September 2010 Work Planning

[James Patten]

Anticipated work for weekend of September 4-6, 2010

* Hurricane Earl is expected to brush by the area Friday night into Saturday.  Therefore Saturday we may need help clearing the line of downed trees and/or branches.  We either will be in dire need of help (because of the hurricane's effects on the home/neighborhoods of our help) or "swimming" in it.
* Fred needs continued help brush cutting.  There's about 3/4 of a mile left - not a huge amount but the more people that assist the faster it goes.

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Weekday update - Our contractor has been working on the new parking lot site most of the week.  He pulled the stumps, graded the lot and spread straw on the whole area, it looks great.  Fred and Steve Z. have been cutting more weeds.  Everything north of Humason Brook trestle is done and more of the R-O-W north of Brook Crossing has been cut.  As James noted Hurricane Earl will bring wind and rain tonight so we did some switching this morning.  Coach 3 was moved further south in her stall so the handcar could go on the north end.  Caboose 320 was tucked into bay 2 with the Model T railcar at the north end. No sooner had we put the T away when two visitors from NY showed up so we ran it back outside.  After they got some photos we gave them a ride up to Rosewood crossing and back.  We picked up Fred at AC and he rode to up to Rosewood with us.  We dropped him off at AC on the way back.  The visitors had a great time and they did quite a bit of shopping in the gift shop.     

[James Patten]

Work done on Saturday Sept 4.

* Hurricane Earl didn't impress.  It was too far out to sea to affect us much, all we had was rain.  But it was enough to scare the tourists away, apparently, because our ridership was low.
* I think Fred, Steve, Dave, and Bill may have done some brush cutting, but I'm not certain.
* Dana organized a crew to go get 50-lb rail from the north end of the line, and drop it off on the south end where we will be replacing rail this fall work weekend.  It dodged passenger trains.
* The railcar took a few trips out to the end and back.  I finally got my inaugural trip at the end of the day.

[Dave Buczkowski]

Steve, Bill, Bob G, Dave Rossi and Dave spent the day bringing 50 lb rail south from the rail piles not cutting brush much to
Fred's dismay.
Dave

[James Patten]

Anticipated work for weekend of Sept 11.

* Fred's always eager for additional workers to brush cut.
* Jason wants to get back in #9 work.

[Dave Crow]

I should be around on Sunday; are there any plans for then?

[James Patten]

Fred will be happy to have you brush cut then too.

[James Patten]

Work done on September 11

* Board meeting on Friday (the 10th).  The biggest decision we made was to number the railcar #4 (to keep the insurance company happy).
* Fred, Leon, and Dwight did some brush cutting near the trestle.
* Jason made a valiant effort at getting something started on #9
* Ed G ran the shaper for a #9 part
* I spent much of the day cleaning up the closet in the office, and some of the office itself.
* Railcar operated for several trips.  The magneto coil on the car was theorized to be too close to the hot engine, and was moved onto a bracket away from the engine.

[Dave Crow]

Yup, on Sunday, I cut brush on the west side of the right of way, just north of Sheepscot Mill crossing.

[James Patten]

Anticipated work for weekend of September 18:

* Brush cutting!  Sounds like with a concentrated effort the last bit of it can be cut for this year.  BTW Fred says that putting this notice up every week seems to have helped a lot.
* Track work.  I'm going to be jacking and tamping the main line again in the yard, south of the water tower.
* #9 work.  I know Jason wants to get going on 9 again.
* We're running trains Saturday and Sunday, although not steam.  Your help is needed, if you are train crew.

[Jason M Lamontagne]

Hello all,

I do intend on getting going on No 9 again this Saturday.  I'll be working on the frame. If there is enough No 9 help- I hope to get the smokebox project going again, with the drilling of holes for the cinder pocket and cleanout casting.  After that- if there's time- mounting the smokebox on the boiler.  If there isn't enough help for that I'll stick with the frame. 

Last week saw the shop cleaned (so we could get to No 9 after a summer's worth of clutter collected all around).  With a respectable work space we can get going again.

Stephen H and I are hoping the smokebox efforts culminate in one final riveting weekend- in October or November- with the smokebox getting riveted to the boiler.  The fall weather should be appropriate for this hot work- while winter in Bay 1 won't be too pleasant.  To do this- we'll need probably 2 work days on hole drilling; hopefully this Saturday will be the first.

Hope to see you there!
Jason

[Pete "Cosmo" Barrington]

If you get a couple of forges from Boothbay going in Bay 1 I imagine it'd get pretty cozy right quick! 

[Jason M Lamontagne]

We actually use Dana Deering's forges-- he got quite proficient on managing two of them when we did this in May.  They were just outside the door to keep the fire risk down.

It is lots of fun!

Jason

[Pete "Cosmo" Barrington]

I'll ask the Friends Of The Valley RR trustees for time off to go up there and learn from The Greats.

[James Patten]

Work done on weekend of September 18,

* Fred, Dwight, and possibly others continued working on brush cutting, working on Cock-eye Curve.
* John M did some phone line repair
* Mike, myself, and Bill F. jacked and tamped about 45 feet on the mainline south of the water tank.  Thank goodness Mike was around because we had some air hose issues.  Now it needs stone but the ties are solid (and the track is level!).  Later Mike got some supplies and did some work on Big Joe's air hoses.
* Got my first operational trip on the railcar, along with a few others.
* Jason started some work on 9's frame, mainly filing to receive the casting.  The casting was moved from Cincinnati milling machine to the shaper next to it.
* Zack brought in the floor plan for the restroom, and a location was staked out.
* Sunday was a birthday party in the caboose.  Earlier in the week, Steve Z built a fence for the caboose doors.