Home At Last

The hopes and dreams of many years finally became reality today as the two CA&E wood cars were unloaded and safely stored in Barn 8.

They arrived at IRM about 1 PM on Tuesday, as seen here. We took the two drivers from Silk Road out to lunch. Don and Brian did a great job and can be very proud of their contributions to this project. We then spent another four or five hours until almost 8 PM switching trucks into the proper positions for the two cars. Due to various delays along the way, Nick had already decided to put off unloading the cars until 8 AM on Wednesday. Many of us stayed over at the Museum Tuesday night.

You have probably asked yourself: What's the best way to unload a fragile piece of furniture 50 feet long and weighing 30 tons?

Well, you're not alone. Here we are discussing the proper procedures with Nick. We hired a large forklift from White Bros. in Wasco, and Nick ran our forklift. First, we lift one end off the dolly. Stan gives the signals to the operators.

Gerry, driving the Bobcat, pulls the dolly out of the way, then the truck is pushed under the car.


Finally, after some pushing and shoving, the car sits down onto the truck properly, and we're halfway there. For this car.

Then we do the same thing at the other end, and the 36 is once again a railroad car. I was busy working and wasn't able to take as many pictures as I'd like. Many others were taking pictures, so we welcome any submissions to fill out the sequence!



Next, the 319 is up. Here we have lifted it off one truck, and the dolly has been rolled out of the way.

Actually, after wasting all this time and money, we realized that the easiest way was just to have two strong young men lift the car by brute force. It's not as heavy as it looks. You should try this at home, kids!

Hey, something's missing!

Finally, the cars were stored safely in Barn 8. Here we see the 36 on 83, later joined by the 319.

I can't express enough appreciation for all the help provided by many members of the Car Dept. (This is always dangerous because I'll probably miss somebody, but...) The guys in charge were Nick and Stan, and we had Greg, Gerry, Dan, Joe, Joel, Steve O, Frank, Mike, Tim, Charlie, Scott, Henry and yours truly helping. This was the worst possible time of year to do this, but everybody performed magnificently. Next week: three cars instead of two. You won't want to miss it!