Saturday, August 12, 2017

On Vacation

Hi Folks,
Well, did ya miss me??
I took off a few weeks for a well earned and deserved vacation from work/OBRM/Baldwin Historical Society/Life in General-etc.
BUT, I'm back.
Now lets get down to the business at hand.


Mike Bartley and I busted our humps for over 4 hours putting together the pipe frame and drilling into the new sidewalk to install it. Then George came by, after finishing in the yard, to help us put up the banner. NOW, everyone walking down Audrey Ave, Railroad Plaza and from the LIRR station can see this sign and hopefully dig deep to donate.  Placing this banner here will also allow our contractor ample room to set up their scaffolding so that they can restore this side of the station.

Just before we hung the banner, the 3 of us were joined by Paul and Bill K when a Sagamore Hill NPS ranger brought over 20 people for their tour about Teddy Roosevelt. Seems the station is still part of this tour which I hear ends in a few weeks.

Thankfully these fine visitors were able to see the inside while I told them about the history of the building and they could see us as volunteers. We were well received, BTW!



And speaking about the yard--
While Mike and I were beating ourselves up with the banner, George, Paul and Bernard were busy kicking ass on the Ping Pong Coach #7433.
They took all of the seat cushions off of the North side and turned them over onto the South side seats.
Then they removed the frames from the walls and again, tried to remove the stand attached to the floor.
They managed to remove 2, however a suggestion was made to NOT remove these brackets as they really do not want to come out and cutting off the heads of the mounting bolts really sucks!
I took a look before I closed up shop and I have to agree with Bernard.
My revised plan is to break up all of the concrete floor on the north side of these brackets and remove the inner wall sheets on the North side of this car under the windows to remove any insulation. This will allow us to start welding up any holes and not worry about setting anything on fire! always a good thing

Then we can determine just how the steel plate holding the seat frames to the floor is attached. My educated (?) guess is that it is somehow set into the concrete.
Over the course of the year we will keep the car closed to the public as we will raise a lot of dust and the possibility that there may be some lead in the paint. We cannot take any chances with the kids!
We will also have people needle scaling the paint starting on the west platform and vestibule. Just in case, we will tarp off these sectinos so we can vacuum up any dust and paint chips to keep the little ones safe.
 The photo above shows the empty North side of the car with the remaining seat floor brackets. We will strip the paint in place. The side sheets are located under every window.
 Here is a piece of vinyl floor that was left under one of the seat floor brackets which was removed.
Always take the easy way out. Don't remove the seat brackets when you replace the floor around it! LIRR? K&K? We'll never know
This shot above shows the outline of a steel plate which is what the seat floor brackets bolt to. It runs from the East end of the car until just past the last west end seat bracket. I will have to "assume" that on the South side of the car, this plate also does not go to the end of the car.
Yes, those are my work shoes in the photo.

Tomorrow, the "Riverhead crew" consisting of Ronnie, Gerard and whoever else they get will paint the 2nd P72 coach which was recently brought into the River yard by the LIRR. The first coach and our BM60 baggage/mail car were recently re-painted and look real good. Thanks Jordan for painting the axle covers on the BM60, yellow. Smart move.


Stay tuned for more action packed stories!
Same Bat time-Same Bat station!
RIP Adam West 

Gary


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