Greetings!

 

This is your Maintenance of “Way Team update for September 29, 2013. Well, it’s sort of an update. I’ve been out of town for the past few days so was unable to participate in the MOW fun this week. But, thanks to Heather Kearns and Frank Werry, I’ve been updated so, you’ll be updated, too. So, let’s all update each other ASAP!

 

Tuesday and Thursday, the crews worked both in the Shops and out on the line. Unfortunately, I don’t have many details but, many thanks to all who showed up to keep the MOW Team running.

 

Saturday, the crew met at the Shops and, I’m told, enjoyed a fresh pink box of doughnuts before heading out on the line. There were two crews, one that worked out in our Materials Yard moving our big pile of rock and all the wayward ties, the other went out on the line to correct some defects reported by our trusty track inspectors. Frank lead a crew consisting Heather, DJ Chapman, and Clem Meier headed out to address a broken bolt defect the that Ed Moriarty found out on his most recent inspection. Fresh bolts were installed in the joint. The rail had contracted laterally over an inch so Frank and crew had to loosen the joints on the other end of each stick of rail and use lots of friendly persuasion to line up the bolt holes. Also, Frank and crew worked on correcting several rail-end mismatches that were identified near the Embassy Suites Hotel at M.P. 0.35. They were repaired by digging up the asphalt and tightening the bolts. The team dug out the bolts up in the morning and soaked them with Kroil hoping to unfreeze them. Amazingly when the crew returned a while later, they were able to turn all eight bolts and tighten both joints sufficiently to repair the defect. A great job done by a fantastic crew! Good work, everybody!

 

Crew Two consisted of Steve Mathias, Mike Florentine, John Rexroth, Harry Voss, Steve Nemeth, Alan Hardy, and Chris Carlson. Alan spent the day behind the controls of the loader moving the ballast pile over to the west side of the building. Steve ran the dump truck that moved and dumped the rock to its new location. Chris ran the MOW tractor to clean up and straighten the ballast pile once dumped. Mike F. on Big Green, Harry on the backhoe, John, and Steve M. doing the heaving lifting, arranged and moved ties from the big pile over to the west of the building. This was very heavy work the MOW Crew 2 were fantastic in all their efforts. Many thanks, everybody!

 

Tuesday, the crew will meet at the Shops in the afternoon and evening as usual. Thursday, call-time is 5 o’clock. I look forward to being back on Saturday at 8 o’clock a.m. in the Shops.

 

Sorry that there are no pictures this week. Heather did take several but this silly antiquated computer I’m forced to used won’t attach the pictures. We’ll make sure and get plenty next week, along with a proper update. Again, many thanks to all who came out this last week. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

 

All the best and we’ll see you out on the line,

 

Alan, Chris, and wayward Richard.