On Saturday, April 30, volunteers Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Tyler Seeley, Tanner Seeley and Paul Brown found out that all of our hard work to replace batteries on Engine 103 was worth the effort. Even after sitting for a week, the engine started with its own batteries and no outside help! Once the engine was running and warming up, the crew worked to clean up the cab and give the unit a thorough inspection to put it back in service. After our recent wind storms, the cab had a good coating of dust requiring vacuuming and wiping down. When these tasks were done, we worked to switch Engine 104 over to another shop track, and to switch the cabooses into proper order for use behind Engine 103. Then it was time to exercise 103 on our main running track.

Engine 103 is our highest use engine, which leads to some wear issues. One of those wear issues caused a bit of trouble while returning to the shop, as the engine picked a switch point and dropped one wheel into the gauge. We were able to rerail that wheel with a short move forward, and then had to do a bit of work to the offending switch point. After some adjustments, we slowly reversed Engine 103 back to a shop track to park it. Now we have another project at the Museum!

I have included a few pictures of today’s activities.

– Paul