On Saturday, August 14, our crew, consisting of Dwight Maxey, David Hunter, Tyler Seeley, Kendall Crouch, Colin Mellin and Paul Brown, were able to complete all the projects scheduled for the day. First up, we cleaned out both of the street crossings. This consists of shoveling out the heavy debris, and then sweeping, and lastly we brought out our secret weapon, compressed air! Now this really cleans up the situation. After completing this work, we progressed to greasing the rail on our sharp curve – applying grease to the gauge side of the outside rail.

We took a short lunch break, and then started to work on our locomotives. We drained off a small amount of accumulated water from the crankcase of each engine, and also drained accumulated water and oil from the engine room sumps of each engine. We then started Engine 104, to charge its batteries and to check the engine systems, as this engine has been sitting for a while due to Engine 102 (the Patriot) being primary. Speaking of Engine 102, we did some additional work to this engine, which included adding 24 gallons of coolant, and configuring a drain line from the engine room sump to keep the material draining close to the rail and not splashing onto parts of the locomotive. To end the day, we inspected Engine 104, shut down the engine and secured it until a later date.

I have included a few pictures of some of the work done today. Watch for our Back to School Train Rides next weekend, when we run from 9:00am to 1:00pm.

– Paul