Gondola 1232 in Chama, NM 03/21/2012

[Joe Kanocz]

[Paul Davenport]

A fair amount of the posts and some of the side boards needed replacing.

Once the floorboards were up, the "C" session crew discovered some of the sills had rot.

After the tree crew was reassigned during "D," I worked several days during "D" on the repair of high-side gondola 1232. The "C" crew had already done tons of work: pulling and replacing sideboards, side posts and floorboards and starting to replace several sills where they found rot when the floorboards were pulled up. The smaller "D" crew made a fair amount of progress, but there's more work to be done, as evidenced by this shot of the car's interior near the end of "D." Aside from repainting and relettering, I believe the remaining structural work mostly consists of partial replacement of another sill and installing the new floorboards on one end of the car and its middle. The boards at the other end are in decent shape and provided a decent staging area for work inside the car. The white atop the lengthwise sills is a liner material intended to keep moisture off the top of the sills once the floor boards go back on.

[Jim Davenport]

The crew that refurbished #1232 in 2013 and 2014 reassembles in front of the freshly lettered high side gondola.

[John Cole]

Is that Bob Goens working with you?

[Jim Davenport]

Yes, Bob Goin is a spark plug for getting things done !

[John Cole]

Thanks, Bob came up to me on Sunday and during our conversation mentioned he had turned 80 this year. He drove out from New Jersey just to bust his ass in Chama for a week. I hope I am in that good a shape when I hit that age.