Big E Show notes:
There were over 20 members involved in getting things ready for car 65 to travel to W. Springfield and the preparations go back over a year. There are too many facets of the project to list but they range in category from emails about show logistics to welding box track onto the museum's trailer. There are many people to thank and the folks at the top of the list are; Mike Fox who spent hours modifying the trailer to hold narrow gauge rolling stock. Brendan Barry worked many nights on a number of parts of the trailer, purchased and installed a new winch, provided his own truck and drove most of the night to get the car to and from W. Springfield. Without the dedication of these two volunteers the milk car would not have gone to the show. Next up; Steve Zuppa, who built a nice set of steps with a landing that was perfect for visitors to safely enter and exit the car. Stephen Hussar designed and installed a beautiful lighting system that highlighted the cars' interior and displays. There were many additional hard working people involved in loading, securing, unloading, building the display track, and staffing the display. Most of these folks brought work clothes and street clothes for all the jobs they would face. By the end of the show, the exhibit was so well known that when the car was loaded, an ARS radio call brought a couple dozen people to watch the process.
A few numbers:
With travel time and show hours, some crew members have over 50 hours of work over 4-5 days.
Thursday and Friday were vendor/exhibitor set up days and the car was open 5 hours on Weds and 10 hours on Fri. Saturday and Sunday were the public days and the car was open 10+ hours on Sat and 9 on Sunday, making the display available over 34 hours. It's a bit tough to count the foot traffic since it was very heavy most of the time. Taking an average half hour period of steady visitors on Saturday and factoring that number into the hours for the 4 days the numbers are over 1,600. There were many children and the word most often heard when visitors entered was "WOW". Many asked about Two-Foot gauge railroads, box car construction, dairy operations and the kind of work done by railroad and creamery workers. A good many asked about the museum and we were very happy to tell them about the railroad. Nearly a case of WW&F brochures were given out. The favorite question posed was "how did you get this car in here?" Brendan had his laptop set up with photos of the car being unloaded, which was a big help. Being inside the car with visitors was a great experience, especially when we asked the children if they liked milk. Most said "yes" and we would show them the large cans that raw milk was shipped in. We would then show them the glass Turner Centre milk bottle and explained how milk used to be delivered in glass bottles. Young and old enjoyed the displays and conversations with our docents ranged from a minute or two to nearly 15 minutes. Quite a number said they would visit Sheepscot this year.
One of the best things about the Big E show is seeing so many friends. This year, there were over 40 WW&F members at the show which may be a record. The number includes the volunteers who worked the WW&F sales tables, folks who staffed the milk car, members who worked at other tables or layouts and the members who came as visitors on Saturday or Sunday. At times it was like "Old Home Week" in the milk car.
The last 4+ days at the Big E show have been what the WW&F is all about, working together for the good of the museum and presenting narrowgauge history to hundreds of people. One visitor put it best when she said "this is a beautiful portable museum."
