319 Report

It was another hot one today. One has to be careful not to work too hard.

The first thing to do was to take a hike through the Great Southwest Desert and check on the 321. The clamps I've installed already seem to be holding up well, so that's good news. The tarp seems to have stopped shifting. I cut off another excess acre or so of tarp and attached some more of the clamps provided by Joel. Thanks again!

Now that the scaffold is in place, I was able to finish painting the roof black, as seen here. Unfortunately the scaffold is in the way of the camera. I hope the fresh paint will quickly acquire enough dust to match the rest of the roof!

Joel also made up three new trolley ropes for me, and I replaced the one on the 309, as mentioned earlier. I think I'll wait until the rope guards are installed to put new ropes on the 319; I may be able to start on that this Saturday.

Then I installed the six remaining handrails, as seen here. There's still a couple of holes to redrill, and of course they need to be touched up, especially the screw heads. But they look good.

Then the brake rigging. I was able to reposition both top rods so there is less piston travel. Standing travel in service is now 6", which is still a little more than desired, but a noticeable improvement.

Tim Peters is hard at work on the 1797, as seen here. He is hoping to have it moved into Barn 4 soon so he'll have more room to work. Both ends are being stripped in preparation for body and fender.

And it looks like Barn 9 now has a vistadome section!