A day that will live in our hearts!

Today as I write this posting, I am dirty, tired and very sore. Man am I gonna feel like crapola tomorrow.
We started around 8am, like we wanted to, with only 4 people. The weather was perfect, warm with a slight breeze off the water and sunny!

We had 2 new volunteers show up a little while later and we all jumped into finishing our list. Clean/degrease and coat the locomotive driver bearing boxes-all six of them. Sound familiar like a broken record????
Well, we also cleaned/degreased the pilot truck bearing boxes but we did not have to apply the Cosmoline to them as they have bearings that are removeable.
During this time, we had 2 more volunteers show up, then a little while later another new volunteer showed up. We had the newbies doing the greasy work with a couple of our seasoned veterans and we started clenaing up the journal pedestal boxes (which hold the bearing boxes for the drivers) of paint and old grease.
When these were finished we cleaned up the crosshead guides and brassses and left the cylinders for after lunch.
We now had a lot of volunteers on site and I felt that they need a good lunch-Pizza it was!
After lunch, 2 more new volunteers showed up and we dove into the steam cylinders and  valve gear cylinders to clean/degrease and coat them with a little oil. Our job on locomotive #35 has come to and end for now. Now its time for the experts to come in from May 16th-21st to complete their end.
I also took the time to finally hook up the headlight and re-check the elctrical boxes in our Worlds Fair Cab display. After a while everything tested out fine and next week during our 1st open house, we will be dedicating this unit to 3 of our volunteers who have passed on. This is extremely important to me personally as I worked alongside these men for quite some time and one of them being honored is my brother-in-law and my family will be there.
Sometime later this season while its just cooling off, I will apply the 2nd coat of grey paint on this cab unit as the final touch to a great restoration.
Starting from the 15th and going forward, we will be adding a few finishing touches to Caboose #12 and then we will be going hog wild on our Turntable project. I would love to finsh the work season by having our tuntable move under its own power (electric) before the weather turns nasty.
On hand today were Steve Rothaug (sorry about forgetting you last week), Rich Brody, Leon Daitz, Betty Carley, George Mutari, Doug Kasner, ME, Steve Torborg, Steve McKeon and our New guys, John, Louis, Ricky, Michael and Mason.
Gary