September 2008 President’s Report

By Ira Pollack

Hope all is well with you this month. We are nearing the end of summer, but I will tell you we have had a fairly good season this year.

As usual a lot of different things and events have gone on both in the yard and in the station. We have realized several good happenings at the DRM over this last month, and I am hoping you were able to attend. If not, I will tell you that the Museum celebrated the restoration of the RPO car at our annual Danbury Railroad Day and Member’s Picnic. There were many dignitaries, including representatives of the U.S. Postal Service and historians, who attended this gala event. Of special note was a gentleman who actually worked in our car! David Wagner of Queens, NY spoke highly of our restoration and relived many of his experiences while employed by the Postal Service. A commemorative cancellation was issued by the Postal Service that day, and was highly sought after by our guests. The picnic afterward lived up to its usual standards with much food and festivities including our annual “Run the Locomotive” portion of the day. This year we used the RS1 for our motive power.

In other good news, work is continuing rapidly on the CN 0660 party car. Art Slothower has been painting the sides of the car in the original paint scheme, meticulously including the tedious pin striping which separates the different colors. We have also decided to reletter the car in its proper CN lettering. I am very excited by seeing this project move along, and somewhat look forward to doing the lettering to finish this unique piece for the Museum. Art has done extensive research for the paint scheme, and has even provided the lettering fonts and stencils for the project. Once finished, the DRM will have yet one more showpiece to exhibit and actually use for our varied events.

The Museum still has many projects that must be finished before the seasons really change for the worse. We are in process of rebuilding the fan assembly for the SW8. Welding new brackets for the pedestal base for the fan is in the works now, and is almost done. What remains then is reassembly of the other components and thorough testing of the unit. I was hoping also to build a shed to shelter some of our yard equipment, such as our inflatable, the barbeque grills, lawn mower, snowblower, and such. To date we basically have the materials, but need volunteers and time to do this. I was also looking at rebuilding one of the flat cars into an open-air riding tour car for our Rail-yard Local during the summer months, but once again, have the material, but no volunteers or time to do it. There is never a shortage of projects to do at the DRM!

I will mention in closing this report that we have two important events coming up. First our annual Pumpkin Patch event will be here before you know it. This has proven to be successful for the Museum, with many guests attending. This year we will be going back to the original spot for the pumpkins, at the end of Track 42 on the lawn area. This is more of a destination point for the Railyard Local since guests will actually be going somewhere to access the pumpkin patch. This was made possible by all the trackwork that was done this past spring.

Possibly more important though, is our Fan Trip up to Kent, CT on November 1st. I have been asked over the years as to when the Museum will do this kind of excursion again, and guess what, here it is!

Ticket sales have been slow at best with only 52 tickets sold to date. We need to fill a train with 300 people if this event is to happen at all. Please make your reservations now to let us know if we can sell this event, cancel it, or if we will need to attach more cars on to the consist. The tickets are $50 a person, but please make your reservations before Sept 29th so I will know what to do with the event, and inform Metro-North.

Finally I will tell you again, as I always do, there is a lot going on at the Museum, and your help is always appreciated in whatever form you can give to it. I also always look forward to meeting you and talking about your interests and the Museum’s future. See you next month.