Baby, it was cold outside

But shockingly, not a disaster!,
George, Fred, Steve T and Gary braved a cold day that was to wind up late after 5pm.
As Fred and John P have been working diligently to finish up the sub floor steel work on the cab of #35, all that was left to fabricate and install were 2 more pieces of angle iron. After Fred measured and created the 2, he welded them in and then moved on to fabricating a new step riser for the North East stairwell of the Ping Pong Coach. This top riser was so badly deteriorated at the top edge where it was welded to the diamond plate platform that there was no way we could weld anything to it. SO!, We made the decision to cut it out and replace it. We have found that we will also need to do the same thing with the opposite side top riser, next week.
As to #35's cab, at this point, I believe that we will need to remove the piece of diamond plate that is in one of the parts storage trailers to fit it up onto the new sub floor and measure for anything that will need to be added/replaced/removed. Our goal is to be able to add the shaker bars, firebox doors and seats in their original places to create another simulator.
We still need to complete the needle scaling of the interior and the paint removal on the exterior so that both John and Fred can continue their fantastic pace of restoration.
As for the Ping, after the riser is removed, we will be able to focus solely on installing metal on the interior.. THIS is a great thing.

We should be able to re-start working on the turntable collector box above the turntables arch as our electrician is scheduled to return from his winter vacation this week. As I can see, we need to hook up the 4 wires coming in from the power supply side through the underside of the collector box and the 4 wires that run inside the slip ring of the turntables delivery side. This will/should leave us the opportunity to actually energize the motor directly to see if we can move the turntable. IF all goes well, we then have to wire up the control stand and resistor bank to the motor. Hopefully, if all goes well, we can be completed by summer.
Gary