S aturday (9/23)

     Rick Williams was Dispatcher with Dan Lawrence and Dennis Falter as crew.

     Bob Krueger was Dispatcher for a night charter with Denis Falter and Paul Ritterhoff as crew.

     Sunday (9/24)

     Dan Lawrence was Dispatcher with Rick Williams and Dennis Falter as crew.

     Saturday (9/30)

     Cath La Costa (my wife) and I had a morning charter. I continued on as Dispatcher for the normal runs with John Diefenbach and Dennis Falter as crew.

     Bob Krueger was Dispatcher for a night charter with Carl Thistel and John Diefenbach as crew.

     Sunday (10/1)

     Bob Krueger was Dispatcher with Genthner, Mike Citro and Jim Roberston as crew.

Saturday (10/7)

     The track crew started early with the goal of replacing 75 ties on the main line. Bay the end of the day, 50 ties had been removed and the new ties placed under the rail. The number of ties replaced would have been much lower except for the loan of a backhoe and an operator who worked on a track gang.

     The backhoe was used to remove the old ties while the rest of the gang was either pulling spikes on the ties to be removed, digging out the ballast to allow the new ties to be inserted of sliding the new ties under the rail. The crew included Josh Lepman, Ed Amrhein, Justin Thillman, Gene Carson, Mark Dawson, Rick Obbink, Ben Bates and myself.

     Chris Howell was Dispatcher with Dan Lawrence and David Nvjokas as crew.

     Sunday (10/8)

     David Baynes was Dispatcher with Paul Ritterhoff, Carl Thistel and Andy Blumberg as crew.

     Saturday (10/14)

     This was the completion day for the first set of ties that were installed the previous Saturday. The ties were first tamped in place, then the rail was spiked on one side and then the gauge (the distance between the rails) was adjusted and the other side was spiked. Adjusting the gauge required either two track jacks to push the rail apart, or a chain hoist to pull them back toward each other. Tamping was done mostly with four air operated tampers while spiking was mostly done the old fashion way, with a spike maul. The crew included Josh Lepman, Ed Amrhein, Justin Thillman, Gene Carson, Carl Meson, Rick Obbink, Ben Bates and myself.

     David Crow was Dispatcher with as Mike Citro and Dennis Falter as crew.

     Sunday (10/15)

     John O'Neil was Dispatcher with Cath and John La Costa, Fred Schneider, Dennis Falter and Jim Robertson as crew.

     Saturday (10/21)

     While the crew on 4533 was busy, Justin and I started cleaning and oiling the air compressors on the PCC and the Witt. We then tried to find the cause of a sticking PCM controller on the Witt that had caused it to fail to move twice in the past two weeks. The sticking problem was isolated to an old packing cup. That was the good news. The bad news was that one of the fingers was cracked and the car was placed out of service until we can get a replacement made.

     Work on 4533 continues at a high level with the final coat of outside paint completed and detail stipping and lettering underway.

     Carl Merson was Dispatcher with Bob Cohen and Jim Robertson as crew.

     Sunday (10/22)

     I was Dispatcher with John Diefenbach and Justin Thillman as crew.

     Gene Carson continued to work on 4533 while Gary was up at 22nd street shop starting to machine the replacement finger for the Witt.