November 2006 President’s Report

By Ira Pollack

This month, as always, I’d like to thank you for your time volunteered at the Museum. We are now in the season of thankfulness and giving, but as you know, this is a year-round job for our volunteers. It’s truly an amazing total of hours devoted by our staff to keep our facility running on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. I really cannot express my gratitude enough to their dedication toward our Museum’s growth. It still gives me very proud feelings to see our Museum in operation during the week, on weekends, or during our events. Here are these people at work, and they, too, are proud of what we are and what we’ve done.

Every month I try to keep you informed of what is going on at the Museum. I always try to keep you updated with the various projects that are being worked on and hopefully completed. Many of the things we do are very time consuming and extensive, and therefore cannot be finished in a short amount of time. I want you to be aware of our continued progress with them. The sheathing on the north side of the New York Central wooden caboose has now been replaced completely, with new window frames installed. This is one of those extensive projects that has taken great dedication from the volunteers working on it. When it’s finished, it will be a showpiece for the Museum. The PRR RPO car, too, will be a showpiece when it is eventually finished. These projects show the level of commitment and perseverance that our membership has. No project is too big or out of our realm. We now have crews of volunteers working on the interior of the CN #660 passenger car. It is our intent to eventually use this car for events in the yard such as the Santa Train, or for birthday parties on the weekends. Once again there is that dedication from the volunteers. This is what keeps us growing and moving forward.

At this time I would also like you to know that I have appointed Justin Chapin as our Chief Mechanical Officer. Justin’s mechanical knowledge and time spent at the Museum will be an asset to this position. I am looking forward to working with him and his mechanical staff in the near future.

In closing I would like to sincerely thank you all for your outstanding dedication to our Museum’s well being and growth. Once again never forget who we are and what we can do when we work together as a team. I also wish you a pleasant Thanksgiving and look forward to seeing you this holiday season.