Ancora piu mosso, con allegrezza

The CA&E wood cars were in motion again today, and a good time was had by all, to coin a phrase.   The weather was beautiful and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.  We seemed to have a good crowd of visitors.  Our train was the 308 and 319 as seen here:

And the original plan was to run the 1797 and 1268 also:

If you work long enough in the Track Dept., as Bob Olson has, you get one of the best seats in the house:

And the 1630 was running.  That's always a crowd pleaser.

You can never have too many pictures of the steam train.

The 1797 burned out a control resistor, so the wood L cars were replaced by 4000s.  Replacing a control resistor is not an unusual task, but takes some time.  The woods may be back in operation tomorrow.

When I'm operating, I almost always meet interesting people.  Today I happened to meet Jim Simms, the son of Al Simms, an old friend of mine from the early days at IRM.  Al Simms was a great guy, and he and I both went to Ripon College, so we had something in common other than IRM.  Jim and I had a lot to talk about.  He now lives in Pennsylvania and doesn't get out to the Midwest that often.

And here is the crew portrait you've all been waiting for: conductor Randy Allegrezza, and myself as motorman.  This always works well because it's easy to remember the other guy's first name.

And by the way:

Hey, Safety First!   Can't you read?!?!?