July 3rd Abandonment Post-Mortem

In spite of some rather unpleasant weather, the annual CA&E abandonment festival went off pretty well.

The first train out was the wood car train, with 319, 308, and 309.  On each trip we actually needed three cars to handle the crowd of passengers.

And then the steel cars 460 and 431.

To reduce expenses, since we're on the brink of insolvency, we have here two crews in one picture:

(L to R)  Steven Jamrog, Aaron Sucharewski, Drew Beveridge, Will Knogl, and me.  The younger generation all did a great job of running the trains.

At noon, the wood cars unloaded our passengers at Seemann, as we usually do, and then ran extra back to Wheaton.  The passengers were soon picked up by the North Western bilevels, who did an efficient job of rescuing them. 

And since heavy rain was approaching, the wood cars had to rush to get back into the barn before the deluge.  It's not easy changing ends, throwing switches, and doing it all in a hurry!  And it was so hot, I really didn't mind being thrown out of work.

Besides the CA&E cars, of course, there were several other trains operating all day.

If you missed the first day of Independence Day Weekend, there are still two more coming up with different consists each day.  Don't miss it!