May 2019 Work Reports

[James Patten]

Anticipated work for the weekend of May 25-26:

* Train ops: first weekend for Saturday & Sunday train operations.  Note that we are NOT running trains on Memorial Day.  This weekend the World War One reenactors from last year's Annual Picnic are here, celebrating the end of the Great War and their return home Stateside.
* Track maint: Joe's called for a 7:30 departure from Sheepscot to ballast, returning by 10.  Test out the tie changer for the rest of the morning.
* Mountain Extension: Tamping in the afternoon.
* Car barn extension/landscaping: No doubt Mike and/or Brendan have something planned.

[Mike Fox]

Parts are in for the dozer so I expect to spend most of the day fixing the final drive. Also have a little tinkering to do to the John Deere.

Also have another 2 lengths of culvert to add to our project from last weekend.

[Fred Morse]

86 ties cut to length so far this week, only, 914 ties to go!

[Dave Buczkowski]

Fred;
That's 86 more ties than I cut this week. Way to go! the Energizer Bunny has nothing on you!
Dave

[Fred Morse]

I had Help Dave. Also Steve Z mowed the grass at Alna Center today so the soldiers should be happy.

[Joe Fox]

Excellent. I hope to retrieve the flats first thing (7a.m. or earlier) Saturday morning prior to departure if I have a brakeman. (Unless of course the arrive at Sheepscot prior to Saturday morning)

[Paul Uhland]

Even though there are many exciting WW&F  improvement projects  underway, at least they are mostly oto (one time only in broadcast-speak) ones, would be overwhelming if all continued nonstop.

[James Patten]

Work done on Saturday May 25:

* Track work: A morning train went out with 2 flatcars loaded with stone, and took care of the slow order on Davis Grade.  However Big Joe was not ready to roll, the new cylinder arrived but was all day getting installed.
* Yard: Mike got the bulldozer working, and graded out the location for the new ramp track.
* Boxcar 67: Zack got one door installed.
* Machine shop: Brendan and Alan work busy.
* WWI Reenactors: A fair sized group, a number of photographers today.  After the regular trips we ran a 5 PM trip so they could do some stuff.

[Mike Fox]

A couple of shots from today.



The seal let go without us knowing, and very well could have beed bad when we bought it, and as a result this bearing (actually the race is pictured as I was in the process of removing, nothing left of the bearing) was ruined. It filled the housing with dust, which made some nice mud. I changed my plan of replacing everyting and just put in this new bearing and seal. This winter, I hope to remove the housing, or at least the pan and big gear (center of which is pictured) to clean all parts and replace the bearings then.



A door went on 67 today. It took 4 guys and some screw jacks, but Zack is happy to get this door in place.




Pictured above, we see a Facebook Team member capturing the moment for an upcoming News and Views post.




Brendan has been working around the car barn. He had dug this ditch last week, and piled the spoils up where the ramp track is going to be. He leveled and pushed with the borrowed excavator from Chesterfield Associates, getting it fairly close. Hard to do with an excavator. After I fixed the dozer, I leveled out places he though was high and places where I felt it was low. From the back corner of the garage to where I stopped dozing is fairly close by feel. Where the dozer is sitting is high. Many years on a dozer day and night, you kind of pick up a feel of what is level both ways and what isn't. It would be very hard to get it exact with the clay we have, and it doesn't have to be,  because the jacking and tamping with stone will make up the difference.




And we had the WW1 Reenactors at AC today. Here, they posed by #9. Photo by Joe..

[Joe Fox]

A HUGE thank you to our track crew of 8 this morning. Unloading two cars of stone is a lot of work for only 8 of us, and we managed to get it done in 90 minutes. As Gene Wilder once said in the movie Willy Wonka & the chocolate factory "so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it."

https://youtu.be/ZWJo2EZW8yU

[Bill Reidy]

Another busy day in Alna, so I didn't get a chance to take many photos.  Here's a few...

Roadmaster Joe Fox led a small work crew early morning to dump stone on the portion of Davis grade that was rebuilt during the Spring 2018 work weekend.  This removed a year+ speed restriction to the pleasure of many.  A very good effort by Joe and crew, not that this stopped us from ribbing Joe on how much we missed the former Roadmaster Dana Deering, who was also part of the crew.  No good deed goes unpunished, Joe!


We ran two steam locomotives today in support of the WW1 event cosponsored with the 103rd Regiment Living History.  The 103rd provided a terrific camp at Alna Center -- Here are a few photos.  Wish I could have spent some time there -- I was on train crew today.

To start, Monson RR No. 3's train northbound is on the siding at Alna Center, while WW&F's No. 9's train is pointed southbound toward Sheepscot.  I really liked the "party like it's 1599" T-shirt.


Some photos of the 103rd.  Wish I could have spent time to visit their camp.  We encouraged all our passengers to stop at Alna Center and spend some time.  As far as I could tell, nearly all if not all on No. 3's trains did so.






Great crew on No. 3 today -- Roger Whitney, Bill Piche and Dave Buczkowski.  They were busy placing caboose 320 on the Sheepscot shop bay 2 track for later pickup by the 5 p.m. train while Joe Fox, Dana and others made adjustments to the Sheepscot runaround track switch into shop bay 1. 


A beautiful spring day today.  Sunny, warm dry days have been rare so far this New England spring.

[Steve Smith]

Thanks for the great pictures, Bill! Two of them reminded me of bivouac during basic training at Fort Dix NJ in April, 1951. After long march we were turned into a rocky field at about 1 AM and told to set up our pup tents. About 6 AM we were waked up by the cry of "FIRE!!" The mess sergeant had managed to set his kitchen tent ablaze. Don't remember how we got it out, but the mess sergeant was so grateful that we "firefighters" got extra big servings.

[John McNamara]

I see there’s now 2 porta-potties at AC. It’s now quite the coming place- perhaps I should say quite the going place.

[Mike Fox]

Don't worry John, it happens.

[Jeff Schumaker]

So what adjustments were made to the bay 1 switch?

Jeff S.