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We had an unbelievably successful weekend over April 10th-12th! The long weekend started on Friday with some locomotive operations and a little work on boxcar 1C.

Saturday dawned a picture perfect spring day in the Eastern Sierra’s as the crew warmed up the 18 early while our friends and guests arrived. Throughout the day, the 18 made dozens and dozens of trip back and forth giving rides to many. While folks were enjoying the 18, the “boxcar gang” was moving right along setting siding.

After a full day of fun, and work, everyone dusted off and headed over to the Legion Hall for a helping of the world famous Trash Can Tri-tip; and what a meal it was! Nearly 200 folks joined for dinner.

After a great evening of food and friends Sunday morning dawned with gusty winds. Due to the wind conditions the decision was made not to steam up the 18 but rather put it outside for the day. With 18 quiet work on the boxcar continued on until it was time for everyone to head their separate ways.

All in all we could not have asked for a better weekend and better support. When everything was tallied we had received over $11,000 in donations and merchandise sales! A huge THANK YOU to everyone! The ability to pull off a weekend like this is only possible with the help of our volunteers and friends, both too numerous to try to name individually, so thank you to everyone that made it happen. In addition to the volunteers, we have to express our gratitude to the Friends of the Eastern California Museum, PAWS, and Inyo County to name a few of our supporting organizations.

And if you missed the fun this time, mark your calendars for the July 4th weekend, we’ll do it all over again!

Our volunteers came from near and far for what turned out to be one of our largest work weekends in a while. A solid group of 25 folks was on hand and we were able to make progress in numerous directions.

Work on the locomotive included COT&S of the brake valves, machining of two new injector half nuts, general cleaning and detailing, and finally steaming up of the locomotive to offer some training time.

With one crew on the locomotive, another crew was making sawdust on boxcar 1C. Progress was substantial and including doing all the joinery on the upper sills and reassembling them, a significant step that has brought structure back to the car and will allow for the siding to go on in the near future. Also accomplished was the opening up and framing in of the second end doorway. This end had been filled in at some point late in the cars service life but would have been a functional doorway during its MOW tool car days.

In addition to the railroad equipment work, we had crews on three other projects including repainting the Dehy Park boxcar, which had been long on our list of to-do’s as the sun had made the south facing side paint peal and fade.

Another very noticeable project was clearing of the museum grounds around the engine house. No good walking path existed between the museum and the train, so at the request of the museum staff we cleared away some old chain link fence, a non historic shed, and some other debris in addition to relocating the Bell mill grinding stone and some wagon parts. Now there is a wide patch directly between the two buildings and it looks great!

And lastly, we spent Sunday afternoon in the museum holding our annual rules and safety class. Overall it was a great weekend and lots of fun. And as always, we thank everyone for attending and supporting us. Our next work days will be in March and our public steam up and fundraiser dinner will be April 12th. Hope to see every out in Independence soon!