One Comes Off, Another Goes On

Tarps that is. Marilyn Rodriguez was busy Saturday with Brian Semprebon, Dave Coppola, Matt Januska, and Roger Pierson working to get the Dining Car and Philadelphia and Reading Coach covered with tarps.

While she was doing that, I was removing tarps (from the cars that I had been able to get back under the Visitor Center). A lot of clean up was accomplished inside the main hall. Almost all of Winterfest has been broken down. Galen Semprebon has even begun to load the Winterfest Trailers. Car 10 and the Ponemah Mills Locomotive have been moved back into the main hall with help from Marilyn and Will Yungk. Next weekend we hope to be able to get the Bobber Caboose into the Visitor Center which will allow the Bangor & Aroostook Caboose under the train shed.

Across the parking lot, members of the Fire Museum were able to remove the hydraulic cylinders from the Bucket Truck to get them shipped out to be repacked.

I didn't get a chance to see what was going on in the shop. I did catch John Pelletier for a brief moment in the Visitor Center repairing a window for New Orleans Car 836.

Parts!

Saturday, the parts that we had received as part of the Trolleyville sale finally arrived. The truck pulled into the museum at around 8pm. Luckily, the Fire Museum was able to provide lights to allow us to see what we were doing during the unloading process. Galen Semprebon, George Contrada, Marilyn Rodriguez, Xian Clere, Aaron Mangan, John Pelletier, and I stuck around the museum until after 11pm in order to get the trailer unloaded. This was a sigh of relief because we have been waiting nearly two years for this trailer and were getting ready to travel to Cleveland to pick the parts up.

The rest of the day was quite eventful as well. Marilyn and I were able to shuffle some cars around in front of the shop. Boston Elevated PCC 3100 is now back on the Northern Barn Lead and the Centerville Albia & Southern Box Motor 101 is now in front of Lusa Shop track 2 allowing Fair Haven & Westville car 355 out of the shop. A few members of operations helped out as well, happy to see 355 able to come out of the shop again.

Pat McCann was once again turning down the wheels for New Orleans car 836. He is nearly complete with that task. John was further back in the shop continuing to work on Brooklyn Rapid Transit car 169.

On the front side of the property, Galen was busy doing more Rails to the Darkside setup. We were able to take care of some housekeeping things around the Snack Bar building and Dining Car. Since the Snack Bar is closed, the sign has been taken down. The broken railings and such on the staircase to the dining car have been removed as well.

More Car Shifting

Most of the progress during the day on Saturday included shifting of various cars in preparation for the Annual Meeting.

First thing in the morning, Bill Wall and Bill Pollman stopped by the museum with tires and rims for the trolley bus that is scheduled to be shipped down to Baltimore. They have a similar trolley bus, but they need one of ours (we have three) for parts. The one big hurdle in getting the bus shipped is that it had no tires on it.

George Contrada, Galen Semprebon, Ted Coppola, John Cummins, Dave Coppola and I worked to move the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Caboose under the Train Shed. In order to do this, we needed to pull the caboose down to the Powerhouse Crossing on the Visitor Center lead tracks so that the access track could be shifted over 2 bays. Then the caboose was pulled back up and pushed under the Train Shed.

Xian Clere and Camilo Santiago worked with Northern Tree Service of Palmer, MA to move around 700 relay ties that have been donated to the museum. The ties are now sitting on the back road to the loop.

Up in the shop, John Pelletier was working with another volunteer to service additional cars. They were able to finish working on Fair Haven & Westville Railroad Car 355 and Illinois Terminal PCC 451. Later in the day, Springfield Terminal Car 16 was brought up to the shop and minor repairs were continued on the car.

After operations was finished for the day, Camilo Santiago, Xian Clere, George Contrada, and John Cummins completed a switching operation which included moving the Reading Caboose to the North Road Lay-Up Track and clearing the Northern Barn Lead so that Aurora Elgin & Chicago Interurban 303 can be moved out for the Annual Meeting next weekend.

Morgan von Eisengrein spent the day working diligently in the office with the planning of our new fund raising event for this year, BBQ on the Line. More information on the event will be forthcoming.

Car 451's Christmas Present

Car 451 (Illinois Terminal PCC) received a wonderful Christmas Gift this year, a winter inside. On Thursday evening, Dave Coppola, David Lesniak and I moved car 451 from its home on the North Road Lay-Up to the rear of Track 1 of Kelly Car Barn.


It has been the plan to move car 451 into a barn for a while, however, there was always the question of where to put it. At 50'5", the 1949-built PCC is a very long car. This can create some problems when trying to fit it into the barn with other cars. Over the summer, I cleared the back wall of Kelly Car Barn track 1. By doing this and pairing the car with car 1850 (Rio de Janeiro open), the car will fit in the barn with about 4 feet to spare. This, however, required something else to move. At that point, Xian Clere and Galen Semprebon helped me move car 2600 (Montreal Tramways) up to the shop. Due to the recent snowfall, this proved to be a much more difficult task than originally envisioned. Car 2600 got stuck going up the hill twice: first, climbing the hill paralleling Kelly Car Yard; and second, on Lusa Car Yard track 2 just outside the shop. After digging the car out multiple times and using sand, we were able to finally get 2600 into the shop.









Inside the Visitor Center, John Pelletier was busy working on two projects. On Montreal Tramways Car 2056 (Springfield Street Railway Car 575), John finished scraping one panel of the exterior of the car and primed the panel. It is expected that by the time we open in the Spring, the car will be repainted. On Car 65 (Connecticut Company), John finished fitting a piece of molding along the roof line.

Although work usually slows down in the off season, we will still be working hard as we have a lot of projects that can be done in the Visitor Center.

And on to Winterfest

This past weekend, we cleaned up the main hall from Rails and began to set up for Winterfest. This year, we are on a tight schedule because we only have three weekends between Rails to the Darkside and Winterfest. In order to create the room in the Main Hall for Winterfest, we had to move Connecticut Company 0309, Springfield Terminal 10, and the Ponemah Locomotive out under the train shed which required a few cars to be tarped. We moved the Tie Handler to the very end of track 3 where the rail ends at the missing switch. The Sweeper was moved all the way up to the Tie Handler and ISU 1 was moved right up to the Sweeper. At that point, there was just enough room for 10 to fit outside. It was almost as if the track was built just for those cars.

Once the Visitor Center had the cars removed, Connecticut Company 65 and Montreal 2056 were moved into position using a come-along to create tension with a few volunteers behind the car pushing it.

A bunch of volunteers (George Contrada, Galen Semprebon, Jim Miller, Larry Lunden, Ben Wallace, Al Goff, John Arel, Bill Yungk, and myself), helped unload the Winterfest Trailer. Unfortunately, some of the ornaments needed to be thrown out because there was a leak in the trailer.

On Sunday, we moved the Northern and the Cleveland car into position. The Northern was moved with a come-along anchored to the truck of 0309 with a group of volunteers pushing behind it. The Cleveland car was moved with the backhoe and chains through the end door of the Visitor Center. Now it is on to setting up the main hall.

Plans for 2011

Just a peak at whats to come...

I don't even need to be at the museum to work on Museum projects. Right now, I am working on a plan for locations of trolley cars for 2011 which will put 8 more trolleys under cover. It requires a bit of track construction under the train shed, but it will put almost all of our wooden equipment under cover.

Car Relocations

Yesterday, with the help of Ernie Darrow, Brian Semprebon, and David Coppola, we got ConnCo Open 840 switched out of the car shop and into Woods Barn. We first had to push the Elevated car 4436 all the way to the back. At this point Woods Barn is bursting at the seams. Both tracks of the barn have two cars on them that just allow the doors to close. Car 840 was moved out of the shop for two reasons. First, Fair Haven & Westville open 355 had to be moved into the shop to rebuild the Air Compressor. It is not a good idea to have both Connecticut Open Cars in one building. Second, in the coming weeks, work is going to be done over the dead track of the shop so the car could not sit there.

Out in the parking lot, Todd and Paul Chicoine were hard at work starting and early regrading the upper lot. There was a pile of old telephone poles stacked in the lot that they used to delineate the edges of the parking lot with. Hopefully by next weekend we will have the parking lot opened up all the way to the Northern Barn tracks. Ted Coppola and Pat McCann kept busy cutting down trees that were along the edge of the newly reclaimed parking lot.

Pumpkin Patch was a huge success on both Friday and Saturday. There was little space in the parking lot both days for additional parking. New this year to Pumpkin Patch is a scavenger hunt for the children to do..."Help Ponemah Learn to Run". "Ponemah" is our Ponemah Mills Locomotive built by General Electric. The children need to find the ghosts in the main hall that tell them what the next step is to start a trolley car. When they are done, they can turn it in for a prize. Of course, the favorite part of the event for the children is when they get to go out to the Pumpkin Patch at Airport Station and pick out their pumpkin. We can still use help for Pumpkin Patch for both motormen and people in the Visitor Center. If you would like to help, contact Carol at the museum.











Rails to the Darkside was also a huge success both nights. The West End has once again expanded to include an additional trolley car, and we have many new features. On Friday night, we had 150 riders, and on Saturday night we had over 300 riders. This is much better than last year's first weekend. We have an excellent cast in both the Visitor Center West End and the Newberry Siding East End. We can still use help from cast members, motormen, and people in the parking lot, so if you would like to help out, come by the museum Friday or Saturday nights at around 6pm.

Car 771 Moves to Covered Storage

When I arrived at the museum Saturday, I went to the Train Shed and noticed the tarp was back on car 154 (0309). I was about to question why the tarp was put back on 154, when I realized that it was actually car 771. Car 154 had been moved into the Visitor Center and car 771 was moved under the Train Shed. Although car 154 is not the greatest looking car, it was moved into the Visitor Center to prepare for Rails to the Darkside. The car will probably get a coat of primer in the coming weeks and be cleaned out. Unfortunately, there is a lot of weight in the car from overhead components to seats.

Car 771 was moved under covered storage just in time. The car will need some work to stabilize it. It has a nasty twist in the car partially because the track it was sitting on was not straight, and partially because the northeast corner post is just about non-existent. Ben Wallace and myself spent some time pulling the tarps and pulling the clapboard siding off of the car. While tarps are great at keeping the rain and snow out of the car, in New England summers they trap the humidity inside the car. The clapboard siding on the cars did the same thing. Unfortunately, its a decision that we have to make when a car is sitting outside. Do we want the humidity to rot the car or the rain and snow? When we were taking the clapboard siding off, some of it came off way to easily, and actually took the covering of the corner post with it. Looking inside and outside the car, it was noticed that the corner post and post between the first and second set of windows on the north side of the car were both gone. Currently, the wall between the car and the vestibule seems to be bearing all of the weight. We will need to clean some space inside the car and put a 4x4 in place to brace the car until work can be done to permanently replace the corner post.

Galen Semprebon, Matty Doane, and George Contrada worked on removing the former Hartman Siding Lay-Up at Powerhouse Crossing. This had to be removed immediately in order for us to recreate the walkway from Powerhouse Crossing to the Visitor Center for Rails to the Darkside. Once the rails were removed, Matty began working on regrading it with the bulldozer.


When Larry Bryan showed up, we had an impromptu Rails to the Darkside meeting in the parking lot discussing plans for skits and animated props. Larry is working on a few things for Rails to the Darkside at home including designing a new poster. I will keep those all under wraps, so you will need to come to the event.

By the end of the day, George was working on cleaning up car 154. Galen, myself, Mike Savoie, Xian Clere, Amber Hurrle, and Andy Cotton worked to push the cars back in on Hartman's Siding and move the Long Island car back on to Hartman's. Car 451 is once again on the North Road Lay-Up.

John Pelletier was busy in the shop all day working on the type 5. The doors are opening and closing better and the gong on the west end of the car is working. Next weekend, he plans to install the whistles on the car.

After 61 Years Outside...

In 1949, ConnCo 0309 (Fair Haven and Westville curve side 154) was moved by the Connecticut Electric Railway out of the James Street Car House in New Haven, CT to the museum. This was the last time the car was stored inside. For the next sixty-one years, the car sat at the museum outside. It was unloaded at the Winkler Road crossing on a 50 foot section of track in the middle of the woods. It stayed there until the track was extended to Winkler Road. Then it was moved to the main property where it sat at the end of Hartman Siding. Today, the car was moved under cover again by Galen Semprebon, Matty Doane, George Contrada, and Ted Coppola. And it looks pretty good for sitting outside for the past sixty-one years.




Once the car was moved under the train shed, the tarps were removed. Under the tarps were wood sheathing and tar paper that covered the car. That was removed, and we looked around inside the car. Inside the car, we found many overhead parts including insulators, and parts such as seats to other cars.




I did not see it happen, but I am told that the broken gate at Winkler Road was replaced.

Because of so much going on at the front of the property, I did not get a chance to get to the shop to see what was going on up there. Tomorrow will be another busy day starting in the morning when we go out to Mansfield to pick up some of the tables and chairs from the BAR Caboose.

Hartman Siding Lay-Up Almost Clear

Saturday began with the goal of moving ConnCo 771 (Consolidated Railway 189) off of the Hartman Siding Lay-Up and on to the main siding track. Galen Semprebon and I started off the day by positioning the excavator and bulldozer to move ConnCo 1739 further down the track. After taking a break for a meeting, we were joined by Pat McCann, Matty Doane, and George Contrada and got 1739 into place.

We had decided to hook up the trucks of 771 with the trucks of ConnCo 0309 with a chain and pull them up together. Then we hooked a chain, actually a length of 4 chains, from the excavator to the front truck of 771. We pulled the consist about a half of a car length until we found out that the hooks on the new chains had exceeded their capacity and were bending. At that point, we disconnected 0309 and pulled 771 up the hill. We had to be very careful moving the car because the trucks were not totally complete. They were missing a few parts, such as a Journal Box.

Once we got to the special work, we had to hook the bulldozer up to one side to act as a brake, and the excavator to the other to keep the left wheels against the rail. This is the area where the Lay-Up was joined into the Visitor Center Lead. In order to accomplish this without cutting rail, we connected one rail at a joint. The other rail just ends and the wheels ride over a series of greased tie plates until it falls onto the stock rail of the siding. Its not built for high speed operation, but it will work to get the cars out. The whole Lay-Up track will be removed after this is done anyways. Car 771 made it through the special work much easier than 1739 had. 1739 took a couple of weekends to do, whereas 771 took only a few hours.











By 2pm, 771 was parked and we went after 0309. This was a little more difficult. We ran into a problem where the rails at a joint did not exactly line up. The rail that 0309 was sitting on was about an inch lower and an inch outside the rail it had to run onto. After greasing the end of the rail to allow the rails to slide along each other, I took a large rock and dropped it on the rail that was sitting too high. The good news is, the rail dropped into place like I was hoping for. The bad news is, the rail also cracked. To make matters worse, the wheels on the rear truck would not turn, and with the growth, it was very difficult to get to them. After taking a spike maul to the brake shoes, the wheels seemed to loosen up a little, however they were still dragging some. We then greased the entire tread of the wheels which greased the brake shoes and allowed the car to roll. The first wheel to go over the misaligned joint rode up on the head of the rail. We had to get the jacks out and jack the wheel sideways. However, the other three made it through fine and by the end of the day, 0309 was sitting just before going through the special work.

John Pelletier was busy in the shop replacing broken windows in the Type 5. With the help of a Community Service Volunteer, he made considerable progress in cleaning the shop as well.

After finishing the car moves, I found Ben Wallace building a new gate in the Main Hall of the Visitor Center. This gate will be replacing the broken one at Winkler Road. Xian Clere and I decided to stay and help finish the gate. We had hoped to install it, but by the time we finished building it at 10:30 at night it was a little too late.

Car 771 Ready to Move

Unfortunately I was away from the museum this weekend, so I did not get any pictures of work being done. But, after meeting with Galen Semprebon today, I found out that ConnCo 771 (Consolidated Railway 189) is ready to move! The car had been balanced on a set of trucks with blocking between the slider plates. A compromise center bearing was fabricated for each truck and they were installed. The car then had to be jacked and shifted to sit on the center bearing properly and journal brasses were added where they were missing. Next Saturday, I will be getting to the museum bright and early to help Galen move the car off of the Hartman Storage Track. The storage track needs to be cleared and 0309 and 771 need to be moved to the Visitor Center before we start Rails to the Darkside in October.

Up in the Shop, John Pelletier installed a window frame that he rebuilt for ConnCo 1326, replaced the glass in two broken windows, and did some work to the roof so that should be watertight. Next weekend, the Type 5 will be moved to the shop. Missing windows will be replaced on that car and some minor work will take place.

Car Moves

Saturday was a very hot and busy day at the museum. In the morning, the pilot for CA&E 303 was installed on the car.

Most of the day was taken up by shifting cars around to get Connecticut open 840 into the shop. We (John Pelletier, David Coppola, Alex Aberdale, Galen Semprebon, and myself) had to shift the two Boston PCCs (3100 & 3306) off of the Northern Hill and pull New Orleans 836 out of the barn. Then we shifted the flat car with the wheel boring machine on it up into the Northern Barn as well as CA&E 303. It was planned to set up the wheel boring machine in the shop, but with the other machinery that we want to set up, there is not enough room.


While the shop was empty, John and I were able to clean some of the wall space in the shop. A lot of the materials were moved into a storage trailer. Other stuff was thrown out because it was no longer usable. Unfortunately we have had a bad habit of keeping scraps of things that are not large enough to do anything with.


We did run into a problem when we tried to put 836 into Woods Barn. Whoever measured the barn space was not quite accurate. We were about a foot shy. In order to make up that space, we took the knuckles off of 101's couplers, and ran 101 up against the rear wall of the barn. It is actually bulging the back wall of the barn out slightly. Then we ran 836 into the barn. The fender of the car made it about 3 inches under the coupler of 101. The car fit, but the pole hung out of the barn, so we had to pull it out and spin the pole around. At that point, the doors of the barn just barely shut.


We were then able to put 840 into the shop so that work can begin on the repairs to the car. Before work can begin, the woodworking machinery will be set up in the shop to do the necessary woodwork.

Shop Cleanup

Today a lot of discussion occurred in how best to organize the Lusa Car Shop. After discussing what machines should stay in the shop and what machines should be moved to other storage areas, a plan of action was made to get the shop in order. Pat McCann and Matty Doane kept busy today with the backhoe cleaning out the shop. It seems that trash gets piled up faster than it is taken away. They were able to empty all of the shop barrels into the dumpster and bring a lot of old wood to the wood pile.

I was finally able to replace the trolley pole rope on Montreal 2600 today as we received our order of trolley rope from the manufacturer last week. Eventually Rio 1850, Montreal 4, and Connecticut 1326 will have new rope too, but 2600's was in the worst condition.

John Pelletier was able to finish the roof work on Springfield Terminal 16. While the roof on the car is not the best looking, it should be watertight. The car really needs a new canvas, however, there are other things that need to happen to the car before a new canvas can be put on the car. The Boston Type-5 was switched with 16 to put it in the shop. The roof on the Type-5 is next on the list to be repaired.

Illinois Terminal 451 was brought over the pit today to diagnose and repair the braking problem. The car has been sidelined from service for the past few months because of a delay between the dynamic brakes and the friction brakes. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the crew was finished looking over the car so I do not know if they found the issue.



Just outside the shop, George Contrada was busy turning an old track crane into a flat car for the Track Department. The crane was missing parts and all over not functional. Since the Track Department was in need of a sturdy flat car for moving tools and ties, George took on the task of building them one.




On the front side of the property, Galen Semprebon has been busy leading a crew of volunteers moving the three Connecticut Company cars off of the Hartman Storage Track. When the Visitor Center was built, this section of track was disconnected and the end was buried. In order to get the three cars out, the track was dug out and partially reconnected. ConnCo 1739 is most of the way off of the track. In the coming weeks, ConnCo 771 & 154 will be moved off of the track and the track will be removed.

Overall it was a very productive day. Next weekend calls for the pilot to be installed on CA&E 303, car moves, and more clean up in the shop.