Re: D&RGW 280 comes full circle

As most of you know the 280 belongs to the city of Bolder and is stored here in Golden at CRRM. The City of Bolder has retained a contractor that will be working on the 280 in the near future replacing some siding and belt rail segments. They will be using fur for replacement siding rather than poplar, the current siding material.
We at CRRM rebuilt some locomotive cabs a number of years ago with poplar wood, which was a wood used by the railroads, and have found that current poplar is grown too fast and has a wide grain structure that doesn't lend it's self well to Colorado weather. The 318 and the 191 both are having dry rote problems where the poplar was used. We no longer use poplar for any restoration work. The 284 has redwood siding and is doing vary well. the 1113 was resided with fur and we expect it do well also. Time will tell.
We are using Abatron Wood Epoxy both the putty and liquid in restoration We also now use the liquid thinned down as a primer for Urethane paint. Belt rails should be protected with a shell coating of some sort and should be made from a dense a wood as can be afforded.
We plan to reside the Midland car in the near future with redwood siding that we will repurpose from an old water tank.
I have been looking in to a number of ways the CRRM could add some covered storage for the NG passenger equipment and still have the equipment available for operation and public display. It will cost a lot of money to implement this protection but hopefully we will have some success realizing this needed protection with help from like minded financers some day.
We currently put our own equipment ahead of other equipment with the restoration facility as it is very difficult to take care a collection this size. But as seen with the 491, a change of ownership can change the associability to the facility and our volunteer army of workers.
Jack
CRRM CMO