humphreys is removing old paint and rust from the A end.  Cutting Bolts Mark Ricker came up to Union on a visit from Kentucky and pitched right in cutting frozen and rusted bolts from the end ladder mounts.  It Is Off This allowed us to remove the ladder, after some coaxing and choice words. Mark hands down the ladder to Ray Pollice who also came to help while Victor continues work on the right. By the end of the day Mark had the bolts cut and removed for the A end side ladder, Ray had cleaned a nice area on the right side, and Victor applied primer. At IRM this car was selected along with several others for restoration for a major Hollywood movie production. The financing for the project fell apart, but not before we were left with perhaps half a dozen cars in various states of repair. Our volunteer forces have completed many of those and now the wagon top joins them in the restoration process. We will be able to do a lot of the work for very little money as is our custom, but donations are needed to cover the unavoidable expenses, and hopefully enough can be raised to assure the completed restoration can subscribe to indoor space in the next Barn. Please help with a donation to restricted fund R374065. And of course you are welcome to contact me to schedule your workday on the next hot 102 HEAT INDEX day in the sun! Sunday, July 3. 2011Site News - July 2, 2011I am going to post this entry under the GENERAL category since a lot of subjects are covered.  Smooth The Depot Street paving is done, ON SCHEDULE! The Buildings and Grounds crew, led by Dave Diamond, and the many volunteers who contributed and worked on this complex project deserve a lot of credit. Throughout the day visitors enjoyed the new surface and the B&G crew added finishing touches including dressing the shoulders.  New Loop As part of the same paving contract as Depot Street, the paving for the new trolley bus loop was completed. Here, John Myhre is looking at the old overhead turning wye while you can see the paving in the background.  Where It Began The Indiana Railroad 65 was the first car acquired at the founding of IRM. Dan Fenlaciki looks sharp in the motorman's seat, as the car made a rare appearance for some service trips for the public.  Tail Hose Rich Witt has become a very dedicated and productive member of the wood shop crew. His other passion is Operations and he is hooking up a tail hose brake valve on the passenger train. This is a connection to the train line air pipe to allow a crew member on the rear platform to stop the train from that position during a back up move.  Tack Molding Speaking of the wood shop, Tim Peters is making new tack molding for CRT 1797. He has set up a unique system of fences and guides and machined the last profile on some long ten foot boards, BY HIMSELF.  The Next Door The heat outdoors was brutal and in the afternoon, Victor Humphreys and I were going to proceed to the next steps on a new door. We got sidetracked when Tom Schneider came by for a visit. He is steadily improving healthwise and is no longer needing to wear the suitcase monitor for his heart. It was very good news to see him up and about looking so chipper and with a good attitude. I am going to close this entry here and add another covering work on our B&O wagon top boxcar. This is an ongoing major restoration project so I have opened a new sub category under the main Freight Car Department category. If you are not taking advantage of all the various software options on the IRM BLOGS, here are a few tips. On the right hand side there is a CATEGORY TREE. If there is a plus sign in the little square box for each topic you may click on that to expand the category topics. Clicking on any category will filter other entries and allow you to read updates, in order, for that single topic. For any blog entry, the images are thumbnails. Clicking on the thumbnail will expand the image and you may scroll forward and back for any of the images in a single entry. AND - at that point, if you go to the upper left corner of the expanded image you will see a small square icon pop up and clicking on that gives a full size blowup of the single image. WOW! |
Blog AdministrationCalendarQuicksearchSyndicate This Blog |
Comments
Fri, 03-29-2024 21:26
We're slackers and spend more time working on the equipment in the shop than keeping all you readers updated. We'll work on it, but I'm sure updates [...]
Thu, 03-14-2024 08:02
What happened to the Department Blog? It's been over 2 years and I still regularly check for updates, but nothing comes...
Mon, 12-27-2021 16:28
Happy New Year to all the Departments at the Illinois railway Museum! Thanks for all the good work you do in railroad preservation. Ted Miles, [...]
Wed, 10-13-2021 13:33
Was the CB&Q 1309 every transported to IRM?I’ve been reading old issues of Rail&Wire and the car was mentioned several times.
Mon, 06-07-2021 22:40
I was wondering if in the model layout display what scale would you guys be using and would you be displaying model train history as well? Just [...]
Wed, 06-02-2021 17:27
Nice to see 428's cab back on. Looking forward to when it is operable!
Tue, 06-01-2021 16:47
I hope the work will continue on the UP #428. Now that they are the museum's connection to the national railroad network; she would be very [...]
Sat, 04-17-2021 23:07
What is the status of 126, the Milwaukee Buffet car that is in S. Dakota? Any guess on when or if it will get to IRM?
Wed, 04-14-2021 21:09
Perhaps it is time to scrap the remains of the c, B & Q 7128 to make room for the Villa Real. Ted miles, IRM member
Wed, 04-14-2021 15:26
Hi IRM my name is Jason and I was wonder If you guys would be willing to save a CN Dash8-40cm they are currently being retired by CN and being [...]
Fri, 04-09-2021 19:56
Bear in mind that the Nebraska Zephyr is an articulated train set, so cars cannot be inserted at will. Although cars and/or a second engine could be [...]
Wed, 03-31-2021 11:37
I believe Silver Pony is currently on the back burner, and has been put into storage in one of the barns. The car needs a lot of work done to it's [...]