Well here a month has flown by since the last update. Rest assured that work didn't slow down.  The last we posted, you could see the floor had been stripped of all the rotten wood, and the rusted metal was being cut out. Even some new panels had been laid. 

Many more panels have been plasma cut laid, and welded in.

Just about done with all the side panels, getting ready to cut and weld down the center ones.

Every panel has now been cut and laid. Most all are welded, but a few towards the North end still need to be welded in.Quite frankly we would have kept on welding this weekend, but we ran out of wire! We had 5 spools of .030 wire. Doing the math, so far we have welded a little over 21,000 feet of wire and roughly 12 4x8 sheets of 11 gauge steel. One sheet of steel weighs about 160 lbs. 

So 50 pounds of wire, and almost one ton (2000 lbs) of metal are laid down on 4451... Geeze no wonder we are tired at night.

Looking at the finished floor, it reminds me of the floor of a bumper car ride at the fair. Remember that?

Anyway, the last few panels will be welded down this week.

For the most part, the structural I-beams and frame of the car have been in pretty good shape. The exception to this is in the train door entrance areas. The supporting I-beams that were rotted out, were carefully cut back to good metal and replaced with new I-beams. You can see in the picture above the left one is being welded in, and the right one shows the rot issue.Welding away

Above and below you can see the finished product. Two new I-beams installed and properly attached.

Our next step is to finish stripping the train end walls. You can see above the hand brake assembly in place, and below it has been removed.Now to get to work on walls and floors of the vestibules.Stay tuned, as we have a long road ahead...