It is amazing to see the progress that has been continuing at a fantastic rate. Work has been accomplished in a number of places by a range of volunteers.
In Kelly Barn, Illinois Terminal car 451 received its first coat of paint. This project has been a long time coming. On Saturday, the primer coat was finished. First thing Sunday morning, those helping Kevin Mitchell on his Eagle Scout Project began to apply the green base coat. By the end of the day, I was told that the whole car should have the green finished.
Up on the hill, almost half of the roof was replaced on The New York New Haven & Hartford coach (also known as the "Dining Car") by John Pelletier. This has allowed us to remove some of the tarps from the car, thus making it look much more aesthetically pleasing. Once the roof on the car is completed, we should be able to re-purpose those tarps to replace the failed tarps on Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee car 162.
Under the Train Shed, The Bangor & Aroostook Caboose wood is getting primed. Most of the wood has already been completed thanks to the hard work of a group of volunteers in the evening. In addition, a couple of our "Community Service volunteers" have been working on priming the wood as well. It shouldn't be long before we can start to pull the wood off of the roof.
Inside the Lusa Car Shop, one truck set has been fully tested for the Boston Elevated Railway car 5645. We have had our resident machinists hard at work manufacturing some of the missing parts for the car (clips, covers, etc). Next weekend that truck should be pushed under the car and the car lowered back down on it. Then we can slide the car down the track and do the same with the other end.
For the past couple of weeks, Fair Haven & Westville Railroad car 355 has been sitting over the Maintenance Pit. Work was completed over the weekend on the brake rigging of car 355. Bits of the underside of the car had to be "re-engineered" because of a problem where the brake rigging was chafing one of the motor leads.
