NNG: A sad day at the Utah State Railroad Museum (DRGW tunnel motor problems)

No, nothing is wrong with the 223. We actually did a row of rivets in record time. However, we have had some troubles lately.

Many of you are aware that SD40-T2 No. 5371, still in its Rio Grande colors and unpatched, resides at the museum. And despite a few of my previous posts, we have found that it still runs. However, the cab was broken into since this past Tuesday and the radio and a few unspecified appliances were stolen from inside.

The chain I applied (see October 23rd work session a few topics back) was removed by someone and the door forced open. We are working on finding a more permanent solution to keeping the door closed, although I doubt very much it will last long if we have a case of "professional" salvagers on our hands.

Besides the damage to the tunnel motor we have had almost every window broken on our wooden CA-1 caboose as well as our CA-3 caboose, all within the past month.

If you haven't been able to tell yet, we are getting desperate. So desperate, in fact, that while our rivet crew was hard at work the rest of the chapter went through the museum and collected every air hose, coupler knuckle, wrench and loose item from every piece of our equipment to prevent the theft of such items.

On a lighter side, in about two months we will be ready to rivet the top of the tender in place. Keep looking for future updates.