It seems pretty criminal to just throw away or burn all the siding coming off our car so if anyone would like a sample with C&S/ Pullman green paint and MOW red oxide with a couple of square nails thrown in, then feel free to contact me. For a small donation to the project and a few dollars to cover a posting tube and postal cost, a piece of at the least 1907 siding can be yours !!
We uncovered what we hope is our 2nd original 1887 window today, the first was a replacement from another car and will still go back in anyhow. The 2nd was completely original and has the Pullman order number stamped in it too, so very gentle restoration is going on so as not to damage the original glass as well. More pictures to follow.

Cheers

Mike Pannell
Cheyenne

Well...when you finish you really should make a display from retained original materials to document the work you have done. At some point an observer might ask: "Why did you replace the old siding?" and "Is the new siding exactly like the old?" With your display you can show the observer the answer to his questions. You should also get some pieces and sand through the most recent layers of paint to reveal the different paint layers it had...up to and including the primer and lettering/stripes. You might think this is too much...but if you have ever gone to Monticello or similar historic home you will find displays like this either on display or in the archives.

There is a fascinating story to be told with each car...not only with the specific piece of equipment but with the technique and materials used to make the old cars. Something I have long wanted to do (not had the chance yet) is to take old car siding to a real wood forensic expert and find out "Exactly" what species the wood is and perhaps even where the tree was grown and maybe how old it was when harvested? These experts use microscopic slices of the end grain that they will examine under microscopes and look for grain and rings patterns that help them tell a story. Some can use DNA now...imagine the fun it? Contact the agriculture or forestry department of a state university...see if they have some graduate students looking for a challenge.

Thanks for the reply,
We are going to save some of the wood, but displaying 3,000 sq ft is a little excessive!
The wood is poplar as per usual, and we assume it came from some regular supplier that the C&S shops in Denver would have used, they would have ordered in vast quantities im sure. We actually have the original overhaul paperwork for possibly the last time that the siding was renewed, we are lucky enough to have the shop records for our car from 1906-07 and 08 the first of these shows the car in the shops for three and a half months! This was its first major overhaul/rebuild and must have included re-siding as well, the cost of $966.81 inc labour is huge, when you think of the cost of the car in 1887, $6000, this was when the car was renumbered to 513 from 57. Also i have brake conversion paperwork and diagrams from 1913, the work being carried out in 1915.
we have all the costings and complete breakdown of work to convert the car to an outfit car in 1927, beginning with letters written in 1924 suggesting which cars to convert and why, these are fascinating because they include the car (85)just discovered in Cheyenne as well.
This is a fraction of the paperwork, and we want to reassure people that we are not destroying anything until it is properly studied for pencil marks, number stamps, labels (we found three more packing case labels on the boarded up windows today alone, if anyone knew W.A. Moore, presumably a C&S foreman in Cheyenne in 1947 please let us know!!) or anything of any interest at all, its then photographed and kept aside.

Sorry for the long winded reply, but its Wyoming and there is plenty of wind here always !!

Cheers

Mike Pannell