The SC RR Museum is about to return SOU diner #3157 to operation after a hiatus of several years. We originally had to take it out of service because we discovered that nearly every leaf spring set in the trucks had broken leaves. It took forever for that to get fixed. We wound up ordering a complete set of new springs from Benz Spring in Oregon. I *highly* recommend this company, they did a great job and were really good to work with.

Meantime, other things went wrong as a result of the car sitting: the freon leaked out of the a/c, the batteries went bad, and the generator seized up, none of which we discovered until we were about to get the car back in operation. We also decided to replace the windows in the dining area, as several were pretty cloudy and a couple had bad seals. One window leaked so badly that rain water flowed in over the table in front of it! Not to mention the inside of the car got pretty dusty and dirty while it sat.

Nobody responded publicly to my request for help on repairing one of the window shades, a minor project I took on as my contribution to the car's return to service. I did get a few PMs and emails, though. To all who answered, thanks for the help! I got the shade repaired today. Today's work sesion was the last big push to get the diner back in operation.

Some were interested in the shade repair, so here's what I did: The shade has two pieces of wire rope that pass through the aluminum pull at the base, forming an X. Well, it's really more of an H, with the ropes crossing each other inside the shade pull. These ropes act as a brake so the shade stays where you put it. One of them had come loose and was hanging from the shade pull.

I had to take the bottom window trim molding off, then remove a half-dozen screws from the side molding and coax that out (it's a very close fit). That got the shade free of the guides. I took the pull at the bottom of the shade apart and found out that didn't help -- the two wire ropes go thorugh a piece of pipe that the shade material is wrapped around. So I put the pull back together. The wire rope that had come loose was in pretty bad shape (badly kinked and a little frayed) so I decided to replace it.

The hardware store didn't have any wire rope that was exactly the same size, but they had some that was just slightly bigger. I got that and a couple brass screw ends. I had only a little difficulty getting the new wire rope threaded through the bottom of the shade. Everything went back together pretty easily, actually. The only snag was that one screw had been replaced by one that was too big, and wouldn't fit through the new rope end. Another volunteer found and installed an appropriate screw, which finished up that little project.

Meantime, some other volunteers were working on the lights and cleaning things up inside the car. The diner will be in operation as our first-class car on Oct. 7, our next ride day. FYI, it was built for the SOU in 1924 by Pullman, and modernized by the Southern's Hayne shops in the late 1940s. We still have a few things to do before it's really "finished:" three lights in the dining room are still not working, the tables could use some work, and we still need to put a finish coat of Pullman green on the outside and do the lettering. We also need to replace a couple of the plastic light fixture covers -- anybody know where we can find them?

I know of two sister cars in operation, both in Tennessee -- one at TVRM in Chattanooga and one at the Secret City RR in Oak Ridge. The car at TVRM has been heavily remodeled and the one at Oak Ridge is missing some stuff at the kitchen end. I think our car is the most complete of the three. Anyone know of any other SOU diners preserved?

Our friends at the Southeastern Railway Museum have one, the 3159 I think.

Our diner has been in continuous service it was donated to us. We have made the car self contained for obvious reasons but the interior is essentially unchanged. Someone else besides me can probably shed more light on this.

Does your car have the divider for the Jim Crow seating section?

Yes. There are only 10 tables, though, the Jim Crow table is missing. We're replacing the chairs in the car, the plan is to put a couple extra chairs in the Jim Crow area to increase capacity from 40 to 43 or 44.