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