Wine & Beer Tasting

The Wine & Beer Tasting was a huge success.  Thank you for all who volunteered for it and those who attended.  Thank you to the New England Ukulele Group and Jeannie Murphy for volunteering their time for entertainment.  Thank you to Geisslers, Stir the Pot, and Jimmy Chen's for running the food concessions.  Also, thank you to our friends at New England Bank for volunteering their time after work in running the admissions and raffle tables AND handing out bottle openers that they had made up.  Thank you to Carol Zenczak for all of her hard work in setting up the tasting and thank you to all those who donated to the Vandalism Fund, businesses and individuals alike.  Finally, a BIG thank you to Leslie Hickey and Joe's Fine Wines and Spirits and all of the distributors and breweries that donated their time and product to help make this event a huge success!

Wine & Beer Tasting

The Wine & Beer Tasting is only 10 days away!  Be sure to order your tickets NOW!  For more information, visit http://ct-trolley.org/events/tasting.php!

Busy!

The museum was very busy on Saturday both for Easter Bunny Fun Day and the work that was accomplished. First, operations did an amazing job handling over 600 passengers and accomplishing some training runs as well.

Out in the shop, Galen Semprebon was busy working on building a patio, yes a patio. When the concrete was poured for the shop many years ago, there was about four feet in the rear of the shop that the concrete was never poured for. Using bricks and concrete blocks, Galen has made a much more usable surface in the rear of the shop. Next weekend, it is planned to install the air handling unit, which makes it one step closer to setting up all of the wood shop machinery.

In the Kelly Barn, I was able to fix the back of the barn where a trolley car must have hit it years ago. The gap in the rear panels has been there ever since I started at the museum. It is there no longer.

At the end of the day, Xian Clere, Aaron Mangan, and I pulled spikes and prepped a batch of relay ties. We will be having a track work session on this coming Saturday! All who are interested in helping should arrive at the museum between 7:45 and 8:00am on Saturday morning.

Wine & Beer Tasting

Be sure to purchase your tickets early for the 1st Annual Wine & Beer Tasting at the Connecticut Trolley Museum. It will take place on May 11th from 5pm to 8pm. All proceeds will go to support the repair fund for the three trolley cars damaged in the break in and theft of copper and brass that occurred at the beginning of this year. Money will also be used for security enhancements.

Tickets for this 21+ event are $25.00 and may be purchased at either the museum or Joe's Fine Wines & Spirits during normal business hours OR by calling 860.627.6540 OR by emailing office@ceraweb.org.

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.