February 11, 2011

Hello everyone

I have started this blog for two basic reasons.

The first  is to help keep everyone up to date on projects that are occuring at the museum so those who want to help, will know what is happening and how they can help.  Tim does a wonderful job with his "unofficial" blog reporting work that has occured at the museum, so I will not try to duplicate his efforts.

The second is to provide an avenue to allow me to report to the membership on other events, issues etc. occuring with the museum. 

Well the snow has certainly hampered things at the museum lately, though things are still happening and help is always needed.

This Saturday (1/12/11) is another membership meeting where we will be talking about the special events and regular operations.  Please come and see what ideas we can come up with.  As with the last meeting, discussion will be what can "we" do. 

Work is progressing on 65, and anyone interested in helping on that car, please talk with John Pelletier.  The hope is to find someone to continue working on 65 during the spring and summer when John is pulled onto other projects.

The work on 2056 scraping paint etc. is progressing.  There really is not a project leader designated for this project yet, so if someone is interested in overseeing this project, please let me know.

Once the weather starts to break (and hopefully this coming week is the start), then work on the operating fleet can resume.

2600 is first on the agenda this spring, and the plans are to jack and re-install the 4th motor for 2600 before operations begin in April.  I am planning on leading this effort, and will start preparing the shop for this work as early as this Saturday (1/12/11) after our meeting.  Anyone interested in helping, please let me know.

Once 2600 is completed, the plan is to move 836 into the shop and jack her to start the wheel work.

The major theme of the last membership meeting was the discussion on maintenance of what we have, and that that needs to be a major emphasis of the museum.  Since that meeting, the budget was finalized, and as part of the budget process, we allocated a substantial amount of money to the car department this year for motor work, etc.  We have a very ambitious program this year, with the money allocated to allow this to happen.  We will be looking for help on seeing these projects through.  The one thing that I have seen over and over is that the help is available, we simply need to be organized so that we can take advantage of the help available.  Through this blog, I hope to be able to do that more effectively.

I hope everyone has faired ok through this most difficult winter, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at the membership meeting.  We will have the end door by the Bradley People mover cars open because of ice piles at the membership door.  Please be careful in walking due to the ice in spots.

Galen