Hop To It

Today was our first Annual Bunny Trolley Hop, and a good time was had by all, as far as we can tell.  As my buddy Roger Kramer would say, we had "many numerous people" helping out with the festivities.  Numerous volunteers are the best sort to have!  While the weather was not what we would have wanted, things went very well due to excellent planning.

As usual at IRM, the high-level management people are involved with hands-on activity.

Here we have our CEO:

And our CFO: 

...helping make this an enjoyable experience for the visitors.  In the morning, it was rather dark and dreary.  Here we see people lining up at Central Avenue to board the streetcars.  Harold Krewer is directing the operations from his mobile command center.

Later in the day, the sun came out on a part-time basis.

In addition to the streetcar ride, these 4000's were parked on track 11 for the coloring activities, and a Rock Island car on track 12 for the Easter Bunny portraits.  The heated cars helped take the edge off the cold and damp weather.

Inside the 4000:

As for the Easter Bunny, more on that in a later post.  The Easter egg hunt was supposed to take place out in the turntable yard, I believe, which explains the temporary fence seen here:

But due to the weather it was held in Barn 7 instead.

  Hmm, finding an egg is not going to be easy:

Preliminary indications are that the event went very well, and we will probably do this again next year.  Some changes will be made, of course, but a lot of credit goes to all the people who made this a success.  There's no telling what lengths people will go to in order to help the Museum.  Meanwhile...

There's work to be done, so let's hop to it!   (as my father would say)

I spent most of the day sanding down the other side of the 308.  Since it's against the wall of the barn, photography is difficult, but it would never be very exciting anyway.

By the end of the day, we're ready for paint on the grey and red parts of this side.

And of course there are lots of other Car Dept. projects in progress.

John is working on new windows for the 68.  Here he is using a nail gun to attach the moldings.

Nick continues work on the 4410.  They needed to replace a brake cut-out valve.  That worked fine, except that in the process of disconnecting the piping, the pipe that runs down through the Mastipave floor developed a leak, so it has to be replaced.  He says, however, that the control system works fine and has no air leaks, so good progress is being made.

Tim shows off the new windows sills on the 1754:

Victor and Bill continue to work on the Pennsy bobber.  Victor was on his way back from Barn 10 with a paint brush to be cleaned, and realized he could stop off at Barn 8 and wipe the unwanted black paint onto parts of the CGW snow plow that needed touch-up.  Nothing wasted!

Bill was working on a controller cover for the 1754, among other things.

Jon Fenlaciki continues to work on roof parts for the 65.  Today he finished assembling the fuse box.

I had a collection of controller parts that had been stored in the 321 and rusted badly.  I spent a little time cleaning them up.

And Buzz wanted me to show off the new guard for the big bandsaw.   The previous version allowed you to stick your fingers through the guard.  Safety First!   Buzz also says he believes this guard was an add-on to begin with: when it was used at the TM shops, it probably had no guard at all.