Submitted by Steve Winicker.
LAST WEEKENDS SHOP ACTIVITY
Friday we moved the dumpster over for the Saturday cleanup of the passenger cars. Work on restoring the paint on the 451 progressed as did some general trash clean up due to the dumpster being emptied. Saturday work on the passenger cars commenced, the caboose was largely waxed and some of the valve gear taken down. Rob finished cleaning out the smoke box so we are now ready to start inspecting the locomotive. We also set up John and our machine tools to start on auxiliary tank brakes. Most of one side of the valve gear has been disassembled. Once we get the mess cleaned up from that we can get the other side done. Please do not move the parts around without consulting with me as we need to keep things in order. Sunday saw the retrieval of the dumpster and the removal of much of the valve gear from the left side of the locomotive.
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES
I would still like to get some cleaning done on the locomotive’s exterior. We need to carefully clean up the valve gear parts. If there is a demand for more positions, we can also start work on cleaning up some of the auxiliary tank parts. The interior of the locomotive tender needs to be inspected. If you really want to get down and dirty we can start drilling stay bolt telltales.
Saturday the 5 of November is the Society’s Annual meeting. Always a fun event. This year it is being held at the botanical gardens and as I understand it access to the indoor gardens will be available. You can choose your location from tropical to desert. According to the website you can e-mail in a reservation or call and leave a message. I understand that the written invitations are beginning to arrive but you can consider yourself invited.
