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

Saturday, February 20, 1999

"Our Gang", an update from Daniel Price

This Saturday proved to be more productive than the last. While nothing major was accomplished, we were able to get work done on several smaller projects.

In the morning Andy Evans and I finished the tune-up on the rail-drill so that it now can run without stalling. We were then able to finish drilling the holes needed to patch the broken rail. However, as we were using it we found the carburetor was leaking gasoline from several places. It appears the air intake had filled with gasoline while we had stopped for lunch and now the carburetor will require some attention in the not so distant future.

Following the drilling, Andy and I were able to get all the rail segments bolted together, hand tight, and had intended to use an impact wrench to tighten everything. However, when we went to start the air compressor (that had been at Torrance for 3- weeks) we found gasoline leaking from its carburetor (what are the odds?) It was also noticed that the gasoline tank, which has always been a little loose, was moved about 4" from its normal location. We then attempted to use air from CS&CV #1 to power the wrench but lacked the properly sized fitting. By this time it was rather late in the day (it takes a long time to get this done with only two people) and it was decided to leave the bolt tightening for another weekend.

In other news. . . .

The oil derrick is completely gone J . Greg Gneier, Darlene Sexton, Jim Fontenot and others worked on cleaning the area of remaining debris.

The trucks, for the Boeing flatcar, arrived during the week and on Saturday were spotted at the end of the interchange track (Track. 3) by Greg Ramsey, Gordon Bachlund, Nancy Gneier, Darlene Sexton, Andy Evans, and myself. However, in the process we had a minor derailment and required the assistance of Jim Fontenot and the skip loader to re-rail one axle of one of the trucks.

During the week several track components arrived from Torrance and were dumped (literally) out in the Southwest corner of the park. Another load arrived with Joe Barilari on his trailer on Saturday and Joe, Jim Fontenot, Bob Bennett, (and others????) worked on unloading and stacking the materials.

Daniel Price

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Copyright (c)1999. The Southern California Scenic Railway Association Inc.