Skipping the beginning

I have been trying to get started on this blog, but decided that I will just start from where I am and do flashbacks as needed for clarity.

Clinton Northern Railway work team has been restoring a couple of old cars. The main focus has been on a 1902 Barney and Smith RPO/luggage and baggage car. All wood, with more than it share of rotted wood. So far we have replaced the clerestory roof including all of the carlines. We had the local high school industrial class ripped off the old stuff and replaced it with new. What a difference that has made. We are now working on the lower roof. We need to find one good half carline so we can get our workers to start making about 40 of them. Having looked at about eight so far we have not found one that was complete. Sketching one may be our best bet at this stage.

In the past few months we have been lucky to get as many two or three volunteers to work in a morning, but this last Thursday we had five, count 'em, five and that included a retired roofer who knows a lot about putting down vinyl and then fusing the material around the end caps.
It sure is hard to find the expert knowledge on how the old timers did it and maybe even why.
As I look at the roofs I see they are all stained red, just like the rest of the car. No one can tell us whether this was the original way the car was run and then it was covered with paper and tar paper? And how were the windows covered? Ah so many questions and so much guessing.
We are all fairly sure that we are doing it somewhat right-we sure hope that somewhat is going to keep us safe.

The adventure of solving the problems is what makes the adventure a real adventure.
The other part that makes this so much fun are all the contacts we have run into, people just stopping by to say "hi" and share their stories. The other day a pleasant lady and her male guest stopped and shared how she has been part of a rail road gang laying track, swinging a hammer and driving nails while they repair some local tracks. She also talked about how she and another friend paid out big bucks and had a chance to run the 1225 over in Owosso. You all know that at least as the model for the Polar Express.

We have also had a couple of train layouts given tous. Both pretty old and need in of extensive repair. One small enough that we can set it up in the main waiting room of the St. Johns Depot. The other will be totally reconstructed in a luggage area of the depot. It is well over 50 in length and five feet wide. It is called the Four Seasons and was built by Jerry Banks. Over the next year or so we will get this set up and hope to have it ready for paying customers to see this really exciting display.
Well back to money raising, back to track extension, back to research, back to having fun in new areas. Till later. gary 
     

The RESA Industrial Class doing their thing on the RPO