On Saturday, October 7, volunteers Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Bruce Davis, Dannis Hudson and Paul Brown jumped on both of our scheduled projects. Dwight and Bruce concentrated on mounting junction boxes under our cabooses, to prepare for the power wire from our generator. These boxes will allow us to distribute the power from car to car, and provide the power for interior lights and exterior decorations. Meanwhile, Colin, Dannis and Paul concentrated on removing the cranking batteries from Engine 104. This required removing access doors, and unbolting the large cables from each battery. We were then able to lift the batteries out with the Bobcat. This is half the work required on this project. Next, the battery boxes need to be cleaned up, and flooring repaired to support the replacement batteries.

Following a quick lunch break, the whole group moved over to our display steam engine AT&SF 2912, to look at some things that our friends in Albuquerque with AT&SF 2926 had some questions about. This required climbing into the firebox of the locomotive. After this task was complete, we went back to Engine 104 to clean up from the day’s work.

Watch here next week for continuing work on this important project. I have included a few pictures to show the work completed today.

– Paul