Restoration Notes: A Day in the Life of a Railway Museum.

Saturday, February 13, 1999

"Our Gang", an update from Daniel Price

Saturday was a very uneventful day for the MW Department. It started with a Travel Town employee orientation/"meet the volunteers" session followed by the quarterly planning meeting. The remainder of the morning was spent working on odd-jobs and planning the move of the flatcar from Torrance to the park and how to store it once it arrived.

In the afternoon Andy Evens, Darlene Sexton, Mark Schirmeister, and myself went to work on the switch by the Pensey Dinner. We wanted to get all the rails bolted together, but a quick inspection of the MW shed revealed all of the track wrenches had been taken to Torrance for the flatcar. We next attempted to drill bolt holes in the broken rail so a jointer bar could be affixed as a patch. However the rail drill ran in its usual run-stutter-stall-die manner. After getting only a fraction of one of the holes drilled we stopped and disassembled the fuel line and carburetor. Both were found to be full of sludge. Mark Schirmeister and Tim Dulin were able to clean the carburetor while Bob Bennett and myself went to Chief Auto and Home Depot to purchase a new fuel line and fuel filter to help to prevent this from reoccurring. Next week after installing the new fuel filter we will be able to get the rail drilled and if the wrenches return we can get the rails bolted together (knock on wood).

Update - Tuesday, February 16

I spoke with Bob Bennett today and he informed me that he had returned a set of wrenches from Torrance so that our track work could continue on Saturday. He also related that when he was at the park today he noticed that the majority of the oil derrick had been taken down with the remainder to be completed by tomorrow (2/17) and that one of the two trolleys that are being restored by the MTA and the LA School District had been moved to its temporary home at an East LA school. The other trolley should be moving on Thursday following an MTA press conference.

Daniel Price

E-mail questions and comments to SCSRA Dispatcher
Copyright (c)1999. The Southern California Scenic Railway Association Inc.