Today whilst sanding the body sides for painting i came across even more bearing packing dates than i had realized were there....fascinating insight into the day to day running of friction bearing stock, the last two dates appear to be 4/15/46 and 5/15/46 meaning that she was condemned by 6/15/46 which ties in with published records. this i assume means that bearings were repacked on a monthly basis...what a labor intensive task on all rolling stock. i am going to mask off this area and just clearcote it, its too complicated to repaint and too valuable to lose.

http://car57.zenfolio.com/p940861892/h3 ... #h30a2ccd6

Mike Pannell

No, actually the bearing repack interval was something like eighteen months (someone correct me if I'm wrong). The fact it was repacked twice in a month likely indicates something wrong with one of the trucks, or the car had its trucks changed, and the new trucks were repacked as a matter of course. In fact, looking at your photos, the last date simply says "PKD" which was normally used the first time bearings were packed... but who knows. While it would be odd to put work into a car that was to be retired soon, the cars needed to be roadworthy until the word came down to retire them.