New Exhibits

A lot has been accomplished during the off season! Inside the Visitor Center, work has been accomplished on the Ponemah locomotive, car 10, car 2056, and car 154.

Roger Pierson, Matt Januska, and Larry Lunden were able to do some paint scraping on Montreal Tramways 2056 which will be restored to Springfield Street Railway 575. This will be an ongoing restoration during the operating season.

Painting of the interior of the Ponemah Mills locomotive 1386 and Springfield Electric Railway car 10 has been accomplished using community service volunteers.

Galen Semprebon has been working on painting the trim work on Fair Haven and Westville car 154.

Tim Lesniak and Brian Semprebon have been working on building viewing platforms for car 10, the Ponemah locomotive, and the bobber caboose.

Roger, Larry, and Matt also took on the project of locating replacement parts for the vandalized cars.

Up in the shop, John Pelletier is busy buttoning up the work on Springfield Terminal Railway car 16.

Behind the scenes, Carol Zenczak is hard at work planning the Wine and Beer Tasting; Morgan vonEisengrein with the BBQ on the Line; and Marilyn Rodriguez is working on the planning of the Isle of Safety restoration.

Paint Removal

Much progress was made on Montreal Tramways car 2056, or should I say Springfield Street Railway 575 (which is what the car will be repainted as), by Roger Pierson, Matt Januska, and Larry Lunden. They spent time throughout the day yesterday scraping paint off of the car with Roger working on the car the whole day! While they were working on the side of the car, I was able to remove the dash for the lights on the end of the car on the east end. This was added on by Montreal and was not part of the car when the car was run in Springfield, MA. While doing this, I noticed that the base of the center end window was rotted and crumbling, so I removed that as well. Hopefully I can find someone who is skilled in woodworking that has time to remake the end window.

I also spent some time working on removing two of the broken windows in Springfield Terminal Railway car 10. The glass will need to be replaced in the windows and then reinstalled. Larry cleaned out the car from what was left inside it after Rails to the Darkside.

Galen Semprebon spent the afternoon working on cars 1201 and 154. Inside Cleveland car 1201, Galen repainted the floors and the conductors stand. Both were well worn. On the other side of the hall, Galen removed some of the aluminium that was covering the clerestory windows on Fair Haven & Westville car 154 and primed the exterior of the clerestory.

George Contrada, Ted Coppola, Dave Coppola, and Brian Semprebon started to dismantle load the Winterfest layouts into the trailers.

Up in the shop, John Pelletier was busy working on Springfield Terminal Railway car 16. He is currently replacing a section of roof that was rotted above the motorman in the baggage compartment.

John Gasper with some help from other Fire Museum members were able to remove the alternator from the Bucket Truck which will be rebuilt. Next season we should have a fully functional Bucket Truck.