and the old tiles stripped. We have another contractor who placed the new tiles down. Meantime, member Keith Dorn continued his efforts to make the walkover feature work on the seats. The LIRR welded the seats in one position as a safety factor, should the cars ever get in a crash, a concern now replaced by locks or gravity clutches like a seat belt. The original estimate was four man-hours per seat to grind off the welds. Keith has it down to 20 minutes, except for the every-car-hasone hard case or two. Some of the seats were also rusting badly enough that the metal had to be built up. This time around, he was taking them home in I have routinely listed the projects we take on and I have reminded us always that the “Technical” in our name is about restoration. I have always left the door open for more people to get involved with these projects. Without these projects, our “Historical” mission to educate the public about trains is lost. This issue, I am going to take on a slightly different tact and focus on several individual projects. Anatomy of a Bad Thing I’m not going to harp on about some moron’s attempt at his 15 minutes of fame by posting a erroneous web page about abandoned places. The fact is, it happened, and the result was the disaster known as our third bi-level. As a reminder, we bought several Pullman-built gallery cars from Chicago Metra, ex CB&Q coaches. We traded some away and kept three, but one arrived later than the others and it fell victim to that web site, with persons unknown making a clubhouse out of it. There was clothing scattered about, graffiti, cut-up seat cushions, broken glass and light fixtures and food and garbage May and June, the garbage was shoveled out, graffiti removed from metal and window surfaces and the painted surfaces were given a new maroon finish. We have a seat upholsterer who repaired the cut cushions. Like its sister cars before it, a dozen new slider windows were installed to reduce the need for air conditioning. And the car was cleaned, cleaned and cleaned again. During the Thomas event, it was added to its sisters to make a three coach train (plus the gift shop) for 142 while Thomas had the LIRR cars. Although it happened only once - the second trip on the last day - it went out packed as were the other two cars. Nonetheless, it saw its share of passengers those weekends, making it all worth it. It finished out the year on the Polar Express where it served as an office for the “Big Guy” in one half and an overflow section in the other. Same Old Grind LIRR coach 533 was next in line to get new floor tiles. After the Easter trips, it was set aside in the yard 14 The Ol’ Susquehanna mine’s exploding mine shaft and outhouse. Winery Train started in 2006, it was at the then-end of track and unloaded onto a public road. With the 2008 track extension, it was moved onto a private drive, which was better, But in 2010, we gained a critical half -mile of track that put us past the railroad’s bridge that was too low for the buses. This was a major move as we expected the 20 minute bus ride could be cut in half. The actual time the first day was seven minutes – almost one third! The problem is, it was only the first phase of track extension we expected for the year. If we reached the year’s goal, we would be back to unloading on a his pick-up a few at a time and working on them evenings. The 533 is now the third car with a new tile floor and the second with walk-over seats. That leaves the “Wine” car, 532, for both jobs and Keith has to go back to the 531 for the seats. Station Keeping If you know LIRR history, you might be familiar with a famous incident of them moving a station for spite because the customers there complained too much. Well, speaking of the Wine Car, we’re moving one again, but to prevent that. When the everywhere. After arriving at the Bel-Del, during
15 Publizr Home