Going going almost gone or car 36 where are you

Al writes…

Been having nightmares about a large slab of green wood. This led me to venture out to the museum yesterday to remove that last expanse of green paint on the side of 36. I was able to complete removal of the green below the belt rail by the end of the day. And as Randy often says its a day of scraping, sanding and painting.

With this progress we are coming close to removing all vestiges of the cars "Cleveland" identity. Somehow I couldnt resist the urge to leave the painted number on the side of the car to the very last. I felt like there should be a little ceremony as I removed that last "Cleveland" identity item. So I held a little ceremony with the barn cats( oh wait there are no barn cats in barn eight ) as that identity was removed. I believe that was the last vestige of Columbia Park and Southwestern identity remaining.After sanding I was able to get a coat of primer on the car,

Speaking of residents of barn 8, 4412 has joined the group and is shown here wearing its new hat.  Tim Peters did meet his Thanksgiving deadline.

As always there was a lot of activity in barn 4 and the wood shop on a Wednesday. Spent a little time observing the manufacture of new windows. Bob Katella does a good job covering those activities in his blog so I wont repeat them here.

One activity that was unique was continued attention to stringing trolley wire over the connection just east of the barns.

This blog entry is brought to you by the Shameless Prodding Division of Hicks Car Works. Please remember to consider a donation to the Barn 14 fund. And remember the matching contribution program offered by the Hicks car works.

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36 I Hope Report

 Today was mostly spent painting various parts of the 36.  At least I hope it was the 36.  The last of the numbers had mysteriously vanished, so I just had to make my best guess as to which car to work on.

Here we are looking at a second coat of brown primer on the letterboard and upper siding for the entire length of the car.  Saturday is supposed to be even warmer, so I plan to put on a first coat of the finish blue.  

While I had the primer out, I also did a little work on the 319.  Some parts of the truss rod had been cleaned off a couple of years ago, while it was in Barn 2.  I cleaned off the surface rust with a chain and painted it with brown primer also.

And then later, I put some body filler on parts of the lower siding, and then extended the second primer for about four sectors. The details are less than exciting, but the bottom line is that its getting closer to being completely repainted.  The goal, of course, is to have the car completely repainted and lettered for the Trolley Pageant next year, celebrating IRMs 60th Anniversary.

And it was a nice day for a stroll out to 14 to check on the 321 and collect a couple of parts.  As we gaze out over this assortment of cars and locomotives, wouldnt it be nice if we had a sturdy new building to protect everything from the weather?  You can help!

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