Katy Dickinson

Caboose Welding Done, Working on Electrical, Paint

Chris The Welder came back to work on WP668, our backyard railroad caboose, on Saturday. He finished attaching the five foot square steel plate to the bay window. John helped and in the process learned a great many welding techniques and tricks. Chris' next projects are to make the steel handrail and balusters for the wooden steps and the steel ladder for each end of the caboose. John and I will be finishing up on the bay window - polishing the metal, adding the filler between welds, and painting. We also need to buy new wood-frame windows to fit into both bays. (One window is missing and the other is in very poor condition.)

John spent yesterday working on the electrical. He is running the wires and putting in outlets and switches on the inside. Also, he is adding two porch lights at each end.

I am still painting yellow trim. I am also getting ready to paint the markings back. I have found a company which will make the stencils. Looking at some of the fonts I have available and comparing them to the historic pictures I have of original Western Pacific lettering, HGMaruGothicMPRO or Helvetica fonts seem closest. On one of the railroad email discussions, I saw a reference to WP using Zephyr Gothic and Cooper Black fonts but I don't know what those look like.

Here is a 1974 photo of WP668. The yellow WP 668 on each bay and the much smaller letters and numbers along the bottom steel edge both identify the caboose and give service dates.

WP668, around 1974

Location/Date/Photographer unknown. S. Roger Kirkpatrick collection, listed on Central California Rails Caboose Index - W Used with permission of S. Roger Kirkpatrick

Work in progress or planned before WP668 is usable:

• Finish installing electrical plugs and switches inside
• Installing lights outside
• Create, install stairway balusters and handrails
• Final stair, electrical inspections and sign off
• Fill and paint back bay window
• Buy and install wood windows into bays
• Install interior wood facing on bays around windows
• Installing the metal roof covering
• Painting the inside
• Fixing the base floor inside (1/3 of it is damaged, 2/3 of it is solid)
• Covering the floor inside (probably with linoleum)
• Repaint original exterior markings

WP668 is all swept out and tidied up so that our friends and relations coming over for Thanksgiving can tour to see what progress we have made.

Posted at 01:45PM Nov 19, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

104 SEED Mentoring Program Applications

The application deadline for SEED's Worldwide Established Staff, January - July, 2008 term was last Friday (16 November). The rough figures are: 104 Sun Engineering staff members applied; 86 of those completed their applications. The next step is for HR (Human Resources) to verify titles, grade levels, performance ratings, etc. Some applicants may be disqualified as a result of HR's review. Tanya Jankot and I am reading the applications now. The SEED Selection Committee meets on 28 November 2007. We expect to pick about 40 participants. I will announce final selections on 28 November.

At present, 18 of the applicants are not qualified, mostly because their materials appear incomplete. We may find some these are complete after we sort through all of the submissions (if, for example, a letter was submitted under the wrong SunID). Most who are not qualified did not have a complete application (required letters missing, for example) or were too junior for this term (meaning they are not yet at the global equivalent of U.S. job grades 9, and/or they will have been with Sun fewer than 2 years as of January 2008).

More information on the SEED Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 01:01PM Nov 19, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |