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 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.