Over the last few months Erie Lackawanna dining car 741 has been prepped for painting into its EL colors. Here are a few photos of it in primer - it should start to see paint in a few weeks.




As always, progress depends on money. We are running several excursions with our other recent project, NKP sleeper "City of Lima" on Nov. 10th and 11th:
http://www.eldcps.org/convention.html

And now the paint starts. First the yellow, then the maroon and finally the gray.

Just curious....

It appears from the photos that this car may have been sideswiped... comments? Don't think a dent puller and some bondo would fix that? :-)

Looks great so far... how's the interior coming?

Good luck,
Mike Brown

Yes, we believe 741 was involved in a grade crossing collision/derailment of the Erie Lackawanna Limited in 1961 (or 62) at Ravenna, Ohio. The car was derailed and pushed against a signal tower. We made the decision to leave the crease in the car as the EL didn't try to take it out and thus it has been a "feature" of the car ever since.

We have not done any interior work on the car yet. We wanted to make sure the exterior was restored and water tight. Also, with the car painted I am hoping it will help our fundraising efforts to complete the interior. I find that people don't grasp heavy metal work but see progress when it is painted.

The instant I saw the original post I though "Oooo. . . orriginal dent?" and thought of the dent in the nose of one of the Electoliner cabs at the Illinois Railway Museum. Same thing with a rusty bumper on a Kaiser at the Ford Museum. Museum found out that the original owner had a warrantee claim in with Kaiser for the poor chrome on a bumper, it was never really fixed to satisfaction. I was standing next to the restorationist when he said he could fix that, and the Curator related it was an OEM defect, and it had to stay.

If it ran with the dent, it gets preserved with the dent.

Steve

[i]I find that people don't grasp heavy metal work but see progress when it is painted.[/i] - eldiner

To the contrary - Its hard to gauge progress made when you look at a finished, recently-painted piece of equipment. IMO, its easier for outsiders to get an idea of the work involved when they can see new patches where rust was cut out and replaced, areas where Bondo was applied and sanded, new piping installed, etc.

The finish coat covers up all the evidence of work having been done.

When I do our history of EL dining car operations and talk about our project I always show photos showing the all the heavy work done to get to this point.

However, I am talking about donors. Now I know there are a lot of knowledgeable people here and elsewhere in railroad preservation but I noticed a large increase in the money donated by the general public, grant givers, foundations, etc. when I was able to show photos of our Nickel Plate sleeper painted.

Next is the maroon:

Wow, Tim:
You and your group are working miracles! I congratulate you for it, and can't wait to see the end result. Also, the City of Lima is definitely getting a lot of comments from Steamtown's visitors, and she isn't even on display yet!