Chris Coleman & Charlie inspect the newly installed jacks and bracing on the Westernmost car shop door. The entire beam was jacked up to allow for the bottom to be removed and replaced with a new concrete footer. Also visible, newly installed concrete footer beneath car shop tracks.	129K
	Lee Rainey and others discussing the plan for tackling the footer installation and the removal of loose beam, board & battens from above doors.	140K
	View Southwest of Westernmost doors and beams. The beam above the doors is to be removed. At this point it is only held by the old nails into the board & battens above it. It swings freely. It will be replaced with a newly formed beam which spans the door frame properly and is braced with 'L' brackets and bolts.	121K
	View North. The yard is quiet, only the noise from passing vehicles and the work crew's saws, hammers, scrapers, ladders and chatting.	143K
	View of two stacks above the boiler room.	83K
	Southwest view of yard. Silent boxcars desperately in need of attention.	122K
	Chris, Bob, Charlie, and Lee loading Quickrete and some lumber onto Charlie's truck for transport over to the work site. The scaffolding sections (yellow, visible in front of Charlie) were transported to the site by hand.	149K
	Charlie, Bill, Lee and Chris setting up the scaffolds to access the beam above the door. The pipe in the right hand corner of the shops (an old steam pipe?) was cut below ground, unscrewed, and removed to allow access to the base of the beam for pouring the footer form.	155K
	Here is the new beam being formed for placement above the doors. It is three 2x8's with bolt holes drilled. The beam was later lifted, one section at a time into place and bolted & glued one by one to form a very strong beam.	159K
	Closeup of the base of the beam which is to be repaired. At this point, it is free from its burden, as the jacks have lifted it. The bottom has corroded terribly. Eventually the bolt, which is visible, will be cast into concrete eliminating the decay you see here. The smaller beam to the left is the doorway which leads into the boiler room.	136K
	Lee pokes his head thru into the shops to check out the loose, swinging beam. It was removed by prying apart in sections with crowbars (it was 3 2x8's nailed together) after several of the non-weight bearing board and battens had been removed, and lifting it onto the scaffolds. This was done by Lee, Tom, Chris, Bill, and Bob.	125K
	The discussion goes on regarding the removal of the beam. Tom, Bob & Lee figure out the best method.	107K
	Bill & Lee take care of removing the old board & battens from above the doors. Also visible is the new beam on the second door (from the left) which was done at the 9/21-22/2002 work session. The result of this is that now the door swings freely, whereas before it dragged and sagged terribly. Things are shaping up in Rockhill!	145K
	Chris & Lee double check the measurement between the frame for installation of brackets and beam.	75K
	Chris & Lee triple checking the measurements.	81K
	Tom with his trusty Craftsman chainsaw removing about 10" of the bottom of the beam for replacement with concrete. More bracing is visible in the background which supports the next large beam which was jacked up. The beam in the foreground was actually braced against one of the track leading into the shop.	136K

At this point my camera's batteries died. I did not take any more photos of the day's work, and I headed home at the end of the day so I did not participate in or witness the work on Sunday. I did see the construction of the form (out of plywood) for the new footer. It was installed and the concrete was poured. The beam above the doors was also installed, and the board and battens were replaced. One of the purposes of replacing this beam was to raise it up about 16" (?) to allow more clearance for the cars entering the shops. This created a gap which was to be covered with plywood (a temporary fix until the beams, braces, boards & battens could be fabricated for the extension to the doors.) and was covered with chicken wire on Saturday for overnight vermin/vandal protection. The work on the carshop windows continued with Bill Adams, Pat Downs and myself doing scraping, painting, and glazing compound installation. The work is tedious and lengthy, but the outcome is really spectacular. To see the change is really amazing - see before & after from the 08/11/2002 work session; this will give you a general idea of the work as it progressed. My hat off to all who participated and organized this event.

If you're interested in participating in work like this, please contact me () and I will direct you to the right person. It's really rewarding and satisfying work, and the project involves every level of participant no matter how qualified! The only stipulation is that you are a member of the FEBT, which you can take care of right on the spot! So come out and help to keep the EBT alive!