Meet Week Begins!

Rich and Bob came just after 9AM and we got to the track shortly later. Dan was already there and was playfully chiding us for being "late". He told me that he wants the crossing signals fixed ASAP and I should devote my Saturday to that. Rich and Jack went off to fix signals and I worked on getting the crossing lights working again. After reconnecting stuff, I worked on setting up the crossing bell and was just getting to the final stages in connecting the crossing light circuitry to the cross bucks and Mike L. arrived and told me to stop immediately and that he was there and was going to fix the lights. I told him what Dan told me and said I was just following orders.I told him that Dan said to tell Mike to see Dan if he did not me to work on the lights. He went off to see Dan and then came back a few minutes later and asked me for any parts and I gave them to him and I went off to do other things.

While this was happening, Rich and Jack were up on the inch track and were swapping out some semaphores up by Summit. While they were going up the track, they derailed and had a total of three times! Apparently the old ties are not firm enough to hold the spikes and the rails are spreading from the weight of the rail equipment. Don was there and he got JJ to help repair the track where Rich and Jack had problems. Two locations were on bridges! JJ laid down on a flatcar and hammer in one hand and a punch in the other proceeded to set the spikes in deeper on the rail in question. Not a job for an older man, laying on you chest and inching alond pounding Don was lucky to have JJ around to help.

Rich and Jack went back to disconnect the wires to the inch carbarn that were accidently damaged during the prep work for the new car barn. They also also removed the broken parts from the power panel and brought them back.

I worked with Tom while he worked on putting a new baseboard on the radial arm saw. I explained how the saw fence and baseboard interacted and he was able to set it up and get it going. He also brought casters for it and it now is easily moveable and has a functional top that will allow accurate crosscut miters. Brovo Tom!

Tommy stopped out and gave me some more material and the repaired circuit boards so now I can work on populating them and getting some more to in the field testing.

Rich and I went through some of the soldering equipment and I pulled two sets out to take home to use and see what is better. I also set up a iron stand on the bench and used it to work on one of the new boards today. It was nice to have an iron that heats up in about 30 seconds and has a fine tip that matches the small foil junctions that I need to work on.

As things were winding down Dan said to grab the camera and for the other guys to grab a shovel and come down to twin bridges and everyone to do 10 minutes of shoveling for Bob K. Bob has been working on block laying for months and it seems to be never ending for him. There were a number of pallets of block newly delivered in the infield area when we arrived this morning. I got some good photos and Bob got some help with the digging part.