The back of the Plymouth before painting

It was a very good Friday out at the shop.? Despite a small 4 man work party, a significant amount of work was done.? William and Eric worked on cleaning more debris out from some of the corners and from under racks, and by the end of the day, it was looking pretty good.? Ken Sr. was working on sealing up the office window panels, and did a bit more painting on the shop walls.? Ken Jr. spent the day working on the Plymouth and E-7.

Half of the back of the Plymouth cab was worked on,with the rust bubbles being removed and rough paint smoothed out. By the end of the day, a coat of grey primer was applied.

Primer applied

A set of ditch lights off an Ontario Northland F unit have been acquired and will become the new headlights for the Plymouth.? The?Plymouth will also have a bell from a VIA F40PH added in the spring.? If all goes well the

rest of the back wall of the cab will be done by the May open house, showing good progress on the locomotive.? E-7 got a bit of attention, just testing out the paint remover.

A small section of the cab was taken down to bare metal and a coat of primer applied.

E-7 with the new dock plate and paint test.

We also cut a dock plate to allow safe passage between the work platform and the locomotive. This needs to be a bit wider for safety, but will be good for the volunteers to get over the 10″ gap between platform and locomotive.? The final thing was the donation of a large set of steel steps from Paletta International.? They are tearing down the old Chef Boy R Dee plant in Niagara Falls, and these steps were once used to cross over a conveyor system. They’ve been outside the plant for a while, and were donated this week.? While not suitable for public use, they will be good for members to use to work on equipment.

Our new work stairs.

CN SD70M 8927 at Fort Erie, April 22, 2011