On Saturday, April 10, Dwight Maxey, Kendall Crouch, David Hunter, Pascal Bartilow, Colin Mellin, John Breesawitz and Paul Brown all made it out to the Museum to help stand up our Semaphore Signal and the Wig Wag Crossing signal. The crew started by getting the all thread in the concrete bases ready to accept the mounting hardware. David made short work of this with his angle grinder as the threads needed some grooming to accept the nuts being used to hold the masts to the base. Then it was time to grab the Semaphore with the Bobcat and lift and move it from where it has been stored the last three years. It took a little careful work by Kendall, John, Pascal and Paul to get the mast vertical and ready to set on the base. Due to some excellent pattern work done by Colin, our mounting studs were in perfect alignment with the holes in the signal base and it dropped right on.

After a quick lunch break, we grabbed the Wig Wag Signal and lifted it to get it vertical. After some more careful handling, the signal was ready to be installed on the base. This signal required a little effort as there was closer clearances between the holes in the signal base and the mounting studs. After a bit of persuasion with a hammer we got this signal installed too.

We went back to the Semaphore signal to install the maintenance access ladder, and then did a bit of clean up to the electrical cabinets on each signal. Now all we need to do is install the wiring to provide electric power and we can make the signals operate for demonstrations. Thanks to the volunteers for their effort to knock this project out – it has been on the list of things to do for a while now!

I have included some pictures to illustrate the work completed today.

– Paul