Finally.....also on 11/21/09

John Engs announced that the Friends has been awarded a Car Restoration Award by the Tourist Railway Association, Inc. for the restoration of Piledriver OB.

The happy (and hamming) group working this day posed with the plaque.

Meanwhile.......11/21/09

Craig started dismantling the interior to get an idea of what will be needed in the way of custom moulding, and I guess because he was curious as well.  He removed some of the interior panelling as well as framing around a window or two.  The window hardware is very basic and should not be difficult to replace.

Rosemary had the fun job of scraping old paint and varnish from the panelling.  The only good thing is that when you walk through the car it falls down on you, so it is no longer firmly adherent.

After more panelling has been removed, we can see the construction of the wall between the windows.  The cross-pieces were held in place by moulding which was glued in place, but the pieces are free-floating now.  Craig removed six of the vertical pieces between the windows, and discovered the NUMBER 470 written on three of them.  So, apparently the mystery of the original number of the car that we have been calling "0252" has been solved.  This would indicate that this car is the last of the series that was built.  Hopefully, we will find more documentation as we go forward.

Finally, this is a view of the icebox (who remembers when all refrigerators were called "iceboxes"?) that was installed later when the car was used for maintenance of way.  After the asbestos was (professionally) removed, dismantling was begun revealing the insulation used, i.e. wood shavings.

A Good Day

11/21/09  Today we began work on the foundation  for the protective structure for the car (and us) by laying out the footprint and the stakes for the holes for the frame poles.  Bob thinks the line looks pretty good, but is wondering how he is going to move that rail.  Actually, the plan is to use the rails to anchor the frame poles, rather than pouring concrete, in part to make the building more easily moved if and when necessary.

The next step is to drill the holes using the "helicopter" for the poles.  The "big boys" did the first one and the "little guys" finished the job.

Luckily we got all the holes drilled and covered, because the weather hasn't been very cooperative since.  The structure will extend beyond the car on this end to provide some covered work space in addition to the area in the woodshop (aka pod), which is rapidly diminishing because of the workbench, power tools, etc.