[PRCo] PTM___Weakly___Report__by__Bruce___Wells

[James B. Holland]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Weakly Report
Date: 	Sun, 03 Oct 2004 23:48:57 -0400
From: 	CuZinBruce <>
To: 	PaTM Shop News <>



Weakly Report
October 3, 2004

http://homepage.mac.com/cuzinbrucie/Weakly.Report/PhotoAlbum28.html

Writing requires inspiration as well as the time to actually sit down at 
the keyboard and peck away and get something coherent. Unfortunately 
that combination has been rare lately as the Wells Family continues to 
work on the new Chateau up the road from the museum and the start of 
school brings the usual bevy of demands on time. Add to that the time 
needed to clean up after the flood from hurricane Ivan and, well, ehh, 
the weakly has been weaker than usual...

Anyhoo...Laura (our youngest (15) and I have just returned from the 
museum.       It was a beautiful day with 60s temps, we both got a few 
things accomplished today around the shop and around the office both 
yesterday and today.       I observed a lot going on which has been the 
case during the last couple of weeks and we capped off the weekend with 
an enjoyable cookout, the first since the deluge of water made the place 
just a bit messy.

In the Shop: The work continues to focus on the clean-up effort. 
Saturday Justin Skrbin, Jack Sutherland and Tony DeSensi worked to 
around 4398 and also to check the equipment that was drown in the flood. 
The 18" of water covered the motors on several of the large shop tools 
and Justin together with Bernie Orient has been taking things apart and 
preparing to send them out for a check-up by our friends in the electric 
motor business.       In spite of this Tony did get a chance to actually 
work on the pole bases for 4398.       The norm appears to be a little 
clean-up a little 4398 as obvious progress has been visible on the car 
during the past few weeks. In the photos I show the the installation of 
the bolster and cross ties which span the width of 4398 between the side 
sills. Many of these parts were on hand from the work 20 years ago. One 
of the big setbacks for this project is the fact that the welding and 
cutting equipment was drowned in the flood and contains electronic 
components that are not real fond of getting wet. Some of the equipment 
was Justin's personal tools. In addition the water had some acidic 
component to it which instantly rusted a variety of car components which 
had been sandblasted clean and were awaiting primer painting. These will 
need to be cleaned again.

Saturday afternoon Jim Riedel joined the crew and spent considerable 
time assisting Jack and Tony in sweeping the floor. When I arrived this 
morning I was pleasantly surprised to see the areas along the walls 
cleaned out where and there were larger sections of the floor where you 
could again tell it was concrete.

Over the Pit: Work has progressed getting Philadelphia 5326 dried out. 
Its two motors were completely immersed. Justin working in concert with 
Dennis Bockus and with help from Bernie worked out a drying setup for 
the motors that has been partially successful. The photos show the car's 
compressor and journal boxes which have been cleaned out. This cleaning 
has also taken place on the other two cars effected, West Penn Railways 
#1 and Boston Elevated 3618 which had their trucks drown while parked on 
track 21. About midday Dave Hamley attended to the drive train of 
Locomotive RG2 which also took on water and made it ready for towing 
service to shift the cars around during the upcoming week so that motor 
triage can be performed on #1 and 3618.

Next to the Pit: Bernie worked on a drainage ditch which will intercept 
the ground water and channel it into a sump so that rock can be back 
filled into this area to allow for additional floor paving.

In the Shop addition: Laura Wells and Larisa Gula swabbed the deck 
inside the shop office where the contents was removed for drying. In the 
flooding we had 2 drawers of blueprints soaked along with the contents 
of three file cabinet drawers. Much of this material was sent to a 
document restoration company (along with soaked materials from our 
archives) for freeze drying to allow safe recovery of the documents. 
Larissa, her mom (Fonda) and Laura also worked in the museum office 
transferring photographic prints to new binders.

Out in the great outdoors: Last but not least Larry Lovejoy led a team 
of Scott Becker, Bill Fronczek, Barbara Kearns and Tim ___ in the 
spreading of ballast along the Arden Valley line starting at the Main 
Street crossing as shown in the photograph.

http://homepage.mac.com/cuzinbrucie/Weakly.Report/PhotoAlbum28.html

During the course of the day the crew was joined by Kevin Zebley and 
managed to fill in washed out sections of the right of way up to the 
Fairgrounds siding. Today they continued with the additional assistance 
of Dan Bower who flew in from vacation to help move the project along by 
providing his expertise on the tamper. As of this evening the track was 
repaired up through Tarr but the switches at Fairgrounds are not ready 
for prime-time until they are cleaned and adjusted.

So, there youns have it...The latest snews from Trolleyland.

Hope all is well where you are. Keep smilin', be alert, stay safe and as 
always...? r welcome.

CuZinBruce

CuZinBruce wrote:

> It just occurred to me that some of youns may not have been aware that 
> the museum homepage has a link to some rather nifty photos of how high 
> the flood waters were.
>
http://pa-trolley.org/flood_gallery.htm



CuZinBruce wrote:

> I placed photos on my website showing the flooding process. I snitched 
> most of them from the PTM site but I also included Larry Lovejoy's 
> picture of the shop front at 8pm when the flood was near its 
> height...18" (inches) . I also corrected the other page where it 
> indicated 18'...
>
>
> http://homepage.mac.com/cuzinbrucie/Weakly.Report/PhotoAlbum29.html
>
> CuZinBruce