Memorial Day Weekend, Part One

Memorial Day Weekend started out pretty well, in spite of the weather.  It was raining in the morning, but the rain had passed through shortly before noon.  As a result, we were late getting started, but after that it was a nice day and everybody seemed to be having a good time.  The 308 and 319 were in main line service, as seen here:

Of course, we have the obligatory crew picture.  Here we see me, as the conductor, motorman Ron Seavers, and trainman Linda Evans.  We're all high on the seniority list and get along pretty well.

The caboose train was in operation, with five cars, and the recently-repainted Rock Island Geep.  Aesthetic judgments aside, they really did a great job painting the locomotive.

And the 1630 was in operation all day, but for the first time in a long time I failed to get any pictures of it.   Because....

the Shay was running for testing purposes, but it's been a long time since any of us have seen it in real operation.  That's Linda on the right in the picture above.  So what if we've got an electric train to run?  Let's go watch and photograph the Shay instead!

The "sewing machine", of course, was a real crowd pleaser.

The rest of the day things went pretty smoothly.  The new car cards in the 308 are a noticeable improvement.

And there are even more exciting things planned for the next two days. So if you're anywhere near the center of the continent, drop what you're doing and come out to IRM!