Platform to preach

Chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace with

its distinctive open vestibules or plat-

forms.

A distinguishing feature of many 19^thCentury railroad cars is an open platform or vestibule on one or both ends.  For chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace, this platform was the ingress and egress to the car.  So the preacher, his wife, and all the parishioners used the open end platform to enter and leave the car.  Clearly, restoration of this missing feature was vital for a successful project, and was fully supported by the major funders including Save Americas Treasures, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Partners in Preservation (Seattle) and the  Washington State Heritage Capital Projects Fund administered by the Washington State Historical Society. And it was one of the most challenging aspects of the project because most of the work had to be performed in a specific sequence between March 2011 and April 2012 to avoid conflict with other work divisions such as carbody rehabilitation, floor repairs, and even the Terne roof installation. 

"Badly deteriorated"was the entry made

in the intial survey.  Little remained
in place from the original platform.

 

Vestibules in general are highly susceptible to deterioration.  Open platforms are even worse off.  Every rain storm, passing insect, or even passing thief has open access.  For instance, when the car was just a few years old, the pastor woke up one morning to learn that his milk can had been stolen from the end platform.  Apparently that Sunday’s sermon reminded parishioners that “thou shall not steal!”

The only surviving section of the

original platform end beam (top) is com-

pared with the new end beam (bottom).

The Messenger of Peace had very little to offer about the platform to researchers and rehabilitation specialists as they put their work plan together.  Fortunately, a portion of the original end beam had been recovered from the seaside where the car was used as a cabin; it confirmed the basic dimensions.  One end of the car had nearly complete platform and draft sills and those were used to make copies.

"B" end of car 5 at Novinger, MO. 

Image courtesty of Adair County

Historical Society.

Other resources played an important role too.  Researcher's visited other Barney and Smith-built cars from the era looking for clues, but most other cars had been retrofitted with more modern accessories from the early 20th Century. The Adair County Historical Society had a wonderful photo of the end platform taken in circa 1903 at Novinger, MO and this proved to be the most valuable guide. 

New platform and draft sills are at-

tached to the car with new fasteners.

Once basic dimensions were established, the rehabilitation team’s next challenge was to find large dimension white oak timbers, the species originally used for the chapel car platform and draft sills, and platform end beam.  Oak is an unusual wood for its density, resistance to decay, its hardness, and for the challenges in drying green wood.  A phenomenon called cell collapse often occurs when forcing large oak timbers to dry and severely reduces strength.  Air drying of green oak timbers is effective but takes years.  So what to do?  Recycled oak beams from an Amish barn in Ohio!

A platform end beam is milled on

the Northfield chain mortiser.

The timbers arrived in mid winter and the team found they had been stored outside.  The timber was cleaned off and any remaining fasteners were removed.  Holes or other minor defects were filled with epoxy or wood plugs were glued in.  Then the process of preparing the timbers began. 

A large slick was used to clean up the

initial cuts made by the mortise machine

There is always a need for good hand

tools when rehabilitating old wood cars!

Four large men were required to guide the 500 pound timbers through the Oliver planer.  During this process, several pockets of insect damage were discovered which had to be treated and repaired.  But in the end, some really great looking timbers were produced for the chapel car. 

Just a sample of the steel hardware that

is unseen inside and beneath the plat-

forms.

Was there more to it? Well, yes.  One of the unsung heros of the project was Ray M.  who repaired or made new the steel tension and tie rods that hold everything together.  Original steel was used wherever possible and was connected to new material with a turnbuckle.  Ray spent many hours custom machining hardware to fit in tight places where it would not be noticed.

There were also new castings required to make it all work.  Fortunately there was at least one copy of everything so the team was able to work with Mackenzie Castings in Arlington, WA to have copies made in ductile iron.  And they did fabulous work too!

The end railing is missing from the car and will have to be fabricated.  Fortunately, the great folks at Prairie Village in South Dakota have allowed the Messenger of Peace researchers to photograph and measure the railings on their chapel car Emmanuel.  These railings appear to be identical to the Messenger of Peace but surprisingly a number of other details including the platform end beam design and layout are not exactly the same even though the cars were built to the same plan.  The railings will be fabricated when additional project funding is secured.

The lead rehabilitation specialist Kevin P.

guides the mounting bolts for the plat-

form end beam into the matching holes.


Platform and draft sills are approximately 16 feet long.  The platform end beam is the width of the car and weighs over 200 pounds.  So a lot of special handling was required to maneuver the timbers around to the other woodworking machines.  And in the end - or at least as of May 2012 -  the Messenger of Peace has regained its platform to preach! 



The completed open vestibule needs one more

detail: an end railing. When more rehabilitation

funding is secured, a replacement railing will be
fabricated







Drawing the chapel car

Randy Miller describes his drawing to

the project lead rehabilitation

specialist Kevin Palo.

Documenting an historic structure is an essential element in any rehabilitation, and is a concomitant of the Secretary of the Interior Standards for the Treatment of Historic Structures.  This allows future curators to know what was done, and what the underlying structure lookd like without having to take it apart again.  The potential value of this information was clear early in the chapel car project when certain parts of the car had to be dismantled to inspect and document because there was no information about the interior structure.

Details are important.  Every window,

beam and stud are shown.  This is an
elevation view of the left side of the car.

For the chapel car, the entire structure has been measured.  Sketches and photographs have supplemented these dimensions and were used to create a complete set of drawings.  AutoCadd is the most popular program used in the architecture and engineering professions and Randy Miller has been creating this thorough documentation that records not only how the car was originally built but what has been repaired or modified during this rehabilitation.

Shaded components indicate new

material added to replace damaged

or missing structure.  The area depicted
in this image is in the center of the car
on the left hand side where two doors
were cut in the side.  The car saw
adaptive reuse as a roadside diner,
then as a cabana, and finally as a
cottage on a Pacific Ocean beach. 

Documenting the work is really important.  Replacement wood is shown shaded.  Notes capture other details such as supplemental supports that may have been installed, or where replacement steel or iron was incorporated.  Missing features discovered during research are also added and identified on the drawing as restoration.  The final product stands as a record not just of the chapel car but of wood cars produced by Barney and Smith circa 1898.  Good work Randy, and thanks to Save America's Treasures for funding this important part of the project!

Chapel car milestone

Chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace has been undergoing rehabilitation for over 9 months. A full time crew of carpenters and other preservation specialists has been reversing the effects of 112 years of deterioration and decay. Considering the car is just 78 feet long, the scope is massive. Frame repairs, new or repaired exterior cladding, new windows, repaired interior paneling and new trucks are just a few of the work categories underway. And to undertake the work, wood species were identified and replacement material sourced, fasteners duplicated, and cutting jigs prepared.

The most intensive aspect of the rehabilitation project is the frame (side sill) repairs, including the replacement of over 60 feet of sill material, 16 feet on the right side and over 45 feet on the left. This work required the car to be extensively jacked and blocked up to restore it to its original profile. The roof and walls were supported with false work installed in the car’s interior and supported by the center sill.

Work began with removal of the exterior cladding and the underlying blocking. Braces, ties rods and compression trusses were removed to provide access to the side sill. New sections of sill were created while the southern yellow pine timbers were supported by saw horses. After machining window post mortises, holes for tie rods, and a rabbet for the truss plank, the sill was installed. Then the real work began: installing window posts, fitting the compression and auxiliary compression planks, reinstalling the belt rail, and fitting and installing old and new blocking. Months of work later, the car superstructure is back together again and it can support the car’s weight. With this category of work completed, the car has also had its "camber" restored to a condition not seen for more than 60 years.

The chapel car rehabilitation will be continuing into 2012. Work is being funded by Save America's Treasures, Washington State Heritage Capital Projects Fund administered by the Washington State Historical Society, 4 Culture, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express.

Images (from top to bottom):

Carbody together again. Right side received 16 feet of new side sill.

Left side sill repair began with removal of cladding, blocking, compression planks, and the damaged side sill.

Meg G. begins installing bracing in the new side sill. A missing section of the truss plank evidenced in the foreground will be spliced in. The truss plank is made from Douglas fir and was the only Northwest wood used in the 1898 construction.

New section of truss plank mentioned in previous photo caption is shown in place along with new section of side sill.

Duane S. installs the last of the screws in the compression plank on the left side of the car.

Chapel car windows

Chapel car 5 rehabilitation continues in the Conservation and Restoration Center and with a recent delay in the arrival of heavy timbers work shifted to another important element: windows.

Windows are among the most distinctive features of a 19th Century railroad car. There was an almost unimaginably wide array of different window designs from the simple and functional to the elaborate. For a Baptist car, simple and functional were the expectations of the day yet by 21st Century standards, they are exceptional.

There were three main types of windows in the car: clerestory (operating) sash, upper sash and lower (operating) sash. The upper and lower sashes had one light (glass piece) each.

The clerestory sashes had three lights and were probably originally built with double glue chip glazing but over time several lights received single glue chip glazing. The clerestory windows adorned the car from end to end and provided light – and ventilation – throughout the car.

The car had nearly all the clerestory windows, although many of the bottom rails were damaged or missing. Six windows were missing altogether. Six new windows and a supply of replacement bottom rails were produced in the Conservation and Restoration Center.

The upper and lower sashes were located along the sides of the car and also provided light and ventilation (remember, air conditioning was an invention of the twentieth century.) There were 41 pairs in all but just one survived until 2011 when rehabilitation began. Fortunately, the one remaining sash combination was nearly complete allowing a very accurate restoration of the missing windows.

With just one window, dozens of questions were answered: type of wood – white oak; joinery – mortise and tenon; interior finish – shellac; window latch location – right side; thickness – one inch; and glass type – double strength. Additional details were inferred from old hardware mounting holes, paint shadows on the carbody, and a few remaining window stops.

While it would be more cost effective to use modern window joinery, the chapel car is a national treasure and the Secretary of the Interior Standards prescribe a greater attention to detail and authenticity. Traditional mortise and tenon joinery was used to make all replacement windows, along with the same cut and species of wood - 1/4 sawn white oak. In fact, there were only a few modern materials used: glue and brads. A modern paint will also be used on the exterior. Windows were produced over a two week period by Kevin P., Meg G., and Clark M. They will receive their shellac and color coats this summer.

Major funding for the chapel car window project has been provided by 4Culture - Landmark Rehabilitation Program, Partners In Preservation Seattle (National Trust For Historic Preservation and American Express Foundation), Save America's Treasures and the Washington State Historical Society - Capital Projects for Washington's Heritage.

Photos:

(Top) Chapel car window assembly as seen through the eye of a camera with Meg G. and Kevin P. performing.

Save America’s Treasures

Chapel Car 5 Messenger of Peace has been awarded a prestigious Save America’s Treasures grant. On 9 December 2009 the Institute of Museum and Library Services – in collaboration with the President’s Council on Arts and Heritage, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service – announced selection of the chapel car project from a pool of 402 eligible applications. In all, $9.5 million funded 41 applications.

The Chapel Car will receive $180,000 that will match funding awarded from the Washington State Historical Society’s Capital Projects for Washington’s Heritage program ($125,000), 4Culture’s Landmark Rehabilitation and Landmark Challenge grant programs ($37,000), a 4Culture Collection Care grant ($4,000) and a variety of private contributions.

Chapel Car 5 was built in 1898 for the American Baptist Publication Society. For 50 years it traveled through Washington and 10 other States bringing modern evangelism to the frontier. For two years it promoted the Railroad YMCA, and in its later years was used to conduct revivals. In 1899 a fatally ill Reverend Moody of the Moody Bible Institute traveled in the car on his final trip home.

In 1917, Car 5 traveled through Snoqualmie to conduct services in North Bend and later traveled to Issaquah to serve that community at the onset of America’s involvement in WW I. The car served dozens of communities in Western Washington and King County. After retirement, the car was adapted for use as a road side diner near Snohomish, WA, and later as a cottage at Grayland, WA. The artifact was donated to the Museum and moved to Snoqualmie in 2007.

Messenger of Peace is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Washington Heritage Register, and the King County and City of Snoqualmie Landmarks Register. It is recognized as the only Nationally-significant object in the Museum’s collection and this status helped secure the Save America’s Treasures grant.

The Save America’s Treasures grant will allow substantial completion of the Chapel Car rehabilitation. Work is expected to begin in second quarter 2010 following preparation of a detailed work plan and a successful review of that plan by the Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Work will take between 18 and 24 months to complete.