Yesterday was one of those rare occasions when all four of us brass hats here at the Car Works were out at the Museum at the same time. David and Frank were operating all day, as described earlier. Al and I worked on the 36, mostly. And this report will cover two days.
Al prepped and painted the window wipers and some other parts in the shop. I removed all the tools, parts, and other supplies from the car in preparation for operation during the pageant. That took a while, and I also vacuumed the floor. Man, was it filthy! It's at least cleaner, and looks much better. I hope to be able to show people through it at some point during the pageant.
Rich Witt is making good progress on building new repro first aid boxes for the CA&E cars. All of the cars from Cleveland had them stolen. Here he is working on assembling the first kit. Thanks, Rich!
He needed to examine the original box in the 309 again. So before reinstalling it, there was an opportunity to inventory the contents. Need some first aid, 1940's style? Let's see what we have.
(L) From the top down, there's a tourniquet in case you lose an arm or a leg. Next, first aid cream for poison ivy, for some reason. Then some ammonia inhalants in case you faint, and sterile gauze pads for minor cuts. Two boxes of different brands of iodine swabs for serious cuts, and finally gauze bandages. Place them neatly back in the box, please.
And when we're done, it looks like this, next to the Hicksco axe, saw, and crowbar for extricating yourself from a bad wreck. We've got you covered!Of course, as we've mentioned before, for actual emergencies every car will have a nice new emergency kit with modern first aid, fire extinguisher, etc.
And I painted the rest of the numbers on the 36 and did several other minor tasks in preparation for operation.
As on any Wednesday, many other projects were being worked on. Here Pete Galayda stands proudly in front of the CCW steeple cab, newly equipped with trolley poles. It really looks nice!
For today (Thursday) I had hoped to be able to put the 36 over the pit, but that turned out not to be possible. I spent some time sanding down windows, as there are many that still need to be stripped and repainted. One of them had rotted badly, so I'm planning to make about three replacements.
I walked out to 14 to check on the 321 again. Everything seems fine. The interior is always dark and foreboding. I noticed something I'd forgotten about, however: I wish Frank would pick up his toys after he's done playing with them.
And Bob Kutella was out again, and proudly described all the work that the weekday crew are doing on the CGW plow. You have to look close to see the difference between the black plow and the very dark maroon body.
The CA&E wood cars 308 and 319 will be operating both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. We could still use a trainman for Sunday. In any case, come on out and ride!
