Run Day May 5th, 2013

A great run day! Sunday May 5th was a nice day at SCLS. We had slightly overcast weather with occasional sun that kept us nice and cool. No rain but very pleasant with a nice breeze.

We had 1058 riders during the 4 hours of operation from 11AM to 3PM. We had 5 trains running today. Kelly had his Santa Fe 1244 GP out pulling 6 cars, Howie had his SW1500 out and pulled quite a few cars as well. Mark was running his BNSF AC4400 pulling around 9 cars and the club's Santa Fe F7 was out today pulling 4 cars and using Tom's new engineer's car for the first time. It worked out very well and was initially driven by Charlie, then Dale and then Lonnie. Robert and Phil ran the station with Robert taking over conducting duties on Tom's train as people broke for lunch or had to leave. Robert was also training our new member Roberta the finer arts of conducting. She is a natural!

The club's SW1500 WC777 was back from the dead after replacing the battery, ignition switch and a broken fuse. It ran fine and pulled 5 of the new club cars. Nice to see this club locomotive back in action as it is a real workhorse. It looks like heck, but it is a hard worker and things aren't the same without the "Greenie" running around the SCLS tracks.

We had a little vandalism on the Crenshaw track during last week, but it was repaired on Saturday by Tom, Phil, Charlie and Howie. It took a few hours to get it back in operation but it is now better than it was before and was all ready to run for today. Thanks guys for the hard work!

The Crenshaw line was in full operation today with all trains making the run. We did have to close down the inner loop of the main line as there was a problem with extreme track wear on the outside rail near the front crossing. A project for next Saturday, replace that section of worn rail. Any helpers out there?

Conductor Duckies were the hot ticket at the club store. Phil went on a selling rampage and sold 40 of them today, all we had! Time to re-order!!! Rumor has it he scalped the last one for $500 as a collectors item! But that is just a rumor, but we did see him leave early and heard him say something about Vegas. ;-)

Joanne did a great job running the club store with her assistant Benjamin. Remember all profits from the store go directly into the club to pay for parts and track and other goodies to keep us going. Keep an eye out for our new Internet store coming soon.

As always Daisy outdid herself at Daisy's Bistro. The fare of the day was food from the Philippines. We had Pork adobo, little spring rolls and pancit noodles along with Daisy's special homemade flan for desert, mint lemonade, fruit punch and Horchata to drink (in honor of Cinco de Mayo). Everything was great. And on a special note, we also celebrated Daisy's birthday today with a nice birthday cake after the run.

We had 3 birthday party trains and the Twins group was back. Lots of fun!!!

Overall it was a great day with loads of activity and we thank all the folks that helped out, and our loyal riders for their contributions. See you all on Saturday the 18th of May. We will be celebrating Wyatt and Phil's birthday as well as having a potluck night run. So come on down, eat and play trains into the night. See you then!!!!