Work Day 7/31

Bob came along today with Richard and we got out to the track at the usual time. Jack arrived so today we started with checking out the locomotives. Doug's A-B-A set had been accidentally left on last weekend so they had run the batteries down in one of the units. The others seemed OK which means either the unit has a problem or the charger that was connected to it is bad. We decided to remove the shell and connect to the batteries with other chargers to see if the batteries would recover today while we were at the track. We checked out the 1 inch club loco and set up a work train to get going on replacing two of the semaphores with new style ones. First we wanted to take a run over the rails to see if things were working as they should. We found several places where Don and Dan had been working on the track and had improved the track and the roadbed. We ran back to the station and picked up our tools and equipment and went to the work site. We opted to replace two signals close to each other so we could work within sight and conversation range. Malfunction Junction turned out to be ideal so we set up there. Jack and Rich started on the signal at the end of the downhill trestle and I worked on the second signal in the up bound direction. We finished up with the conversion at the noon hour and after the dinner bell sounded we headed back to the station and the picnic area.

When we went past Summit we derailed at the turnout just past the trestle. After getting the train back on the track the second car came off the rails and the lead truck came off the car so we pulled the car off the train and agreed to repair it after lunch.