Photographers' Special

Friday was an unusual day for weekday operations, due to a photographer's special organized by the Museum in conjunction with the Center for Rail Photography.  A lot of work went into the planning for this event.

As a special treat, both steam locomotives were running, the Decapod with a long train of heavyweight cars, and the Shay with its mixed train.  Plus one mainline electric train, featuring the two most photogenic cars in the collection:

And later in the day they brought out the Rock Island Geep with a twelve-car freight train -- very impressive.  The Operating Department kept everything running smoothly.  Our thanks to everyone who helped make it a success.

Ironically enough, I was too busy to get many photographs myself.  We didn't even get a crew shot; it was Mark Hoffman and I, and you've seen us before.  But just about everybody wants to get a picture of the Sunset Lines emblem:

In any case, a good time was had by all, and I would imagine that pictures from this extravaganza will show up on the web somewhere or other.

And in the mechanical department, the new motor bearing on the 309 ran fine, and in fact ran cooler than the old one on the other side of motor #2.  So that's good news!