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Is it a van or is it a caboose? It appears that both names have been used for these unique pieces of rolling stock in North America. As our readers will have noticed in past news postings, TRHA volunteers have been making great progress against the formidable challenge of restoring the TH&B van which had suffered badly from wood rot over the decades in storage.

Here is a recent report and a number of photos of the work in progress from James Rasor who is leading the team in restoring #70:

“We are making progress in leaps and bounds on the Van these days thanks especially to Neville, Jim, Scott and Wilson. Saturday, October 16th was a milestone day for us as it marked the day we removed the temporary support holding up the cupola now that the structure has been repaired on the both the right and left sides of the van. Next week will see the replacement of the tongue and groove siding on the right side of the van up to the cupola as well as the sheathing screws on the outside, another milestone moment for us.

Work has also begun on the restoration of the van’s interior equipment with Wilson restoring the stove, coal box, back panels, etc, and Scott beginning the restoration of the large conductor’s desk. A great deal of work is still required to strip down the hardware and tongue and groove wood, but we are on our way.

Jim is beginning the long task of repairing all the wood rot on the window frames and Neville continues to remove the metal panels on the cupola so we can repair, stabilize, and restore them as much of the metal near the corners and roof have been rusted through and are being held in place by the corner angles only. Of course with the new cupola structure in place, all the panels will be even more stable.

Over the next two weeks we will finalize the electrical design wanted for lighting and power in the van and then we can start to enclose it fully.

Posting by Russ Milland; Report & photos by James Rasor