HOT HOT HOT!

A beautiful day after a week of rain and only  a few brave souls ventured forth to Oyster Bay.
Yesterday I picked up a gallon of custon paint in order to put the finish coat onto the Worlds Fair cab display. I think I finally got the correct color for "Goodfellow" grey to go along with the orange.

Ronnie, Paul, Gerard and I were able to get a first coat on and will finish up in 2 weeks.
There will be no work session next week for the memorial day weekend.

John Specce, the OBRM President came by with the new signs touting our "spend a day in Oyster Bay program and we put one up on the fence and the other was destined for the back of the Worlds Fair Cab.
James, our Barry Tech intern, spot welded 5 studs to the back sheet and we hung the sign and bolted it down. No more double sided or duct tape for us!.

I was the only docent on hand today as our regular docent Harvey, was unavailable and we had over 50 visitors to the yard. A cub scout troop from Sea Cliff came by to visit. They were so cute in their uniforms and they also had a group photographer with them.
Feeling good today (because of the weather, I guess), I asked them if they wanted to take a photo on the turntable. No surprise to me, they did and I even got into one shot with the kids.
All in all, a nice day.

Just so you all know, I did not take any photos today and I plan on making this my last blog for some time.
I am too busy now with work and will not have any extra moments to spare on the weekends.
I may do a once a month blog.
Gary

workng stiffs

Hi all
Yesterday wasn't so bad a day.
If you remember, last week, we cut down 2 trees that were against Duke Electrical Supplys building in front of our gates.
We began by painting the enitire side of the building white to cover the graffiti and brighten the "joint" up a bit.
Pete, Duke Supply's owner, thought it was a great idea as it makes both of us look good.
Next week we will be adding a new facia board on the rear section of the building in order to put up a new gutter and leader for water control.
We also plan on putting up 2 more gutters which will take the water from the front sections scuppers and direct it all to the street, so it will not flood out Duke. All in the name of being good neighbors!
We'll ask him to put up new exterior lighting to bathe the yard at night.

We also built 2 new planting beds outside the front gate using our forklift to move some of the old railroad ties into plce. we first laid down some weed control fabric that we had stored inside a a locker in #50.
While this was going on, we had a couple of guys finishing up the handrail on the M1 simulator and staining it.
We also stained the 2 steps that we use to get our visitors up into the Ping Pong coach.
Still waiting on the control stand for the Turntable, but on Monday 5/16/11, I understand we will be having a visit from some folks from LIPA and maybe the Town of O.B. to see how to get us new power to the sight. We went over our needs for now and the future and sent in our proposal.
The old power pole behind the turntable is infested with carpenter ants AND we do need a new pole installed on the other side of the turntable in order to apply the guy wires to hold the electrical box on top of the turntable steady, so it doesn't move.
We also have a few minor tweaks to the Worlds Fair cab, caboose #50 & #12.
Manpower as always determines our actions.

As for todays Memorabilia sale at the historic Oyster Bay Train Station,
we had a full crew there all day and sold quite a bit of everything and made a lot of money while offering a fantastic deal on our stuff.
Everyone left happy enough that we plan on doing this again during our railroad days in August.
Lauren Godoy, Leon Daitz, Wayne Beers,  Gerard Jewel, Steve Torborg, Doug Kasner, John Specce, Ben Jankowski, Elliot Courtney, Mark Bridges, Rob Brusca, Bill Bell & I held down the fort at the station while Harvey kept the yard huming and Alex (wo)manned the visitors center.
Gary

Spring fever

Today we accomplished quite a bit at the yard, but during the last week and going into next week, we will really have hit the big time!
First off, last Thursday we received a visit from Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto. Mr Venditto has long been an avid supporter of the OBRM and his visit was well received. On HIS watch, we worked with the Town of Oyster Bay (TOB) to establish the museum and expand our endeavors as well as our standing in the Oyster Bay community.
The Supervisor also wanted to let us know that the TOB will be entering into a 10 year deal with OBRM to continue our efforts and triumphs. This is GREAT NEWS!!
This coming Monday, Senator Charles Schumer will be hosting a press conference at the historic Oyster Bay Station.
At the conference, the Senator will announce his intention to petition the National Park Service to initiate a source survey to determine the station's eligibility for designation as an affiliated area of Sagamore Hill. This could result in significant technical and financial assistance from NPS for the station's restoration and rehabilitation. The senator will provide more details at the conference.
This can ONLY be of value to us and the community. Imagine, if this goes through, there will be access to funding sources and technical assistance from the Nation Parks Service. Not something that can be taken lightly!
Keep your fingers crossed on this one. We have been helped by Senator Schumer in the past and I feel that he is the real deal. A good man with a passion for his people-all of us in NY.

TODAY-we embarked on a beautification program at the yard.
ALL of the staircases at the displays have been stained and sealed. We also took down one of the vinyl fence pieces and built a planter out of old turntable ties. Dodds & Eder provided the topsoil and flats of plants which were planted and watered. It does kind of make the place a bit more "pretty".
We also did a bit more work on the staircase to the M1 Simulator. And speaking of simulator, last week we found that there was some computer equipment still installed in the simulator. Today we opened up every cabinet and installed an electric line and started testing everything and came up with the conclusion that we only seem to be missing the programming for the simulator and all of the external equipment/wiring that the LIRR used on the outside of this unit.
This means that if we can get a program into a laptop, then we can have the simulation portion working.
Still a work in progress:
Also, We ran the exterior electrical conduit with the connectors and clamps under the turntable and now the wiring is totally encased until it comes to the area where the control stand will be. When that is installed, we will, of course, enclose all of the wires there too.
We picked up a new intern from Barry Technical School. Nick joined us and we think he'll fit right in.
James is working with him to finish up the roof corners. The second corner is done and hey should have the third one done next Saturday.
While all of this went on we also took a paint roller to the back of the worlds fair cab. We had a sign hung there that was finally removed and we had to scrape off the residue of the double sided tape. We wound up peeling a bit of the grey paint off and decided to re paint those portions in preparation for the final grey coat.


We have always strived to be recognized and seen, so we approached the owners of Duke Supply corp, who have been supporters since we started and inquired if the scrub trees on the side of their building could be removed. They told us if we want them gone, they're gone!
They were removed today and it opened the sight lines dramatically. Nothing is hidden now and we plan on doing some small repairs to their building and then a new paint job will be added to enhance both Dukes appearance and ours.

More to come next week and we hope that you come on up to spend some time at our Railroadiana  Sale at the historic Oyster Bay Train Station on Sunday May 15th. We'll have lots of things for sale that day. It should be a fun time and yes!, the museum and display yard will be open for viewing.
Gary

Big railroad themed memorabilia sale

All:
At the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum on Sunday May 15th:
We will be hosting a huge "enginehouse sale" (railroads don't have garages!) at the historic Oyster Bay train Station from 10am-4pm.
We will have all kinds of videos, books, magazines and many scales of model train equipment as well as many other items or sale.
If you are wanting any of these things, please feel free to join us.
Hope to see you there.
Gary

like the energizer bunny, we keep on going......

Because we lost a days work to rain last week, we really needed to get moving yesterday.
We began by cleaning out the M1 simulator and fabricating a new staircase for visitors to enter.
Doug, Rich & Wayne began the job by cutting down a steel staircase that we had lying around and using the bottom 3 steps to go up to the back decks level.

They also started to open up cabinets and go over the actual controls to find out if there was still anything left from the simulation program or equipment. They found that there were still many parts remaining but that the actual M1 parts were never hooked up for any operation. After all, this was not an original LIRR engine that was cut down-there is absolutely nothing in it!
We did get a signal on the simulators screen, so we know that it still works and can process info.
The future will tell us what we can do with this stuff.



We also found out that this Thursday, we will be hosting a photo op & tour for the Oyster Bay supervisor John Venditto and members of the town board. They have been extremely supportive of our endeavors and wanted to see how we have been moving forward.
We started getting ready by staining the deck of the turntables motor frame and the staircase at the 25 ton switch engine #398.
John  took care of this task while Mark, Gerard and Ronnie, took care of staining the staircase
These guys are still learning the ropes but do a very good job and really get excited about what we all are trying to do. I am sure that OBRM's future will be in good hands when they get older-assuming that girls don't interfere!!




As is the usual case, we traded off jobs, so Rich & Wayne ALSO painted the crossing shanty that was only in primer. They completed the 2 coats in 3 hours including the white trim. We matched the paint to our #12 caboose interior color-Terra Cotta red from Benjamin Moore. It turns out the "NEW" color is a bit lighter and a touch more towards the yellow end of the spectrum than the "OLD" color in the samples. But it works for us.


I took the forklift and moved the interlocking assembly away from the turntable and put it next to the parts trailer to open up the area around the turntable.


As we closed the display grounds for the day, we finished up staining the handrails and stair treads on the
staircase to the dinky #398 and got out of Oyster Bay at 5pm. Its nice to be leaving when the sun is still out.

I have to acknowledge a few people that are very important to us at OBRM, and say thank you.
DC Crane- Bob Hotine has been a huge help to us as has Bob Izzo and Lou D'Arpa with their heavy machinery.
Steve & Doug at Fifth Industrial corp who do our rigging, hoisting and movement of equipment when needed. Also, Baldwin Tool Rental who have been working with me since I moved into town. They offered us a tremendous opportunity to receive from them a  huge discount on the sale of a used highway air compressor. This unit will allow us to utilize all of our air tools, so we can needlescale, cut, grind, drill and hammer everything we have to work on.

Don't forget to vote for us as the best Oyster Bay attraction.
Go to www.visitoysterbay.com

On tap next week :
Applying the  finish coat of grey paint on the Worlds fair cab
Installing the piping for the wiring that was run under the turntable
Begin painting the turntables arch silver
Begin the teardown of the armstrong machine
Continued staining of the exhibit staircases
Gary

and the winner is........

Hi all,
it looks like the Oyster Bay railroad Museum is on an unofficial poll to be voted as the best attraction in Oyster Bay.
I ask all of my readers and their friends to vote for us as the best.
Right now, we are #3 with Sagamore Hill #1 and the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary as #2
Please vote for us
here is the link
http://www.visitoysterbay.com/
Get everyone you know to vote.
There is NO prize, just bragging rights and we have a lot to brag about!!!!!
Gary

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day....

I was taught by my mom to say that and maybe, just maybe, it might.

So what the heck did I have to lose??
That was my mantra all of Friday night as I was attending the LIST chapter of the NRHS meeting and when I woke up before looking out the window Saturday at 6:30am.
Thankfully, mom was right and the rain held out longer than I had hoped.

At 8am I arrived to the yard to meet Rich and I unloaded a new tool for us to use. It was a simple "little red wagon" that can hold 1400 lbs and had pneumatic tires to negotiate the uneven ground.
Everyone has been saying that there had to be a better way to move stuff around and I found this in the Northern Tool catalog that I had just received. If this works out, I will order another one to modify into a welding cart for our crew as the current one has a set of small hard tires that swivel in the front and a pair of larger solid tires that are stationary in the rear and don't move as well on the ground. A real pain in the butt to most of us as it takes 2 volunteers to move around the welder.
Anyway,
Doug showed up a bit later after Rich built the wagon and I was getting the forklift, so we proceeded to move the last 15 foot turntable ties away from the west fence area and stack them near the other ties in front of #35's boiler, so we can easily load them into awaiting vehicles.
I put them up for sale on Craigslist and had quite a few responses, but only 1 person was able to show up before we opened the site to visitors at noon.
The rest were scheduled to arrive at 4pm when we closed the site, but due to the rainstorm, I had to re-schedule them for next Saturday.
Whatever we collect goes to the restoration budget that I have for the year.

When Steve & Wayne showed up, we moved onto rounding up the scrap metal that we have accumulated over the years in order to dump them into a scrap metal dumpster provided by 2 Brothers scrap of Farmingdale. We have dealt with them in the past and they take the dumpster back, empty and weigh it then send us a check for the scrap. They are very reputable and that’s why we use them.





As we were moving metal, John showed up and we put him to work painting the remaining turntable handrail.

With the impending rainstorm approaching, I told him that we would be closing shop around 3pm and he takes the LIRR in & out, so he didn’t quite finish up before leaving to catch a 2:20 train home and Rich added the last drops of paint in plenty of time before the storm hit. It was flat black enamel and dried quickly. Just an FYI- the handrails and arch were a natural metal color, but were rusting, so I made an executive decision to paint them for greater longevity and to give a balance of colors to the entire turntable. The arch will be painted silver to stand out.
The only thing left was to seal up the 2 roof vents on the M1 simulator. When this unit was in use at the LIRR for training purposes, it was indoors and had air conditioning pumped into one vent and used the other one for exhausting the air out.
Since the unit is now outdoors, we had to remove the vents (4 screws each) and pop rivet aluminum plates over them and re-install them.
While I was on the roof waiting to get the vents back, I took a few shots over the yard and here they are.



Next week we will add the electrical conduits under the ties leading to the turntables control stand and motor then send the wiring through. Also we plan on adding the remaining molding around caboose #12’s windows and doors. I would also like to add a steel plate on the floor of the crossing shanty where the new pot bellied stove will sit as well as give it a final paint coat.
If time and hands permit, I also plan on getting the final coat of paint onto the World’s Fair cab.

In the last post, I wrote about last Mondays book reading by Heather Worthington, author of the children’s book “Miles of Smiles” the story of Roxey the LIRR dog and I had just uploaded some more shots from her last book signing at OBRM, so here are a few more shots of MY ROXEY.
Since I write this BLOG, I think I have a right to show her off.

My Roxey is the one one the right

I wonder if the LIRR Roxey actually sat in this car too!
MY ROXEY and my nephew Daniel

I bet that the LIRR Roxey NEVER sat in an N22a caboose like MY ROXEY!!
Until next posting, as the singer Pink says-
Raise your glass
Gary

Stop the Presses!!

I always wanted to say that!!
In Todays (4/14/11) Newsday on page A28, Bill Bleier wrote an aritcle about the donation and arrival of our M1 simulator.
A nice little piece that keeps us in the public eye. Bill has been a long time member of the Newsday team and has covered our museums growth since the old Mitchel Field days.
As someone once said-"any publicity is good publicity!"
I say "if it's free (publicity), it''s for me!"
Gary

Whats Going on!

Today started out like any other Saturday would. Except, today is Tuesday and this is no ordinary day.

After putting in a full and successful Saturday at the display yard installing the turntables overhead arch assembly, I took Sunday off. Monday I was back up in Oyster Bay for our OBRM book signing with Heather Worthington, who is the author of the children’s book: Miles of Smiles-the story of Roxey the LIRR dog.
I had worked a full day and went home to pick up my dog Roxey for the night out in Oyster Bay where she made many new friends as Heather read her book, talked about how the book & story went together and then signed copies for most in attendance. I myself bought 2 books.
OBRM friend David Morrison was on hand to speak as well and Heather brought her story board that fascinated me on the historical aspect of her book. I just love photos and history!


After a short ride home and a (an ok nights) good night’s sleep, I was awake before the 6:30 alarm went off.
I arrived at the yard around 7:45 and was waiting for the crane when a call from one of our volunteers, Mike Efthymiou, came in. Mike works for the LIRR and was on site when our rigger showed up to pick up the M1 simulator that the LIRR was donating to our museum. Back in the early 1970’s, the LIRR was working to upgrade the electric passenger fleet after almost 50 years of continuous service and were busy introducing a new modern fleet called M1’s. These electric engines were clean, sleek, and fast and had heat and air conditioning. Everybody loved them. This simulator was used by the LIRR to train their engineers.
Now that he LIRR has no more M1’s on their roster, this simulator and another (diesel) simulator were available for donation to us. Since we have all steam & diesel equipment on site, we felt that this electric unit would fill out our roster and the diesel went to the Railroad Museum of L.I. (RMLI) out in Riverhead.

The simulator showed up around 10am and we were still waiting for the crane when the crew informed me that a forklift would be used instead.

When the other crew arrived, the simulator was readied for removal and the trailer that was holding it was backed into place for the lift. A little while later the unit was on the forklift and the trailer was pulled away.


The crew brought the unit onto our yard and began placing it at the front end of the property right across from our World’s Fair diesel cab.

As they were ready to straighten it out and set it down, I realized that we should leave the unit on a slight angle so it looks like the M1 simulator and the Diesel cab were looking at each other.

We finished up around 11:30 and I took one last photo of the finished product and went home in order to go to work.



Steve & Doug at Fifth Industrial Corp of Bohemia coordinated with me and the LIRR for this arrival and I can’t thank them enough for making this easy. The men on the rigging crew also have to be thanked for taking very good care of our new acquisition.


Gary

Up, up and awy.....

Wow! That would make a great title for a 60s song, but…….NAHHHH

It could be the title to yesterday’s volunteer session, though.

With help donated by OBRM friend Bob Hotine of DC Crane, the volunteers were able to raise the arch over the turntable yesterday.
Bob brought his excavator and we started the day REAL early.
I myself was awake before the crack of dawn-no Gilligans Island jokes folks. I was a diehard Maryann fan.
I was out of my house by 6:15am in order to get everyone donuts and coffee.

Bob brought one of his crewmen, Chris with him at 8am, while we were just finishing the installation of the collector box on top of the arch.
After looking at the arch again, Bob & I rigged the hoist chain to the arch’s legs and began the lift. Chris did the pick quickly and smoothly and deftly began his 180 degree turn. He then proceeded to the turntables pit wall where he was able to place his unit onto the wall and over onto the bridge. Bob & I discussed using this strategy, having used a similar one to place the bridges ties into place a few weeks ago. With our forklift.
While bringing the unit up onto the bridge we encountered our first of (thankfully) few incidents.
From the turntable power poles there was strung a 230 volt electrical cable which had to be moved up or cut.
Thankfully, the lines were dead, so someone (me) had to climb up the ladder to the top of the arch and cut the wires.
A few minutes later we were back in business and Chris lowered the arch into position. After a few minutes of wiggling the units’ legs into alignment, we drilled a few holes in order to set the lag bolts to hold it onto the bridge ties. We also temporarily drilled out the outriggers legs in order to get them installed. Later we would actually drill through the tie and use a long galvanized lag bolt to clamp the legs permanently.
I was hoping to get Bob & Chris in & out by 9am and kept them about 15 minutes over their time.
Sorry Bob!!!!

After the installation, we still had to accomplish the other goals of the day. We did manage to complete…..
1-repairs to the forklift-a new condenser solved our electrical problem
2-moving of all old ties from the area near the south-west pit wall to an area nearer the boiler of #35
3-clearing out every pallet of parts and all metals/scrap/debris from the south-west side of the pit wall
4-inspection of the pit wall where the track-lead onto the turntable is
5-drill out all 16 holes to set all, of the lag bolts onto the turntables legs and drill 3 holes through the 15 foot ties in order to bolt the legs outriggers in place. Previously, they were only lag bolted through the metal grating into the tops of the ties.

In addition to all of these goals, we still had to get the installation of the roof patches on our Ping Pong coach completed. Since our Barry Tech intern, James, was alone again for the 2nd week, he could not complete his task.
I am still very grateful for his determination to get the job done and quite proud of him and his skills.
We at the OBRM love working hand in hand with Barry Tech & BOCES. It’s a great partnership for both of us.

This was a long day, but one I was pleased with as all of my volunteers were able to contribute so much to the tasks at hand.
Rich Brody, Leon Daitz, Wayne Beers, Doug Kasner, George Mutari, Alan Biershank, Elliot Courtney, Gerard Jewel all broke their backs for the cause. Without these guys, we would not be able to get things done and I thank every one of them and all of my volunteers for their time and sacrifice.
I would just LOVE to wake up at 9am on any given Saturday and not have to think about doing volunteer work, but I still enjoy the results of our labor.

At days’ end, we had NOTHING surrounding the turntables’ pit wall for the first time since we began the OBRM at the yard.

Next week we will finish touch up of the railings, moving some more items and get ready to scrap a lot of excess metal off the site. We will also begin the installation of the final coat of paint onto the crossing shanty AND the World’s Fair cab. I would also like to apply a coat of wax to the new M1 simulator.
Here are the pictures from yesterday session.
Gary

One step closer......

A favorite song of mine from the Doobie Brothers and also, a truth from our volunteers.
Another great large group descended on Oyster Bay yesterday.
Unfortunately Photobucket is not uploading the correct size photos onto this blog so.........
NO PHOTOS unless you go to photobucket.
See  my albums at thewineguy35.

Rich Brody, Doug Kasner, Steve Torborg, Wayne Beers, Mike Efthymiou, Leon Daitz, Ronnie Schnepf, Evan Schnepf, George Mutari, Gerard Jewel, Gary Farkash and our intern from Barry Technical School-James, kicked ass!
While James was busy welding in the patches he created for the corner of the Ping Pong coach,
The rest of us busied ourselves with  the final fitting of the turntables elecrical collector onto the arch assembly. We also wired it up and re-attach the outriggers on the straight side using new hardware.

The final J-bolts were being installed to hold the turntable deck onto the bridge girders.
Since these bolts are still being made we discussed buying a dozen more to make sure that EVERY 15 foot bridge tie was securely fastened to the deck. We will place these during future wrok sessions.
The last handrail assembly was disassembled and a straight line was set on the top of the deck.
The bottom handrail stantion bases were laid out and the holes drilled for the lag bolts to hold them in place.
After bolting them all in, we added the lower rail, vertical risers and finally the top rail.
When the bolts were all snugged up, we were finished with the handrails-As promised last week.

After lunch, we decided to move ahead with the placing of the two ties on the turntables pit wall.
The east side of the concrete wall had, in the past, a wooden timber wedged into place as a sort of bumping block, 180 degrees from the lead track onto the table. We ordered 2 9 foot ties and cut them to fit tightly in place and when completed, it look real good. So good in fact, that we decided to remove the timber on the lead onto the bridge (180 degrees across from the east side bumping block).
Things got real ugly, real fast as we first had to cut off 4 very, very long cross bolts that were drilled horizontally throught the timber which held it to a previously attached rail tie. This tie was rotted so badly that it was sawdust. We used the "hot wrench" (torch) to cut the bolts, then used  a large hammer to knock them through the timber and finally pulled all 4 free of the timber.

This timber must have been there at least 50+ years, maybe even since the pitwall was rebuilt in 1904 , and was in crappy condition.
It fought us tooth and nail, but of course we prevailed in removing it, although we had to call out the big guns and break out the chainsaw. You could still smell fresh creosote as we cut through it.
When the day was done, it was gone.
Not to be outdone, we also began moving all of the used ties that we had piled on the west side of the pit. Unfortunately, our trusty forklift sputtered to a dead stop and we could not get it started. SO, I hiked down to order ignition parts from our local outo parts gurus at OBAR auto parts. The gas feed was fine but we had not spark.
They had a couple of parts in stock but had to order a condesor for under the cap. Oh well, maybe it will start next week!

To condense our days accomplishments:
2nd handrail bolted in place.
deck bolted down to bridge
turntable arch  re-assembled, wired and ready to be installed next weekend
Ping Pongs 1st rotted corner almost completely replaced
Pit wall bumping block installed
lead track timber removed
old tie movement begun

We plan on putting our old ties up for sale on Craigslist. First come first served!
Sorry about the photos, but take a look at them online, you won't be disappointed.
Gary

Will it go round in circles?

Maybe not today, but...............

I did my best to post my blog yesterday while everything was still fresh in my mind, but for some unexplained reason, during a short break so I could eat something, Blogger kicked me off, never to let me post again last night!!!!
So here it is a day late but still damned interesting-

With another great crew on hand, we managed to finish the installation of the turntable tie strapping. The ties  were drilled out for lag bolts then the bolts were driven home by a gas powered socket wrench. While this was being completed, the guys began the drilling to install the "j-clamps". These clamps tie the large 15 foot timbers to the bridge girders, effectively making the deck and the bridge 1 complete unit.
We had 20 to install and I believe that we got 18 of them installed yesterday. If we can have dry weather all week, we should be able to install the last 2 next Saturday as there was a pool of water on the west side of the pit that kept us away.
When the straps were installed, we moved onto the handrail installation. Last week we loosened all of the set screws on the vertical stantions in order to move them around to match the new tie spacing. The crew ran a string line to keep the bases perfectly aligned then drilled out the 4 mounting holes per base and installed them using galvanized lag bolts. The stantions installed, we turned our attention to the lower rail and installed the 3 pieces. Since the rail broke apart at the couplings, we decided to cut the threaded couplings off and order new screw down couplings for installation next week. After the lower rail went in using parts from the 2nd railing for temporary positioning, we added the vertical piping and finally, the upper railing.

While this was being wrapped up, a few of us began the installation of the split ring electrical box on top of the turntables overhead arch assembly.
First on was a simple plate that we temporarily attached with 4 bolts. We will need to replace all temporary bolts with galvanized parts to withstand the weather. Then the electrical conduit was attached with 2 bolts as we will need to ream out a couple of drilled holes. we then studied the actual electrical collector which sits atop the entire unit.
At the bottom there is a 2 inch threaded nipple which sits inside the previously installed electrical conduit and is set in place with set screws so it cannot move.this nipple is threaded through a flat steel plate which is where all of the internal parts are bolted to so it can turn freely inside. then inside this box is a 4 piece rotor assembly that sends the electric to the control stand ON the turnmtable.
The rotor has a set of contacts that rub against the ring. These contacts are where the electric supply from LIPA attaches with bolts. From 2 color photos ( Bill Rugen photgrapher) which were given to me by our friend Art Huneke, we can clearly see that the actual box and plate do not move as the plate is attached by clamps to 2 guide wires which are strung from the 2 light poles on opposite sides of the turntable. The pole on the East side is the one in the photos, however, the pole on the West side is not positioned properly as the original one must have been removed when the turntable was taken out of service.
We will need to have a pole installed which is EXACTLY 180 degress to the original pole so we can re- attach the 2 guide wires and have the 115volt feeds (and ground) brought back to the turntable collector box. These wires all show very clearly in the photos.
Thanks to Doug Kasner for figuring out the internal wiring of the box!!!!

As if this were not enough, our 2 interns from Barry Technical schools welding department,  James & Joseph, busied themselves with the replacement of the Ping Pongs roof sheet patches. The first of the 4 corners will be completed next week and they will begin the second corner then.

All in all, a GREAT day weather, people and work wise!
Sometimes I fail to mention everyone who has been instrumental on these projects, so here goes-
Me, Mike Efthymiou, Steven Torborg, Wayne Beers (who does a phenominal job of welding), Doug Kasner, Leon Daitz, Rich Brody, George Mutari George Ferraro, Steve Rothaug, Alan Biershank, Mark Godoy, John Specce, Elliot Courtney, John Grocki, Gerard Jewels, Mark Licari (all from the LIST chapter NRHS), Evan & Ronnie Schnepf, Rick Imperato, Michael Okunowitch, Bill Krushinski Harvey Sadowsky, Paul Floroff and many others who my mind is just forgettig. Please do not be pissed off at me, my brain farts are getting closer and closer these days.
Here are some shots from the session. I hope you enjoy them




Gary