October 19th, 2013 Saturday Public Run Day Report

The day started out nice, weather was mild with a light breeze. The club meeting was held under the trees at 10:30 after it adjourned everyone went to ready their trains.

After a little motivational speech, the trains were ready to run early this time. First out was Howie with Alex as his conductor on his UP1205 SW1500 along with a nice assortment of cars.  Next out was Jim with his Prairie the C&P #2 and a long line of cars and Charlie as his conductor. Following that Tim brought out the Jillie Belle a beautiful Forney and a few riding cars. Always a crowd pleaser. Next out was the club's Santa Fe F7 driven by Dale with Matthew as his conductor. The F7 pulled 4 cars for half the run day before it showed signs of overheating so it was retired for the rest of the run day. We will look into that and see what is going on so it will be ready for the next run day. Next out was Kelly and Jeff on their Santa Fe GP pulling 5 cars. We had a guest engineer, Gene, from the Chula Vista Live Steamers club pay us a visit and he was delighting the folks waiting in line as he drove his Galloping Goose around the tracks. A pretty neat little locomotive.

The figure 8 was closed again for this run, but will be open for the following run day on the 3rd as we complete the electrification and signalling for the figure 8 switch. The wires are all pulled and boxes installed, now we have to wire it all up.

Robert manned the lemonade stand and acted as dispatcher while Joanne and Lynn ran the depot store. Phil and Ray acted as the station agents loading and unloading the trains. There were 4 birthday parties and a wedding that day and the park was loaded. We pulled 862 passengers during the 3 hour period. 

Daisy prepared lunch and as always it was great. We started with a homemade lemon loaf during the meeting, nice and tart. For lunch we had BBQ pork ribs, giant baked potatoes with chili and cheese and onions and steamed baby carrots. More lemon loaf for desert along with fresh lemonade and Hawaiian Punch. Thanks Daisy for another great meal.

We ended our run day at about 3:30 and the flag was struck by Phil and Ray. Come join us again on Sunday, November 3rd at 11:00am for our next public run day. There is usually someone there on all weekends so if you are in the area, please feel free to stop by and lend a hand or just say hi. All visiting live steamers are always welcome.