Home and Garden Show

The crew pulled the Diamond and Caldor No. 4 out of the engine house for the second annual Fall Home and Harvest Show at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds. This was our first attempt at displaying the Shay geared locomotive during an event other than the county fair in June.

From my vantage point in the kitchen, located at the north end of the engine house, we received 50 to 75 visitors between 10 a.m. and early afternoon. As with the fair, vice president Keith Berry showed our rolling stock to two potential volunteers.

In the upper photograph, Sam Thompson doesn't let a little sunshine get in the way of his most important task. Since early spring, Sam has operated the valve shaping machine on the number two cylinder. He's almost ready to move to the number three.

Board member Garrett Augustus (standing to left) discusses the locomotive with a visitor and his wife. I took the right hand photograph last week just after the foll moon.

I took advantage of the nine volunteers present this morning and cooked lunch for the crew. In honor of our locomotive's 100th year, I selected dining car recipes from two railroad cookbooks.

The old fashion navy bean soup is composite recipe from the Denver and Rio Grand Western Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. The cole slaw came from the Missouri Pacific Lines. The toasted hot Mexican sandwich was a favorite in the Santa Fe.

The recipes are posted to my personal blog at 'Round the Chuckbox.