This was a challenging but productive week!

This is rather detailed but gives a flavor for the sheer hours and effort put into this progress....We do need more volunteers for just about everything... 

Last weekend the compressor on ...car 715 was tagged out of service due to excessive knocking noise. Wednesday and Thursday night, a change out of the compressor with the one recently rebuilt took place. A semi truck, a skid steer, a forklift and the ambulance made the job not terrible. It is done, and the car is ready for full service. The poles were changed out on the car this week as well. The newly installed poles extend past the coupler, so care needs to be taken when close moves are made.

The tack strip is being spot repaired, and this job is on going. Wood is being replaced, then canvas repairs. Following this it needs to be painted before the end of the season. This is very important! Roof painting volunteers needed!

Car 304 had Chicago Window and Door Solutions  312windows.com , working on it all day today, with a three person crew. They are DONATING a massive portion of the materials and labor! All upper florentine glass is installed, with several pieces of new wood, and massive amounts of wood frame restoration. One broken window in the NE door was replaced, and one East side window was replaced. These two were not vandal damage, and the company doing the work offered to replace these... this is so wonderful... thank you! 

The SE motorman drop sash window was painted, and will be installed tomorrow. There were a fair amount of mechanicals in the way of removing that window, so that will all be put back together today. The two arched sashes on the East side, closest to the doors, required more detail work, and will be installed early next week. The SE door was delivered today, completely rebuilt by Steve at Window Repair Guy   http://www.windowrepairguy.com/  HUGE THANKS STEVE  It is the same door, just all fixed up, with all new glass (correct wire glass in the bottom) 

Tomorrow the door will be installed, and the upper arch area will be sanded, caulked, and painted. The car will need a thorough cleaning during the week, next week, after the final windows are installed. Volunteers needed!

Car 458 has had a ton of time invested into removing all the windows that were damaged. Most are now out, but not all.

One Source Glass Inc in Joliet www.onesourceglass.com DONATED custom laminated, cut, and spec etched, glass for the entire car!   The windows on this car are very difficult to get in and out, and much more time will be needed. 458 had the final roof ribs installed down the middle, with cross bracing at the points they meet at top. Today the company that is making the very intricately cut end ribs was out for several hours making templates. Correct window glass was found in our parts stock to match the square pattern window for the bathroom.

Car 4451 had two of the four marker windows delivered. The end roof ribs had patterns made so ribs can be replicated.

Car 316 had all the side windows removed that were damaged. All side windows are coming out to have all new sashes made. This will be continuing this weekend.

Car 5 continues to have issues with the first contact point picking up correctly. The battery charger is also not functioning correctly. I have removed the timer from the circuit for the battery charger. Since the charger is a float charger, and has a battery sense feature that is functional, no timer is needed. The batteries will not over charge. This needs to be monitored to make sure the batteries stay fully charged.

Com Ed has had a third party contractor trimming trees along our line. I ran the line on Wednesday with the speeder to check for damage to our track or line. It turns out the tree company is manually climbing the trees from Stop 53 to DeYoung siding. No heavy equipment is near or on the line, so we are good.

Contractors and members have been working on plans to feed the campus with a better power supply. Options are being compiled. Minimally speaking, upped amperage to the barn will be happening.

We will be posting a video about our progress here in the next few days...

But a HUGE thank you to all our volunteers who have been hands on for many hours in the heat and doing whatever it takes to keep us up and running!

Our Volunteers are working extremely hard we need more volunteers!