Rockhill Furnace Work Session: June 4-5, 2005

An FEBT Rockhill work session was held Saturday and Sunday, June 4-5, 2005. We had 21 volunteers on Saturday and 15 on Sunday.

Those taking part included Bob Harris, Rich Wickett, Chris Coleman, Stephen Jacobs, Wade Woodcock, Charlie Wootton, Jim Bacon, Jim Sucke, Dick Ullery, John Morgan, Barb Morgan, Bill Adams, David Dietz, Bob Goldby, Bob Reffner, Richard Shell, Richard Culp, Dennis Straub, Doug Linebaugh, Shawn Stauffer, Reggie Arford, Deane Mellander and Lee Rainey.

This is also the railroad's first operating weekend of the 2005 season. Several special tours stopped by our work areas to see what was underway. We were pleased to have a complete inspection of all of our work by Joe and Judy Kovalchick, owners of the EBT.

Machine Shop

The windows are cleaned and repaired, and glass is going in.

Glazing putty goes on and the wall and trim is primed.

The window crew, reinforced by new recruits, replaced every missing pane on the north side of the main shops building, performed various carpentry repairs, and began priming the wall preparatory to repainting. This work makes an enormous difference in the appearance of the shops. The crew included Chris Coleman, Barb Morgan, Bill Adams, David Dietz, Bob Goldby, Bob Reffner and Doug Linebaugh.

Hopper 802

Steve Jacobs works on sandblasting and priming one end of the hopper.

The A-end slopesheets are bolted in and both inside ends were cleaned and primed. Three patch gussets were welded in the corners (with one left to go) and some coupler work was done. The installed metal was primed black. The car is visibly going back together, and the project is about half done. This work was done by Rich Wickett, Steve Jacobs, Wade Woodcock, Richard Shell, and Shawn Stauffer.

Richard Shell and Rich Wickett work on securing the new slope sheets.

Richard installs yet more bolts. The lower section is now primed.

The opposite end has also been sandblasted and primed.

Flat Car 119

At the start of the session just a small number of deck boards were ready.

Charlie Wootton, Bob Harris and Deane Mellander work to plane boards for the deck.

Late in the session almost half the deck is planed.

Following the planing of the longitudinal sills to the correct thickness, reassembly began with the installation of the south end sill. About one-third of the decking was cut to the appropriate length and planed to thickness, using the planer recently rehabilitated by Charlie Wootton. It has now been fitted and is awaiting the nail crew. Work also continued on repairing the bench seats. This crew included Lee Rainey, Charlie Wootton, Deane Mellander, Bob Harris, and Reggie Arford.

Boiler House

Rotten wood from the north wall and roof accumulates in the gangway between the coal bin and the Foundry.

Jim Bacon, Jim Sucke, Dick Ullery and John Morgan continued work on this project. The repointing of the remaining brickwork was completed and the rest of the brick wall was given its finish coat of paint. Dismantling of the badly deteriorated walls of the Coal Bin was completed. Once the debris is removed, reconstruction will begin.

At last the east wall is about to come down, in one piece.

After a firm tug by a couple volunteers, the wall is down.

Cleanup begins on the fallen wall.

The east wall has been reduced and stored for removal next session. Also, the last section of the brickwork has been painted.

Brush Crew

On Saturday, a brush-cutting crew of Richard Culp and John Morgan uncovered four more hopper cars while clearing along the wye next to the area that was done last year.

Our next work session is Saturday and Sunday, June 25-26. See you there!

Lee Rainey,
Rockhill Restoration Coordinator

You can view other photos of this work session at Bill Adams' EBT Pictorial.

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