A Productive Week

The crew of the El Dorado Western Railway capped a productive week with a hearty meal yesterday. It began with the donation of 1,500 feet of rail to the railway Monday. The meal was a reward for an action-filled week.

Nine crewmen gathered at the engine house to continue work on two locomotives. The railway is currently in possession of three engines, as follows:

• Diamond & Caldor No. 4, 2-truck Shay (CN 1896), built in 1907
• Arnold Z, the Plymouth, switcher from Glenn Bell's West Side & Cherry Valley Railroad (possibly the No. 11 according to John Barnhill)
• Michigan-California Lumber Co. No. 6, a 0-4-0T Porter (CN 2044), built in 1899

A fourth, the Diamond & Caldor Tally Ho No. 10 railbus, is owned by the El Dorado County Historical Museum. EDWRF Vice-President Keith Berry announced Saturday that the El Dorado County Museum Commission approved funding to restore the railbus to its original Diamond & Caldor configuration.

The commission released the initial $1,000 to purchase metal to restore the steel cab and frame. Future funds will be available to rebuild the Waukesha engine and redesign a new brake system. (I mistakenly reported the engine as a Waukesha. See this post and this one.)

The Plymouth crew of Garrett, Ken and Scott continued work on Arnold. They were able to move both wheel sets to spot where we can load them on one of the pick up trucks. Garrett has working with a few Sacramento machine shops to turn the wheels. They closed the day chipping and priming one side of the locomotive's large steel frame.

Welder Dale continued building another set of saw horses. This set will stand 4 feet above ground level. We plan to use this set to access the high points on the No. 4.

Dale also built a second chop saw stand. Since the railway has a large stock of old boiler flues, we plan to build several saw horse sets for our supporters. If interested, please contact me at my email address (Steve -at- SeabeeCook.com). President Eric Stohl has not set a donation price yet.

Sam's "Rube Goldberg" valve shaper is nearing completion after 15 months of trail and error design and construction. Sam and Bill spent Saturday installing the pneumatic controls to the shaper. We expect a test run soon.

Housekeeping work also continued. Keith vacuumed about 10 pounds of bead material from the bead blaster. He then poured a fresh 50-pound bag into the machine. His next project is to clean the brake parts to the flat car.

I have more news, including the donation of 1,500-feet of high-grade rail to the foundation. I'll post more news through the week.