It sure would be nice to have a few of the hi sides rebuilt. The sills on many of them are in rough shape though. When we rebuilt the pipe gons in 2003 you could see that when the cut down steel draft gear was put into these cars by the Grande, it created a fulcrum point in the top of the double stacked center sills. The sills were weakend by rot and broken by the draft gear. Roy Blizzard and I crawled under many of these cars and the bulk of them had the same problem. This doesn't mean they can't be rebuilt. We replaced the sills in the pipe gons with minimum problem. But it adds to the work.
I hear a lot of comments criticizing the choice of cars that the Friends rebuild. I think most people have no idea what is involved in rebuilding these cars. From the research, the surveying of the car the ordering of material ( over 700 bolts in 16 sizes were purchased for a single pipe gon, 1100+ in 22 sizes for an extended side drop bottom gon) assembling a team with the correct skillsets, Then the work begins. When the car is "finished", the paint crew takes over, then the truck gang making sure it rolls, and stops safely.
In all my years playing in Chama a car was never "assigned". One was suggested then a team leader volunteered to take on the task. The projects are usually a result of the passion of the leader and the team. Dan Pyzel taking on the 34' stock car is a good example. It will be the only one on rails and viewable to the railfan of the 4 or so around. What an incredible amount of work! Dan, Mike and the crew have done wonders already.
The sheer number of cars is daunting. I can think of very few volunteers organizations which could dream of accomplishing as much as the friends have. The days of Ralph Flowers and Roger Briggs walking by and saying "Hey tone, think you and Roy could tackle a drop bottom gon next?" are over and I can only applaud the people who are making the descisions now. I encourage everyone to get involved in the work sessions and see the scope of these massive undertakings. What an incredible pool of talented people. I miss it very much
