| Greetings! Arrived at the museum at 9:15 a.m. Although the area hit 100 plus degrees on Thursday of this week, the extreme hot weather brought in storms, and with it, much needed rain for our drought-hit area. Yes, some storms did cause damage and power outages. So some bad with the good! Other good news is that Rich Warner and Cory Bennett worked this week and managed to get LIRR coach # 2937 back in service for trains today in the 90 degree heat. Rich tells me that the put in a new oil cooler, which seemed to be the problem. Train crew with John DeGan as conductor and Todd Flannigan and Elmer Mannen in the cab of GE # 11, switched the LIRR 2937 into the consist. A check later in the afternoon, found the a/c working well. Train hosts for the day were Joe Kingsbury, Randall Downs and Bill Dauber. The two Steve's, Newland and Henrich's, were hard at work on Grasselli Tower. Newland working on windows and Henrichs painting the exterior. The signal system had not been turned on so I went over and borrowed Steve Newland's key and activated the system. I then went to Hoppe Hardware in town and had a duplicate key made for future use. Loretta Kosloske gave Tim Wills instruction on selling train tickets in the depot and Tim quickly got the hang of it. The air conditioned depot is a good place to spend the time on days like we have been having this summer. Pat DeGan was manning the gift shop in the depot and Judy Boyer hosted the Craft Caboose outside in GTW transfer caboose # 75072. The two regular trains to English Lake (11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.) were operated but the last train of the day was a special picnic train and departed at 3:30 p.m. with expected arrival back at the museum not scheduled until sometime after 6:00 p.m. The Eagle Scout group showed up and started renewed painting of Erie Lackawanna caboose #C345 in the West Annex of the Shop. They used the manlift which ended Steve Henrich's Grasselli painting for the day. Fred Boyer was grinding the remains of the studs for the classification light brackets on Kanawha # 2789. Eventually new longer studs (with threads yet!) will be welded onto the boiler so that the brackets can be attached. Fred then started removing the rusted bolts holding one of the illuminated number boards from the top of the boiler front so that the new cover door can be exactly fitted to size by Joe in his home shop. I joined Fred in his endeavor and we finally were able to get the board off. I mentioned to Fred that the bell for the front of the 2789 was in the Shop and we went and took a look at it. This bell doesn't swing but has a "clanger" that was operated automatically. We couldn't find the "clanger" in the Shop and John LaOrange mentioned that it then was probably in NKP baggage car 344. Fred and I managed to get one of the side baggage car doors open but we could not find the "clanger". Sliding the side door closed again was a project in itself! I told Mark Knebel that the baggage car door that Fred and I had managed to open, did not have a lock on it and Mark dug out a lock and I put it on the car. Unfortunately, I don't have a key to that lock so another trip to Hoppe's may be in order. I removed the plastic film from one of the previously removed windows in coach # 899 and cleaned the old peeling paint off of it and will get that window primed and then painted and have a piece of glass put into it. Left for home about 4:30 p.m. A long day! Enjoy the week everyone. Have a safe Fourth of July! Les | 
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