More Thomas

Thomas Weekend #2 was in full swing today.  The weather was variable, to say the least, but as usual everybody seemed to be having a good time.  I was the Wye Switch tender for the day, which is a strenuous and painful job, but somebody's got to do it.   Every half hour, I throw the switch, wait for the Thomas train to go by, and then throw it back.  And then I have 20 or 25 minutes to do something else.  Whew!  So I tested the recently repaired control jumper, did more sanding in the 36, cleaned up some other parts, and so on.

Meanwhile, we had a great crowd of visitors, as usual.  DOWT provides an excellent opportunity for us to present the Museum to people who might not visit otherwise.

And so typical Museum volunteers (R) try to impress visitors (L) with their skill, intelligence, knowledge, and seriousness of purpose.   Not always successfully.

And in the midst of the crowds of families with little children, we had some visitors from far away, Bill Fronczek and Walt Stafa, old friends of ours, seen here with Norm Krentel.  Unfortunately, this picture was the last straw.  My camera revolted and has refused to operate since.  Sorry.  So all I have left are a couple of cell-phone pictures.  (You will notice that I never take "selfies".  Otherwise my camera wouldn't have lasted a week.)

Our friend Ray Bellock wanted me to point out that his wife Roberta has been a constant helper at Thomas days for the last 17 years, doing face painting, hand stamping, and temporary tattoos every single day.  But this is probably her last year.   We can't thank her enough for all the joy she's given the younger visitors for all this time!

On the other hand, that sounds to me like a job opportunity for somebody out there!

And Volkmann has been hard at work; the switch to the south carline has been installed and track is extending towards the south and west.  I think this is really exciting.

If my calculations are correct, in one day, we ran 14 Thomas train trips, a smaller number for the Percy train, and the four streetcars must each have run about 30 round trips.  This is an impressive achievement which required the cooperation of a great many volunteers, something of which we can all be proud.