Southern Pacific #18 – January and February 2024

What an outstanding work weekend we had in late January to kick off 2024s work. A full crew of nearly 20 came out and got after it on two fronts, the locomotive cap inspection and the boxcar restoration.

By the end of the weekend, the locomotive crew had #18 ready for hydro while the boxcar crew had both couplers back in service and the B end wall on its way back together with siding going on the A end.

Next up for the boxcar is to finish the B end, re open the 1920s era man door on the A end, and to start the upper roof beam replacements and associated framing. As for #18, we are close to the annual inspection and reassembly.

A huge thank you to everyone involved and we look forward to the next time. Thanks for the support!

Southern Pacific #18 – January 2024

Happy 2024 to everyone! Your humble part-time webmaster would like to apologize for a lack of new website content in the later part of 2023, rest assured we have not been inactive and plan to hopefully get back to providing more regular posts.

Looking into 2024’s crystal ball, we have a few goals we are looking to accomplish. First and foremost of those is to wrap up our maintenance of #18 and hold a public steam up in Independence in late summer 2024. Believe it or not, it will be our first public steam up in Independence of #18 since prior to covid. Along with wrapping up work on #18, we will be making a big push on the boxcar 1C restoration with the goal to have it at least three-quarters complete by year end. Lastly, we will be working with our friends at the Eastern California Museum on some long range plans on outdoor improvements to the museum grounds and interpretive signage. To get started on everything, our first work weekend will be held in Independence over the last weekend of January. Hope to see you there and we all look forward to a prosperous and productive 2024!