Tuesday -May 22

[Chris James]

Most of the work is still happening in Antonito during Session A, including the restoration of UTLX Tank Car #11036 and GRAMPS car #11037. This included "harvesting" (as described by John Cole) the period trucks from a worn out railroad gondola, destined for static display, for future use on other rolling stock. It turned out that most of the "harvest" was poor quality with bad bearings and out-of-round wheels, OK for display but not for over the road use. Other projects included the prep for Box Car 3159 for static display in Antonino and restoration of Stock Car 5774 for use by the railroad. Work continued on Caboose 0503 and 0579. Creation of period passenger trucks for RPO 54 continued under the direction of Russ Hanscom. Antonito landscaping was also renewed for the 2018 season. Photos by Sharon McGee.

[John Cole]

Thanks for posting all of Sharon’s great images Chris. In the first set of photos Roy, Wayne, and Dennis are assembling all of the sub assemblies of the trucks they have been working on the last several years. All of the individual pieces used to be carried around, but now they are welded together they have become quite bulky and HEAVY!

Roy says by noon on Wednesday they should have both completed ready to fit with springs and wheel assemblies. Woo-hoo!

The next batch in our guys removing trucks from a high side gon and replacing useable wheel sets with ones we can only use for display purposes. having that new concrete pad poured last summer and using a forklift and air tools has REALLY made short work out of an otherwise all day project.

Don Atkins and his caboose teams are working on the roof on short caboose 0479 and doing siding and end platform repairs on long caboose 0503. These two are the railroad’s historic cabooses and will be looking great again soon.

Dan Pyzel’s team is working on the ‘convertible’ type stock car doing repairs on the side boards before they put a new roof on it, (reminds me of the Lionel Trains giraffe car of our youth}.

[Craig Kumler]

Thanks all for the updates from Antonito...looking good...any chance you might grab a shot of 292's new lettering?