Annual Picnic 2013 and Loco 9 Benefit Yard Sale

[James Patten]

I don't see a thread about this already, so thought I would start one.

The Annual Picnic is August 10 and 11 (Saturday & Sunday).  On both days, there will also be a yard sale to benefit the Locomotive 9 restoration.

[James Patten]

Jason relayed to me that Dave Hart (lives in Dresden) has a "pickup truckload" full of things for the yard sale.  This needs to be picked up before next Saturday!

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Here's a bit of history about the Annual Picnic.  

The picnic is one of the longest running events at the museum.  The first one was held in 1992 and was a planned as a thank you to the volunteers that had been working at Sheepscot over the last couple of years.  It was a day (later expanded to two days) for members from near and far to enjoy the railroad without having to work. Of course some "fun" work was often planned such as putting the top sheathing on the restored original flat car.

The Alna Vol Fire Dept provided food so the WW&F crew could relax, enjoy good food and visit with members and friends.  The picnic still has the feel of the original although greatly expanded. It's still a good time to greet old friends and see the latest progress at Sheepscot but who would have dreamed back in 1992 that the WW&F could run special trains over 5 miles with scripted movie type scenes using antique vehicles and other period props.

This year's picnic will have all the favorites such as great chow, special trains and will feature a special event.   A tag sale will be held next to the house (or inside) to benefit locomotive #9's restoration.  There will be many yard sale type items but also some railroad pieces.  Among the railroad goodies will be old papers and forms, tickets, books and lanterns.  Most are from New England lines.

Stop by this weekend to have some good food, take a train ride and see what treasures you can find.  

[James Patten]

Also at the picnic, in the gift shop, will be the 2014 calendar, a calendar commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Museum (next year).  It will sell for $15.

Gary Kohler's latest book, SR&RL Conductors reports from (I think) the 1920s will be available too.  It's being delivered by hand on Saturday, so hopefully it will be there by mid-day.  List price is $23.95.  We are getting 25 of them, which is half of his print run!

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Thanks for the reminder James. For those who missed the gift shop post;  The 2014 calendar is a special production, large format issue.  This is the only calendar that will be produced in a 1930's black & white "retro" style.  I have seen some of Stephen Hussar's night photo calendar images and they are BEAUTIFUL!

Yep, def another reason to come to Sheepscot this weekend.

[Mike Fox]

And last I knew Dave H still needed someone to pick up a few items at his place. The stuff wont fit in a car.

[James Patten]

What a great picnic this was.

First, the weather couldn't be beat.  Wall-to-wall sunshine, warm temps, comfortable dew points.  The yard sale did extremely well, easily surpassing Linda's goal of raising $1000 for #9.  We had over 250 ticket-holding passengers on Saturday (not counting the railcar), and almost 90 on Sunday.  Saturday in the store there were more moments of busyness than there were of peace and tranquility.  We sold a number of all-day passes.

The calendar did well, and the SR&RL conductors book was there before noon.  I got the numbers right for the price, but in the wrong order: the list price is $23.95, I charged $32.95!  Oops, sorry about that.  The price will be lower next week.  At least I didn't charge $95.23.

Final money numbers won't be in for a few days, but ridership-wise we did better this year than most Picnics in the last 5 years.  I think the money will show that too.

[Steve Smith]

Let's hear it for all who made it happen!

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

This year's picnic reminds me of the great picnics we had years ago like the 1998 picnic when hundreds of people came to see steam on the WW&F for the first time since 1933.  Like 1998, there were many people, lots of action and cameras everywhere.  It should be noted that Saturday's yard crew did a great job switching while people were all around the yard.  Many visitors watched and photographed #52 at work.  

The food crew did a nice job keeping up with lines of people waiting for their chow.  Steve Z. ran the grill while Sue, Kathy, Dawn and Joan ran the order table.  The burgers were d-lish!  

There was quite a bit to see in front of the shop building.  The railroad's AA truck was the anchor vehicle for an antique car display that featured a nice line up of Fords.  The vintage car and trucks ranged from 1929 to 1932 model years.  Herman Lovejoy brought 3 of his old tractors and the Verney's had a nice batch of hit-and-miss engines.  Another member, Jon Bontrager from Indiana brought a display of Fairmont/speeder car engines.      

It certainly was a great weekend.  Having hundreds of happy visitors made the 4 days of work worth it.  Next year will be even better.

[Mike Fox]

And a special visit Saturday afternoon by a rare center door Model T was a nice surprise

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Wish I had seen the center door T ... I was on another T at the time.  Did anyone take a picture of it?


Thinking about the picnic, there was much work that lead up to the event.  Some of the un-sung heros:

Brendan who brought the antique shop machines to Sheepscot, arriving at 1:30am Saturday morning.

Linda who started the yard sale process weeks ago and put many hours into preparation as well as the two day sale.

Fred and Dwight who spent 5 hours on Thursday moving everything to the cellar and 7 hours Friday setting things up and organizing.

Saturday evenings train crew with Dana and Roger in the cab, John R. conducting and Bill B. and John M. braking.  They had a very heavy train with the old shop machines on both flatcars.  This required much work braking and starting the train on grades such as Rose Wood hill and the Alna Center station grade.

 

[Stephen Hussar]

What Stewart said! Thanks to everyone who made it such a terrific weekend
for all who visited!

More pictures to come, but in the meantime, here's one of that rare center door Ford...

[Dylan Lambert]

Well Mike, looks like the old gears were turning... Maybe I'm reading to much into this, but it looks like someone has some new ideas for ROWMOW v2 

[Dave Buczkowski]

A center door brush cutter? Hope it has a nice seat....
KD

[Stephen Hussar]

Some images from Saturday...