By Howard Pincus, Railroad Museum of New England
Boston & Maine boxcar 77843 was placed on the Thomaston Station display track on Saturday, April 25, 2015. The car was restored to its 1975 appearance by RMNE’s volunteer restoration crew.
B&M 77843 was built by Pullman-Standard in July 1956; it is a 50-ton, 50-foot PS-1 car. This car (and others in the series) was reconditioned by B&M in 1975 at their East Deerfield shops. The work then included removal of the original roofwalk and high ladders. It was purchased by RMNE from Guilford Rail Industries (B&M) in 1998.
A leaky roof was the impetus for the car coming into the shop in July 2014, for roof repairs and a “dip job”, with a minimal budget. Some obvious “project creep” occurred, and a much nicer restoration resulted. The budget was still reasonable, although the shop time was longer than originally planned.
The “keep it simple and reasonably cheap” plan precluded the restoration of the roofwalks and high ladders, so the car was restored to its appearance as of the mid-70s reconditioning by B&M.
We started with this.
The finished product.
Work done included: patching roof corners and edges with new steel patches welded in, patching the 1975 B&M side patches, repairing rock salt damage to the steel floor, straightening the side doors (mangled and tough to close, they now take just two people and no come-along to operate), new wood tackboards and steel brackets, roof, sides, ends and truck frames were scraped/sanded/prepped for paint, lettering was carefully measured and photographed for reproduction.
The car was primed and painted with Benjamin Moore industrial paints; color coats were urethane alkyd enamel. Lettering was painted on using vinyl stencil masks, and the “B&M” herald was a vinyl decal, as originally used in the 1975 rebuild.
The car was primed in Fall 2014 and painted in November. Lettering was done in January 2015, with the final vinyl decals (consolidated stencil and wheel inspection dot) going on in April 2015.
A full COT&S servicing of the AB brake system was also done during the winter.
The finished product.
