Photos for this week are: John Bell, Jimmy Scott, Devin Lawson & Hunter DeBellis painting the steel flats; Yeatman wye; the new trucks are under 5205, this is a photo of the rear truck; the new switch for the ballast track taking shape and last are Joe Geders & Dale Bitsch in the machine shop.

Congratulations and thanks to John Errante for designing and supervising the construction of 5205's new trucks, also to Joe Geders who did a lot of the machine work and assembly. These trucks will last a lifetime and keep 5205 in service for many years.

Today's crew (Wednesday, March 15) consisted of Lawson, Foster, Owens, Hunter & Tabernacki in the roundhouse working on 5205, 401 (new sand tubes) and 180. Lorance, Smith & Welch removed the wooden siding on the carbarn next to track two to get the building ready for expansion. A dumpster was delved to load the concrete and left over wood from the tree removal. J & J Scott were finishing up the flats that were just painted. Bitsch was working in the machine shop while Roy Nelson & Ray Massey made a visit to see the progress made over the winter.

Saturday saw Geders & Bitsch in the machine shop working on parts for 400's crosshead. Tabernacki & Lawson assembling hydraulic hoses on 5205, John Bell, Devin ,Hunter & Jimmy Scott painting flat cars. Jim Scott remodeling the crew seats on the flats which will now sit several inches higher than the other seats. Tabernacki found that 535 had a broken piston ring and that was replaced. Smith walked the ROW to start some spring cleanup. Finally, I missed the fact that Ian & Kevin Harding were at the WF&P the Saturday before and participated in the work train that went to the wye to get a load of ballast.

Good news from Chris Brophy this week is he will be visiting St. Louis & the WF&P from May 15th to May 23rd. He will participate in train operations on Sunday May 21st.

We recently had two WF&P members celebrate birthdays of note. First Roy Nelson turned a very young 89 years of age and I had the pleasure of having dinner with him at his home recently. He is doing very well, spends a lot of time running his HO gauge layout and even made a trip to Glencoe today (Wednesday) to visit the work crew. Joe Geders celebrated his 50th birthday recently (Joe you could still pass for 49 anytime), congratulations to both.

Jim Strain