On Saturday, March 4, Colin Mellin, Dwight Maxey and Paul Brown braved chilly, windy conditions to complete work on the battery connections for the Hi-Rail truck, and to start the work on our new Caboose electrical connection system. During the week, Colin found some really nice battery disconnects that would fit within the battery box on the truck. So we did some work to make the batteries fit in the box better, and rearranged the cables before completing the connections onto the new disconnects. Now we can simply turn a knob, and disconnect our batteries to keep them from discharging.

After the lunch break, we gathered up the new electrical boxes, which were sourced by Colin, and worked to attach them to each end of our three active cabooses. This will allow us to make cleaner, safer connections for electric power to each car from our generator, when we need it for events. It will also allow us to make more permanent wiring on the cars, and simplify the application of lights such as those used at Christmas.

I have included a few pictures of each project from today to help explain what work was completed.

– Paul