New crane deck and caboose bench

With a nice day, a lot of progress was made around the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum. Our Fairmont track crane restoration project drew even closer to completion as museum volunteers Chris Hauf and Jeremy Tuke installed its new wood deck. All that remains now is a little paint touch-up and a good greasing. Then the crane can return to service.

Chris was even able to sneak some work in on the BR&P caboose interior; assembling the frame of the new bench in the one end of the caboose and adding two wood pieces to the cupola cabinet walls. These pieces were seen in an un-modified BR&P caboose and held three marker brackets. So we decided to add them, plus they add strength to our cupola wall patches seen in previous news items.

Track work on Switch #5. Ballast cleaning and tie replacement "the old fashioned way" were the order of the day Please take a look at some of the pics of the day's activities.

Fairmont track crane with new deck. This little crane is a valuable tool for our track crews.

BR&P 280 had its replacement bench frame put together. The original was removed in the 1960's rebuilding by the B&O.

Spring arrived if just briefly

Spring made an appearance with temps in the 80's for the first time in 2003. Of course, within twenty four hours, we should be in the 30's. With the good weather on tax day, however, many of the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum volunteers took advantage of it and our Tuesday evening work sessions. With the better weather, the time has arrived to begin to wake up our construction equipment and locomotives from their winter slumber.

Facing of the cabinets continued in BR&P caboose #280.

On the border of our property, a berm had been built last year. Museum member and Buildings & Grounds Superintendent Dave Luca had spent the past several days planting tree seedlings on top of the berm. The hope is these seedlings will grow and act as a natural border with our neighbors.

Is it springtime yet?

Seems like you never know what the weather is going to be like here in Western New York. Spring tried to make a re-appearance today and the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum's volunteers took advantage of it. Take a look at some of the pics of just a few of the day's activities...

Facing of the cabinets continued in BR&P caboose #280.

The frog work continued as the final four rivets were being install prior to being heated and "bucked" to tighten them up.

As the frog work continued, other museum volunteers worked on cleaning out ballast around some of the switch timbers so they can be pulled out and replaced with new timbers.

NYC crossing shanty paint prep work continued. Here museum volunteer, Dale Hartnett, finishes stripping the paint on one of the six sides of the crossing shanty. The shanty is getting a rebuilt roof and a new floor amongst other items. The shanty will eventually be painted in two-tone green. Currently we are researching whether the building would have had a cedar shingle or asphalt shingle roof when it was constructed. Can you help?

A nice lunch time diversion. Museum member Chris Hausler brought out part of his telegraph equipment collection to show the volunteers. A variety of equipment was demonstrated including a key controlled by the computer laptop. The demo was very cool!

So that's what it is supposed to look like!

Ever since the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum took possession of its Plymouth Model BL gas-mechanical locomotive, we have wondered what it looked like when it was new. As it came to us, the sheet metal and body were damaged or missing. Now through a contact made over the Internet, a gentleman was kind enough to share a Plymouth catalog for the model BL showing pictures of what it should have looked like. Pictured below is our BL as it was delivered to us and as it was moved into our restoration building.

The Plymouth Model BL as it was delivered to us.

Plymouth Model BL as it was moved into our restoration building & as it was pictured in the catalog with all of its sheet metal in place. The catalog picture depicts a narrow gauge version of the BL where ours is standard gauge.