Fritschle, Scott, White and J. Meyer worked in the RH today. The cab and new whistle configuration are complete on 928. All we need are the new safety valves to complete reassembly and put her on the road.

New shaft keys were obtained and the drive sprockets and chains were reinstalled on the front truck of 5205. The rear truck will be inspected on Saturday and the engine will be returned to service for Sunday’s operation.

Fabrication of a new footplate for 535 was started.

May 23, 2010

Engines 400, 535 and 13 adequately handled trains today. The 535 continues to gather positive comments from those who run her. Even Dave Neubauer had a good run and seemed pleased. The smoke box jacket was replaced and it looks like a Wagner product once again. The 400 performed fairly well but it’s evident that we are barely holding her together.  Constant tinkering is needed to keep the engine running. She is just plain tired. We plan to reduce the use of this engine to one or at the most two Sundays a month in order to get a few more miles out of her before the overhaul.

We are not happy with the configuration of the water glass on 403 and plan to make changes to the backhead plumbing. We hope  work can be completed by Members day.

It seems like we are becoming a destination for Birthday groups. Both the pavilion and crew lunch area, and the open grassy area by the turntable, were in use by outside groups! I think this was the second week in a row that we hosted several parties. The Wednesday and Saturday crews can also testify to the popularity of specials by various groups.

Other than uncomfortable heat and humidity it was a great run day.

TCW-SMP