GOIN' TO THE SUPER BOWL!!! (well the Falcons, but sadly not most of us)
First, congratulations to the Atlanta Falcons for making it to 51st Super Bowl for the 2nd time in 61 years. Personally, I think the entire shop crew are Super Bowl winners after the hard work the past few weeks. Many of us also prayed for the 16 fellow Georgians who died in the storms this weekend, so it was a bittersweet weekend to be sure. Fortunately, our crew and property were pretty much unscathed save more leaks in #4529 which Andrew, Randy and I will have to look at how best to repair it.
On a positive note, after days of preparation akin to the Falcons' NFC Championship prep, Steve and Lloyd took in $570 for the museum at the NE Georgia Model Train Show at the Gwinnett Infinite Energy Center Saturday. Nick H, Ken G and Dale were all there as well and stopped by the booth to say hi and in some cases to purchase some of our excess inventory from the library collection to help support SRM.
The continued work on the water and fire hydrant lines to the shop caused the ground to be heavily saturated and of course silt has now built up in our drainage lines as well from the construction site for Building 4. This caused water to pool in Tk 31 in the scale shed, but Harry, Stuart and I got heavy brooms and shovels and had water once again flowing away from the shop before lunch on Saturday.
Nick W and Doug continued work on the Western Union with Bob, Lloyd and Rich away for the day. Allen also had some family illness issues to deal with (but did get out during the week) and with Chuck off site as well, Donald and Jim focused on getting the welded specialty steel frames done for the Xfer caboose. With the upcoming work on #8202, we want to get it and the troop kitchen car out of the shop ASAP.
During the week, since Kurt, Andrew and I had the holiday off Monday, we got a lot done in the shop, especially sorting out the lighting and electrical. Kurt was also out during the week as well and then John K joined him Saturday to help getting the northwest corner of the shop organized. Donald also joined us later in the day and we got a lot accomplished as it was a full work day for us.
I have now put up most of the 18 watt work lights for continuous lighting on the north aisle and I have completed the southwest corner on the south aisle. SO PLEASE LEAVE THESE LIGHTS ON AT ALL TIMES FOR SAFETY REASONS.
Since Kurt and John will start removing electrical components, plus gas and oxygen lines from the columns , we will keep the 110 volt outlets for now and put safety lights along the southeast side as well this week. But all the high voltage lines will be removed and most of the Pyle National plugs and parts which were scattered all over SRM have now been congregated in the proper section of the shop. City Electric gave us our first donation of lights on Monday and we got 3 great new fixtures as we slowly move from fluorescent lighting to LEDs under the catwalk and away from ballasted units which also means no need for starters either. They also gave us deep discounts on the heavy duty fused switches for Building 2 as we improve the electrical systems there. Still cleaning up the electrical cage and we will install a new one around the new switches on the northeast corner of Building 2.
PLEASE REMEMBER OUR $200,000 FUND RAISING DRIVE FOR BUILDING 4 AND ANY AMOUNT HELPS. EVEN MONTHLY PLEDGED DONATIONS. FRIENDS, FAMILY AND BUSINESS CONTACTS ALL CAN ASSIST US WITH THIS WONDERFUL, NEW 4 TRACK BUILDING. We are also planning a raffle for this spring and the winner will be able to select from a number of fun, all expense paid trips we are offering thanks to Joanie Archer's hard work.
Sadly, some Brown Recluse spiders have been found in the 20' electrical storage containers, so Kurt and John will set off bug bombs this week in them. SO PLEASE READ ANY NOTICES ON THE DOORS OF THE TWO CONTAINERS AND DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT TALKING TO ANDREW, DONALD, KURT, JOHN K OR ME UNTIL THE SIGNS ARE REMOVED. As always, gloves and eye protection should be worn in those areas and please make sure tetanus shots are up to date with all the rusty and corroded materials we work on at SRM.
Having worked so hard on clean-up of the bump out the past two weekends, Ben W was able to continue work on #290 on the Lodge-Shipley lathe. Andrew, Donald, Jim, Stuart and I continued cleaning up the work and storage areas for #8202 parts, trucks and traction motors, as we get ready to re-assemble them on Tk 32. We also will have our friends at Whiting back in the shop to work on the four 35 ton jacks and are looking at swapping labor and parts for some of our excess crane motors and parts, as will some of our other overhead crane vendors.
Donald and Jim made great headway with the first bench for the Xfer caboose this week and it is virtually completed. As always the work on the 2nd one usually goes a good bit quicker and many of the parts of the steel frame have already been cut by Jim and are ready for welding by Donald. Stuart cleaned up the bolts section and also re-organized the welding section plus cleaned out the rolling tool chest Donald Donated, which is now up by the tool bench, which he, Kurt, Lloyd and Donald will be organizing over the next few weeks.
Stuart worked on cleaning up our blue light stands as we found some great ones in the Back 20 and he cleaned and painted 4 of them, one of which has already been put to use on Tk 32 in front of the shop door. Most of you have seen the track parts, switch stands and rails that are now organized along the shop road as we prepare to put in almost 1,000 feet of track for Building 4. Many thanks to Superman Steve Storey for helping me with that back breaking project and for Stephen Warner for continuing to sort out parts we can swap, sell, recycle or keep around the property.
Leo Thomas of GERD and I spent a good deal of time late Thursday afternoon and evening cleaning out the area around the loading dock as we do have some plans for it. We still have more to do this week, but the dock itself is now cleaned off and we need to get rid of trees and brush on the north and west sides of the dock to allow the backhoe to get on and off with the forks. This clean-up also allows better access to the rails from Ft. Gillem, since many will be used for Building 4.
As to Building 4, the detention pond is almost completed and the pad is close to being ready for the installation of the helical piers. Several issues with the much deeper water line for the fire hydrant and re-positioning of the valves caused a bit of a delay. This in turn delayed GERD Systems from working on the park train, but Allen, Donald and Chuck still have a bit more to do on the locomotive and passenger cars over the next few weeks.
Andrew has almost single-handedly cleaned out the ACL box car on the west end of Tk 33 including the large model railroad boxes. Sam is supposed to go through them this week to see if any of it can be salvaged for us in small exhibits. Andrew is still waiting to hear on some potential sales and swaps of other parts of our rail collection, but that car will be sent to the salvage yard and still looking for the best way to take apart the body. High on the list to start preserving is our Decapod, the Gainesville Midland #203 built by Baldwin in 1928. For those of you who are new, you can find all the information about our rolling stock on our newly updated web-site www.train-museum.org which is a huge improvement over our previous one.
Not sure how Steve and Lloyd do so much in the shop, track related work, and landscaping while still continuing to improve the library, but every week the work inside is very noticeable. The new HVAC system Donald got partially donated works just as well in the cold as it did in the high heat this past summer. We have already had several people look at how best to replace the current overhead lights in the west end of the shop to make it safer for them.
Andrew and I will be releasing the updated Operations, Track and Shop management lists for 2017 in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, thanks to Allen Rider for stepping up to plate on #8202 after the park train is back in service. As well as thanks to Kurt Lumbatis and John Kreuger for leading up our newly formed electrical team. Hopefully they will get help from licensed electricians like Jere and HVAC people like Gary plus help from new vendors like City Electric and LightSource and long time ones like Howard Brothers.
Donald wears so many hats and does so much as the Assistant Shop Manager and Chief Engine Mechanic, we just can't thank him enough for the many long hours, huge personal donations and getting so much outside support for SRM. He is adamant that Hartwell 2 will be out of the shop this year, and seeing his work on SRM 3, #1026, TrackMobile, backhoe, park train locomotive and now the Xfer caboose, it is hard to doubt it. And just can't tell you how many compliments we get from VIP visitors to the shop about how much better it looks inside and out in many ways, in large part thanks to Donald, Superman Steve Storey, Andrew, Ben Walker, Jim, Stuart and so many of you. We will start filling up the container that Ben donated as well this week as we continue to move parts out of the shop and into locked containers and our freight and flat cars.
Finally, it is great to see the shop open 6 days a week in the middle of winter and dark nights and sometimes even 7 days a week. All due to a very dedicated, hard working and great crew who now work as a team, but who are also great at working on specific and important projects by themselves or in small teams. You all make it a lot of fun to manage this amazing shop and keep SRM open and the trains operating.
Best wishes, Jordan Rice, Shop Manager
