LIRR RS-3 1556 Feels The Love

1556 is now proudly wearing a coat of brown primer in preparation of her final coats of grey paint next week. After having all of the engine wire wheeled to remove chipping paint volunteers Anthony, Matt and Ed applied the primer on Wednesday. Saturday will see the lower portion of the locomotive painted black. Work should be completed by the museum's opening day, which is April 14th. Both the Baggage Car and RS-3 will be ready for another year of explaining the history of the Long Island Rail Road.

Lionel Girder Bridges, Steam Engine Doors and ALCos at RMLI Riverhead

LIRR 1556 Worked started today on the cosmetic restoration of LIRR ALCo RS-3 1556. The first step in this process was to wire wheel the entire locomotive free of all loose paint, rust and any defects found in the sides of the locomotive. 85% of all wire wheel work has been completed. The next step is to paint all exposed spots in primer to protect it until she is ready for paint. Wire wheel work will continue this weekend. Wednesday will be spent paitning the locomotive.

Lionel Visitor's Center Layout Our Tuesday crew continues to work on preparing the layout for this springs opening. Today John and Al COMPLETED there project of installing a smaller bridge in front of the Lionel Hell-gate Bridge in order to view it better. They did this by replacing a Lionel Lift Bridge with three girder pieces. They payed a lot of attention to detail repainting the new bridge to better blend into the layout. Work has also started to rewire many of the accessories throughout the layout so they will have a steadier power supply. They will also be getting new activation buttons as talked about in our last blog report. BEDT Engine 16 This week our volunteer carpenters have started to build the large frame that will fit into the back windows of Engine 16. They have also painted the finished doors in primer. Once in it's final coats of red it will go onto the Engine. Work will continue again next Tuesday. LIRR 7723 All prep work has been completed on our PRR Built Baggage Car with the entire car in brown primer. The car will now receive one more coat of paint on it's roof and trucks before we will apply two coats of Tuscan Red paint. This much needed paint is highly rewarding after seeing smooth sides to this car in a solid color, even if it is only primer.

Electrifying the Simulator

LIRR Baggage Car 7723 Work continues in this warm winter season at the Riverhead Site. Today 7723 got a coat of black paint on her roof after the completion of some sanding in rough spots. The undercarriage of the car also got grinded down before it received some black paint. This included the trucks, side steps and cabinets. Grinding followed by primer paint needs to be attacked on the ends of the cars and the South upper section. This work will be completed during the week. We are also in the process of having special Tuscan Red paint mixed using PRR paint samples, to ensure the car gets the correct color scheme. LIRR World's Fair Train This winter we are working to restore one of the spare trucks that belongs to our parts car in the World's Fair G-16 train set. Volunteers have been working hard to clean up and lubricate the truck to prepare it for an emergency in which we would need areplacement wheel set. Today they have prepared to reassemble the truck painting it black. Next they will work to add the brake lines. LIRR GP-38-2 Cab Simulator We have begun running power to the simulator so the computer system can be installed, allowing visitor's to actually operate a simulated passanger train. Volunteers worked today to install underground pipes that will connect the wires from the power in the visitor's center to the simulator. An H frame was also built and installed behind Caboose C-68. This is where the circuit breaker box will be installed. We will also now be able to plug in Caboose C-68 so the lights work when visitor's come to the museum.

Lionel Layout and Engine 16 Weekday Update

BEDT Engine 16 Work continued this Tuesday on the wooden doors and windows in Engine 16. Our volunteer carpenters are fitting the doors to the cab. They have also started to cut the wood that will be used to make the windows. Once painted, the doors will stay inside the engine. Lionel Visitor's Center Layout

Our Tuesday crew continues to make improvements and repairs for our April opening. Al and John work to install a girder bridge in place of a larger Lionel Lift Bridge. This will allow for better viewing of the Hell Gate bridge behind it.

Don H. works on installing the new activation switches that will be installed around the layout to replace the ones that came with the layout. These switches will be able to take more abuse then the old ones. They will also be relocated on the side wall of the layout.

Ken works to replace a burnt out Lionel switch

Greenport February Weekday Work Crew Update

Greenport RMLI extends HO layout to Riverhead

Greenport volunteer coordinator George Summers (l.) and Secretary Jim Werner (r.) disassemble the west end of the Greenport RMLI HO layout. A twenty-one feet long extension is being built to extend the operating area down to the BLISS Tower exhibit. The new track will take in the North Fork to Riverhead RMLI.

Don Fisher and Steve Sucic reconnect the tunnel signal that has been relocated to the south side of the Museum to make room for the expanded HO Layout.

Riverhead February Weekday Work Crew Update

BEDT-16 Cosmetic Restoration Continues Members of the volunteer carpenters group, The Shipwrights, have been meeting at the Riverhead RMLI site for the past three weeks to perform their magic on the wood interior, doors and windows of Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal steam locomotive 16. RMLI members had removed all the old, deteriorated wood frame work from inside the engine during the fall and early winter

New cedar door frames have been installed and new doors have been fabricated and test hung.

New Windows for 16 will be made next! Work progresses in the RMLI Library Throughout the winter, volunteers and interns continue to work on the artifacts and collections at the RMLI Library. So far all of our Riverhead railroad clothing has been inventoried, photographed and moved into a closet for storage. All of our books have been inventoried and sorted and those important to the RMLI mission have been shelved and are ready for reference. Photographs and blueprints have been viewed and sorted by subject and are ready for reference. (We do not allow artifacts, photographs, books or collection items to leave the library and office area but they may be accessed for research purposes by appointment.)

Currently we are working on newspaper articles. Here Krista and John, our interns, view, trim and categorize clippings and articles for archiving. This is a huge undertaking as we had many file cabinet draws full of newspaper!

RMLI member and past secretary, Ken Schaefer, sorts through RMLI Postboy newsletters going back to 1990 and Engine 39 Restoration Committee Newsletters going back to the late 1970’s. These important documents directly present the history of the Museums in Riverhead and Greenport.

Historic Lionel Layout Maintenance Continues The Tuesday work crew of six to eight volunteers working on the Historic Lionel Layout in the Freeman North Exhibit Hall continues to make strides in maintaining the train layout.

Lenny Jeorg has been busy replacing red and green incandescent signal bulbs with cool burning LEDs.

Mel Dunkerley is working to remove one of two Lionel “lift bridges” on the layout. This unit is being changed out to a “girder bridge” arrangement to improve the visual vista to the Lionel Hells Gate Bridge inland on the layout.

John Peck and Al Mannella identify the stud walls between the west end windows of the Freeman North Exhibit Hall. On the floor is an enclosed bulletin board going up to showcase the story of the Lionel Layout’s historic move from Chesterfield, MI to Riverhead, NY in 2009.