319 Report

As mentioned below, the steel cars have been moved to Brookpark shops. We will be driving out to Cleveland on Friday and prepare the cars for loading on Saturday/Sunday. Of course, we'll post breaking news here as quickly as we can.

In any case, I was able to spend the entire day working on the 319. I started by making a prototype locking device for the two wood cars which will not require modifying the car in any way. Right now the cars are locked with a chain on the train door, which is not a good permanent solution. My new locking system should work well once the 1/4" plywood pieces are replaced with steel.

Then I started on seats. Actually, they're generally in better condition than I had thought. Several seat cushions are ripped and torn, but almost all of the seat backs are probably usable. The cushions I can do myself at home, and I have material left over from the 308. I removed two cushions to take home and recover, one of which is seen here.

This was one of the more uncomfortable seats at Trolleyville. Fortunately, I have plenty of spares from the 318, and I selected one from storage and took it home to be recovered.

Then I worked on the roof. The 319 was recanvassed at N. Olmsted, but there are several problems. First of all, they used the old tack molding, which is always a mistake. As you can see, it's badly split, so the tacks have pulled out. Then they used a non-standard method of attaching the canvas; it was tacked from the inside then folded up and over, leaving only 1/4" folded under, if that, and with only a few widely spaced nails and staples(!) And the canvas is just too short, it needs to be farther down the molding. I started reattaching it with the usual two rows of tacks closely spaced. To be fair, this is the worst section; most of it is still holding together somehow. I was able to tack down most of the loose material before running out of tacks. The canvas will have to be replaced eventually, but that's a major project requiring department resources and manpower. I believe the roof we have now can be used for a while, but the 319 will certainly be a fair-weather car like the others. I don't like to be critical, so let's accentuate the positive: this canvas job is a very educational display of why standard procedures are what they are.

This is the only broken window in either car, fortunately. (It didn't break in transit, it's a result of vandalism while the car was stored in the subway.) I removed it and looked for a replacement drop sash in storage. I don't have one, sadly, so I took it to the shop and removed the broken glass. Frank Sirinek cut out a replacement pane of which Bill McGregor would be proud. Thanks, Frank! I put it back in place temporarily; next time I'll have to bring out some rubber caulk and caulk the new glass in place in the shop.

There were lots of other people working on various projects today. Here we see Henry Vincent and Gerry Detloff making a test fit for new steel to be welded into the Com Ed 4. This project is almost done. Watch the department blogs for news on everything else.

Update: Steve Heister has posted several great photos of our cars at Cleveland on the CA&E Yahoo list, also of the Fox River 303 being moved to NORM. I'm not sure whether you can view these if you're not a member of the list, but here's the link.