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September 3, 2010

Work Session Report – September 2nd, 2010

Had a decent work session on Thursday Sept 2nd.? 4 members came out, and got a fair amount done.? Eric & William spent the time sweeping and clearing debris out of the heavy repair bay.? With the upcoming open house, we wanted to get it cleared out to make is safe for our visitors, which allows us to open up another part of the shop.? Plus, we are expecting another piece of equipment to arrive on site shortly, and it will be going on that track.

Looking west down the heavy repair bay track.

Ken Sr. worked on cleaning the floors under the inspection platforms, and managed to get 90% of the debris from down there cleared out.? I spent my time doing some touch up painting, starting with HEPC E-7. 3 weeks ago I chipped away at some of the years of black and orange paint on the ends of the locomotive. I managed to get it down to bare metal, and on Thursday, applied a coat of flat black to the bare metal.? Even a little bit of paint makes a big difference, and shows that something is being done to preserve the equipment.

I also did some painting on our steam locomotive.? For the past 4 years she has had Niagara Railway Museum painted on the side of the water tank.? Well, now that she is inside the actual Museum, I felt it was time for that to go.? She didn’t wear that in service, and no longer needs to wear it now.? Also touched up a bit of the black on the cab.? The cab will be rebuilt, but just for photos, having a bit of paint on it makes for better pictures.

While we had people out, we moved the drive rods for the steam engine to a spot where people won’t fall over them, and the same was done to the footboards for E-7.? We cleaned the floor where the display cases and tables will be for the open house next week, and marked out the spaces for said cases and such.? All in all, it was a decent day, and we are looking forward to having a great open house, rain or shine, on September 11/12.? As the NRM crew was leaving, members of the Southern Niagara Model Railway Club turned up to work on one of the other tracks near the shop.? It will likely serve as a storage area for our boxcars and some other equipment until such time as we can get them

A little paint...

in the shop.? They cleared the heavily overgrown siding all the way to the wheelstops, which, including what was already cleared, is just under 1000ft.? They had previously cleared the? mudrails on 2 of the crossings on that siding.? They have been doing this on thier own time, and have been a great help to us.

The final note is a photo taken the other day by Ken Jones Sr.? We are working to get the grass cut down for better photos, but this shot shows the NS transfer returning to Buffalo.? The CN mainline is just feet from our doorstep, and one can see trains from CN, CP & NS.

The view from our doorstep!