Presidents Report

By Jim Lundquist

Each month, we pay $137+ for two portable toilets on our train. These are the type found at construction sites - not good for the passengers, looks terrible on the train, and, a waste of money considering that there's a better way to provide on board sanitary facilities. I've been searching around for the best answer to address this need. The #1 choice — Microflour used on commuter trains - easy and safe and much nicer looking than the construction potties we are using now. However, a new system costs $7500+. Now that's out of the question. Then I find out that our long time friend Steve the Zman has a tank + an entire system available to us as a donation! Just one problem - it's in Baltimore and it has to be removed within two weeks. Just the kind of challenge we like!

A quick call to Dave DiGiorgio, a long time member currently working only part time at his day job. Yes, he can go to Baltimore but money is tight. Of course it is. That's been normal for the museum since day one. I bet that we can raise the money to sponsor him and the transportation costs of the system to San Diego. Here's the breakdown:

Air roundtrip - $354.50

One night hotel - $50

One day car rental - $50

Shipping $600 (estimate) to San Diego

Total - approximately $1000 - or about l/7th of the cost for one whole system and one extra tank which can be used with other parts. So - can we make our dollars stretch 7 times by sending Dave to Baltimore? I pledged the first $100 and got on the e-mail to the faithful. We quickly raised $700 thanks to donations by Ken Helm, Larry Rose, Scott Thompson, Randy Houk, Brian Sampson and Lew Wolfgang. This was enough to launch Dave but we still need a couple of hundred bucks to top off this project. If you can help cover this adventure, please send your contribution to PSRM, La Mesa Depot, 4695 Nebo Drive, La Mesa, CA 91941.

We would love not to have to dip into the general fund to finish this project so please help if you can with either your wallet, or your body at Campo. We will need some help installing this system soon.

On another front we raised some cash for the general fund recently when the Board voted to sell some surplus mine rail we acquired years ago. We were offered a fair price by the owner of the Descanso, Alpine and Pacific Railway in nearby Alpine. This is a two foot gauge railway that operates tiny but authentic mining locomotives and mine dump cars that are able to operate on the tiny 15 lb. rail. We are glad to see it put to good use in the neighborhood.

The site clean up that has been going on since the new management took over in January is progressing with hazardous waste getting removed regularly. Recently, we had 1200 gallons of used oil pumped from our drums and hauled away. The majority of this oil is left over from when CGRy, the commercial freight operator, was using our yard and shop for servicing their engines. We have also crushed two barrels of used locomotive oil filters down to more manageable size for disposal, some of which were from CGRy engines as well. We have also initiated the removal of many barrels of oil soaked dirt This material will have to be placed in special plastic lined boxes for removal by a licensed abatement contractor. Again, the majority of this contamination was left for us by CGRy. We have been involved in discussions with CGRy on financial responsibility for these items for five months. So far there has been no movement by them to help us clean up their share of the mess.

Using all volunteer crews for the first time in years, we continue to operate our 11:00AM and 2:30PM trains to Miller Creek every Saturday and Sunday. We are in our 18th year of this operation. From January through March we ran 53 Miller Creek trains with 2,726 passengers. When CGRy started operations we lost several of our operating staff to them and over the years we have supplied more than forty engineers, brakemen and conductors to the rail industry throughout the west. Our engine service training is the best and we have our members running trains as far away as the UP in Portland to an Amtrak division in Texas. We are proud of our volunteers that have made good in the professional railroad world because of their training at the museum.

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