Before canvas can be attached to the roof, it must be thoroughly soaked. Here's the first section laid out on the grass, getting a nice gentle bath. This causes the canvas to shrink, but once it then dries out, it can be stretched to final length on the roof.
It's not easy to get it all in place without sliding off (you've heard of the one-armed paperhanger, right?) but once it's there, the slack is taken up as much as possible. And then we wait for it to dry out.
In any case, I needed the exercise.
Then the last side door on the 36 was put back into place and assembled. And I worked some more on the third rail beams. I couldn't find quite the right mounting bolts, so they'll have to be ordered, and then at least the first two can be mounted on the trucks.
And I worked on the walkover seats in the main compartment of the 309. With some adjustments and lubrication, we're down to four that don't work properly. This is a big improvement. The defective ones are scattered, so at least the cable ties holding the seat backs together are gone, a big improvement to the general appearance.
Meanwhile, there was a lot of switching going on today. The CGW combine has been painted, in post-merger North Western colors, but it looks great. And back at the Cretney barn,there are several pieces that are seldom seen.
This is CTA locomotive S-105, which Scott Greig is working on.
And the Lackawanna IR boxcab, coupled to the 803, are seen outside in the sun for a change.
And in L car news, the two new Budd cars have acquired retriever mounting brackets. These are trolley bus retrievers, but they'll look right at home mounted as shown. Rod did the engineering and welding on this project.