More progress on the Erie #C254

More nice progress has been made on the maintenance work on Erie Railroad caboose #C254 over the past week.    The entire west side of the car has had its first pass on buffing, and is looking really good.   Work on the east side has also started.

#C254 with the west side polished.  04.28.2012

Where we started from...

Progress on the east side.  04.28.2012

Before polishing...

Work on the roof has also continued with most of the needle scaling complete.   Only the edges that roll over to the sides need to be done.   It has been a real team effort.   The focus has now shifted to wire wheeling the cleaned roof to get some of the rust off before sealing and painting.   Again, that has been a real team effort with no fewer than five different volunteers lending a hand.

The south roof completely needle scaled and ready for wire wheeling.   The steel plates welded to the roof are where the roof walks original to the car were once attached.   We are considering adding them back on prior to repainting to further restore the car.

Where we started from...

Time for a little maintenance - Erie #C254

Restored and repainted in 1994, Erie Railroad caboose #C254 has been the backbone of the R&GVRRM's operating fleet since then.   With the 2012 season opening looming on Sunday, May 20th, it was decided to bring the #C254 into the shop for some maintenance.    The work will include stripping the failed coating from the roof and repainting it, repairing and repainting the windows, repainting the Erie logos on the sides, some interior cleanup and a good polishing of the red exterior paint.    We are already have about two weeks of work into the caboose, and here are some photos of the progress.

 

Erie Railroad caboose #C254 sits in the R&GVRRM restoration shop awaiting maintenance work to begin.

Photo by: C.R. Hauf 4.14.2012 

The south caboose roof before needle scaling began.

Photo by: M. Wilczek  4.15.2012 

 Volunteer, Jim Bridgen, works to needle scale the south roof of the #C254,
Photo by: C.R. Hauf  4.21.2012

 Museum volunteer, Dale Hartnett, works on cleaning up the north roof of the #C254

Photo by: C.R. Hauf  4.14.2012

 Mother Nature is pretty cruel on our equipment's paint so we wanted to shine the #C254 back up.   Volunteer, Christopher Hauf, started the process of compounding and polishing the #C254 to bring its shine back.   A portion of the west side was being done on April 17, 2012.

Photo by: C.R. Hauf  4.17.2012

 And polishing work was continued by Christopher Hauf during the Saturday, April 21, 2012 work session.

Here are all of the photos viewable on the R&GVRRM Flickr's site.

As always, we welcome donations to help offset the cost of our work on the #C254.   Click here to donate via PayPal today.    Thanks!