The changing of the board

 Frank writes...

I was out for part of the day on Saturday. The weather was spectacular, a clear sunny day in the upper 70s with a nice breeze. It was a great day to hold an outdoor membership meeting, the first I can recall since a special meeting held in the same spot by Kevin McCabe back in the early 2000s on the occasion of a proposed deal with a county agency that ended up falling through. Anyhoo...

The dais was on the 50th Avenue station platform with the voting membership sitting on picnic tables just to the east of the Central Avenue streetcar stop. Above, recording secretary Ray Piesciuk is at the left end of the platform with the old board: Marcus standing and speaking, Ray behind him, Nigel to the right, and Jason and Thomas sitting past the canopy. This meeting took the place of the regular annual meeting normally held in April but cancelled because of the state lockdown. Due to a confluence of coincidence and resignations, five of the seven board seats were up for election.

And here's the new board of directors: Marcus standing, Nigel (no longer on the board but still treasurer), Jason, Thomas, Chris, Larry, Good Nick, and Dave standing at right. The usual congratulations and condolences to all of the new board members.

After the meeting ended, I rounded up our CA&E markers, fueled them, and test-lit them. They're shown above showing the successful results. Because there's rain in the forecast for tomorrow and we're not sure whether the wood cars will run (if not, we'll just run the steel cars in to the evening), Harold suggested we bring them out this evening. I had to depart mid-afternoon but my father arrived to answer any questions the regular crew might have. Photos should be forthcoming.

Tim is seen showing off the absolutely spectacular interior of the 1754, which as I understand it is nearly complete except for the truck work that has commenced back behind Barn 4. Later in the day the 1754 was brought out and put on display but I had to leave before I got photos. Stay tuned!

I did not, however, leave before seeing the four-car train of 4000s leave the barn on track 41. This is the first time anyone, anywhere has run a four-car train of 4000s for the public in 30 or 35 years (and of course that last time was still us, and was probably these four cars). We now have four-car electric trains of CRT woods, CTA 4000s, spam cans, "high performance" CTA cars, and CA&E woods, with four-car trains of CA&E steels and North Shore cars likely in the near future.

The museum didn't open until 2pm because the annual meeting was held in the morning, so that was different. Here Jack is getting the 415, our longtime stalwart that has been "taking it on the chin" more than usual lately, out of the barn to start the day in the early afternoon.

Stay tuned for more photos from Saturday evening, and then later on we should have photos from Sunday as well.