Everybunny's Hopping

Since the Bunny Hop event has already been sold out for a while, I don't really have to advertise it, but having signed up to help for a day, it's time for a brief report.  I was the conductor on the North Shore train, as seen here.  Three cars, the 251, 714, and 749 provided service, along with the 409 and 431.  We were running trips to Seemann Road on a half-hour schedule, and every trip was full, so we were kept hopping.  

Here's our crew: trainman Larry Carrozza, myself, and motorman Larry Stone.

As I say, every trip was nearly full.

The 251 is our one operational interurban combine, and it has a nice display of antique trunks, suitcases, and stacks of newspapers such as it used to carry.

My favorite has got to be this: the Hotel Zeppelin in Frankfurt.  It's too bad there's no such  thing as an operating Zeppelin museum.  So I'll stick with trains.

I had little chance to get good pictures of all the activities for the children, but I would assume there will be plenty elsewhere on the net.

Streetcar service was provided by the 4391 and 1374.

And I would say that the visitors all seemed to be happy with the event, so it was another great day out at the Museum.

Frank adds...

I was out on a Saturday for a change, but spent my day working in the shop on various different projects.

I was able to get the ceiling panel at the east end of the 460 down, as proven here. I also pulled tacks out of a few more feet of the north side of the car, though I didn't get that far on that little project. I spent much of the afternoon reinstalling windows in the 18 (a couple more 18 windows also received white primer) and making progress on the new roll sign that will go over the car's entry door. Many thanks to Bill and Buzz, who showed me how to recreate this using book-binding material we have on hand. The new material was cut to size, and once I pick up the correct type of paint (thanks to Tim for letting me know what type works best), I will apply the adhesive masks that Buzz had cut out and will paint the new roll sign. I also moved several controllers out of the car shop and into storage, which helped free up some more floor space in the shop.

And then it was over to Yard 15, along with Nick and Nathan, to help Dan jack up a streetcar.

So here we are at the northeast corner of Tri-City Railway & Light 483, the only surviving streetcar from the Quad Cities. The body of the car has some issues (though it's more solid than you'd think) and unfortunately the platform knee at this corner fell off the car. You can see it to the right of Nick's head, hanging in mid-air. It turns out that it's just bolted to the car's side sill, and the bolts holding it in place sheared/broke off, so when that happened the end of the car drooped precariously. Dan sourced some new hardware and headed up an effort to jack the end of the car back into place.

And voila! The platform knee is now reattached to the car, and all is well. There is a possibility at the moment that funds may be donated to put this car inside the next barn. If that happens, it can go inside, have the tarp and house roof removed for the first time since it arrived in Union in 2001, and it would actually make a pretty decent candidate for cosmetic restoration - and possibly, eventually, operational restoration. Dan pointed out that it's not that complex of a car, and it would have had basic Brill trucks, K-35 control, and normal rattan walkover seats. But that will all depend on whether it can be put inside.

In other news, many thanks to the Steam Shop for fabricating new center bearings for the L4, shown at right. All we need to do now is weld these onto normal rectangular plates, using the original at the left as a pattern, and this locomotive will be back in service.

And I took this photo of the new Gallery Space in the Multi-Purpose Building, looking through the glass after night had fallen. This space looks like it's getting close to being ready to open to the public, and will add another impressive facet to our ever-expanding range of public exhibits.

LATE ADDITION: thanks to Bill Wulfert for submitting the below photos, one showing the work on the steam lead switch in the middle of Depot Street next to the Barn 9 North car stop, and the other showing Nick and Dan working on positioning jacks under the Tri-City car.