On Saturday, October 16, we had a good group of volunteers assemble to get some batteries installed into Engine 103. Dwight Maxey, Dan Reichenbach, Colin Mellin, Tyler Seeley and Paul Brown all did their part to help get our new battery un-crated, as well as get another battery from inside the shop moved out next to the locomotive to install. After Dwight and Colin checked the liquid levels of each battery, we slowly started to lift each one into the battery compartment. Each battery was carefully handled so as not to spill acid, or to make contact with the steel surrounding the compartment. Later in the afternoon, we made the final cable connections, and then plugged in our battery charger to get the batteries up to full charge.

On Sunday, October 17, Dwight and Paul met in the afternoon to try to start the unit. While the batteries did spin the engine – with the cylinder cocks open when the start attempt was made – we found an issue with the fuel pump. With time running short, we postponed any further attempts to start the engine until we can troubleshoot the fuel pump issue. It has been 10 months since Engine 103 was last operated, so we may find more issues as we work through this.

I have included some pictures of the work accomplished.

– Paul