A Publication of the Travel Town Museum Foundation

Greetings from Travel Town!

AMERICAN SOUTHWESTERN RAILWAY ASSOCIATION

P.O. BOX 39846 - GRIFFITH STATION

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90039323-668-0104 • www.traveltown.org

Volume 5, Issue 1May 2007

The Travel Town Tender is a publication of the Travel Town Museum Foundation, a d.b.a. of the American Southwestern Railway Association, Inc. The Association is a501(c)(3) non-profit educational corporation, dedicated to the preservation and interpretive presentation of railroad history. We work in partnership with the Los AngelesCity Department of Recreation & Parks, helping to support their operation of the Travel Town Museum. Contents © A.S.R.A., Inc., 2007, unless under other copyright.

Nonprofit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDGlendale, CAPermit No. 6

Have you been out to Travel Town to see the “Crane” yet? TheWorld War II era American Locomotive Crane was donated severalyears ago by the Boeing Corporation and was finally moved to theMuseum during the last week of 2006. Its large size and extremeweight made transporting it to Travel Town quite the challenge; infact, it had to be separated into THREE pieces and required a seriesof different movements to get it all into the Park. Museum volun-teers have been working overtime since mid-November, both toprepare for the “final move” in December and since then to com-plete the re-assembly. Under the fantastic leadership of TravelTown Volunteer Greg Ramsey, the big girl is nearly back togetherand ready for a formal dedication! The operational, Diesel-pow-ered crane was built in 1942 for the United States War Departmentand has a lifting capacity of 50 tons. Mr. Ramsey will share moreexciting details with us elsewhere in the Tender.

The long-awaited arrival of the Locomotive Crane is just the tip ofthe iceberg when it comes to exciting projects going on at TravelTown this spring. Since the first-of-the-year, we’ve had TWO moregreat Boy Scout Eagle Leadership Projects completed at the Mu-seum. Although the two scouts come from different locals, theirprojects worked in tandem to address a single long-standing dis-play track issue. In December, Eagle candidate Gregory Ramsey, ofOxnard Troup 234, came in with a battalion of his fellow Boy Scouts

to perform a tie replacement and general remediation effort on Mu-seum display Track 8-West – getting the track ready for the off-loading of the arriving Locomotive Crane. Once the Crane wascomfortably “on the property,” our next Eagle candidate, NickPerino, of Burbank Troup 234, mounted an effort with fellow scoutsand students from Bellarmine-Jefferson High School to constructa landscape and ballast-retaining wall along side the same Track 8-West. All of us at Travel Town are proud and appreciative of thegreat job both of these scouts did in leading their respective projectsto successful completion!

But wait, I may have saved the most exciting news for last… howabout a working steam locomotive at Travel Town? Well, I’m excitedto report that we’re on the way towards that goal! Under the leader-ship of Museum Volunteer Paul Boschan, venerable Southern Pacificlocomotive Number 20 is headed for a complete operational rehabilita-tion. Once completed, the S.P. 20 will be the first steamer to operate atTravel Town since the early 1960s. (I’ll bet there’s not many of ourreaders who remember the days when old Oahu No. 18 was chuggingaround the Park.) The S.P. 20 project is just getting started, so keep aneye on future Tenders and be sure to stop by the Park often to watchthe progress on this great locomotive resurrection!

See you at the Park!

Together again! After several decades apart, American Locomotive Crane 1887 wasfinally reunited with her old companion CS&CV No. 1 at Travel Town on December 29,2006 (above). The two World War II military units worked together at the DouglasAircraft plant inTorrance, California, in the 1950s and 60s. Our beloved little red engineeventually left Torrance for an assignment at the McDonnell-Douglas plant in LongBeach and came to the Park in 1989.

A vintage shot from the Travel Town Archives showing the two together at Douglas,around 1960

Greg Gneier, PresidentMay 2007

Fun reading and education in two beauti-ful color books about traveling in the“good old days.” As volunteer director,I am always looking for books thatpresent the history of railroad travelthat our docents can read and thusinterpret our passenger cars. Twofantastic books recently publishedfill this bill nicely: Travel by Pull-man, a Century of Service by JoeWelsh and Bill Howes (MBIPublishing Co.) and Santa Fe’sSuper Chief and El Capitan,1936-1971 by Patrick Dorin(TLC Publishing Co.) Both of thesebooks really provide great informationabout traveling on the trains, and golly,we sell them both in our gift shop! Come

in and pick up a copy and learn about customer ser-vice aboard the trains.

— Nancy G. — Nancy G. — Nancy G. — Nancy G. — Nancy G.

New at the Gift Shop!

A color copy of this newsletter isavailable on our website at

www.traveltown.org -- click the“Hours & Activities” button. If you

would like to sponsor the TravelTown Tender being printed in color,

please contact Nancy Gneier at323-668-0104. Thanks!

72

On the Platform . . . Bob ArbuckleThis issue’s On the Platform features one of our wonderful do-cents, Bob Arbuckle. And we congratulate Bob on his recent mar-riage to Linda Lammers!

Bob began volunteering at Travel Town in 1997. Railroads were afamily business for Bob; his wonderful dad, the late Wayne Arbuckle,had a long career with the Santa Fe Railroad and volunteered with usfor several years in the ‘90s after his retirement. Wayne had a pro-found effect on our volunteering program, giving first-hand knowl-edge of working on the railroad, from brakeman to front office to receiv-ing clerk. Wayne received his “Brakeman” card from the Santa Ferailroad back in 1955 and proudly showed it off whenever he volun-teered! Wayne knew how to spend his retirement years – he gave backto the community by volunteering not only here at Travel Town butalso at the Gene Autry Museum and the Natural History Museum!

We got to know Bob when he accompanied his dad to our Christ-mas parties and other Travel Town events. Bob now continues hisfather’s tradition by regularly volunteering as a docent for us, withthe Pullman car Hunter’s Point being his favorite.

Earlier this year, the Travel Town Museum Foundation received avery wonderful donation from Rich Ruh, Grandson of Johnny T.

Ruh, the bartender of theLittle Nugget. The entire Ruhfamily has been very sup-portive in our restoration of“The Little Nugget” and thiscontribution is a fantastic ar-tifact! This book has originalsignatures, poems, and trav-eling notes from riders of“The City of Los Angeles”dating from 1942 through1945 — attesting to the fact

that “the Little Nugget” was one of the few lounge cars that oper-ated during World War II, a period when troop movements tooktook precedence and the government forbid the operation of “non-revenue” cars in the train. This book appears to be the sequel to theoriginal signature book that is currently at the Union Pacific Mu-seum in Omaha, Nebraska. The last entry in the first book wasdated December 6, 1941 (for you younger folks, that was the dayBEFORE the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor). One of the famoussignatures we recognized was from Tommy Dorsey, a band leaderknown for such songs as “I’m getting Sentimental Over You” and“I’ll Never Smile Again.” Another famous band leader who signedthe book was Benny Goodman, famous clarinetist.

Looking at the signatures and the comments in this book is likelooking into the past. Imagine traveling across the country in opu-lent style – maybe this is your first trip across our great nation,maybe you’ve made the trip several times for business. You decideto go into the bar car for a drink and sign your name to a book onthe counter. Many folks are very appreciative of the great servicefrom Johnny; one complains about the food that has been rationed(instead of steak in the dining car, he could only have hamburger or

“The Little Nugget” Guest Book Comes Home!chicken). Maybe some time 50 years in the future someone will pullup a blog from 2007 on Myspace.com, but I rather doubt it. Thisbook is a wonderful time capsule of comments and public opinionabout traveling in the 1940s.

Here’s a poem from someone who signed the same page as TommyDorsey:

Physically a train is a cold thing of steel,Spiritually it is a warm human thing you can feel-Why?That’s easy-It’s the engineer, the fireman, the conductor, the steward,Gentleman all, prime hosts of the landThree cheers for them all – long may they stand!

Another poem:We rode in this car but not very farThe girls who were with us were “movie stars”The roadbed is excellent and we’re not kidding,But believe it or not our cocktails went skidding!

A.B. Malouf and Sperry Lawson from Los Angeles

Red arrows indicate the signaturesof Tommy Dorsey (above) andBenny Goodman (right).

Congratulations to thenewlyweds!

I contacted American Ohio LocomotiveCranes of Bucyrus, Ohio, and they suppliedus with lots of technical advice, new opera-tors’ manuals, and component weights. Theirsales manager, Craig Goodenough, even of-fered to come look at our crane on his nexttrip to the West Coast. He supplied us with awealth of knowledge of how it could be dis-assembled, and he left me with the confidenceI could safely take it apart, and even moreimportantly, that I could put it back together.

Greg Gneier and I met with a number of craneand heavy trucking contractors, but the bestoffer came from a combination of Smith Broth-ers Crane services and Homer Mann Truck-ing. The City was going to process the pur-chase orders, so we submitted the quotes tothe Travel Town staff, and waited for Citypurchasing system to run its course. My jobmakes me travel extensively and often, butthe end of the year is generally a slow time forme, so we were trying to fast-track this so wecould make our deadline of trucking the craneby the end of 2006. We set a date for Decem-ber 28th – because it was between the holi-days, I had a larger crew to work with.

During the fall, several of us started disas-sembling parts of the crane, at least thoseparts we could without taking away its abilityto move on its own. Finally on December23rd, we moved the crane from its parkinglocation for the last six years and moved it tothe west end where the cranes would haveroom to lift it onto trucks. We begin to takethe drive mechanism apart, and after taking abreak for Christmas, we got serious on the26th. By the afternoon of the 27th the twosections were ready to separate. Early thenext morning, a large crew of Travel Townvolunteers gathered next to Levitz and beganremoving fencing and barricades. On cue, thetwo Smith Brothers cranes and support trucksrolled in at 7:00 a.m. Over the next hour, thecrane crews “built” their cranes, preparing

them to share the two expected 115,000 poundlifts. By 8:00 a.m., the first of the nine-axletrucks had arrived and we were soon liftingthe house off the car body. Adding the loadsfrom the two cranes, the house was weigh-ing in almost 12,000 pounds less than we ex-pected. It was quickly swung over the streetand onto the first truck. As soon as the housewas centered and cribbed, the truck pulledforward and the second pulled into place.Once the riggers had re-rigged for the carbody, it too went into the air. Unfortunatelywe then found out where the missing 12,000pounds was. The load was still within thecapacities of the combined cranes, but as theywere swinging it out over the street, therewere a few tense moments as the load meterslowly crept up near the limit as it boomedout to reach the truck.

By 10:00 a.m. the trucks were loaded, and wetook off for Travel Town via the 134 freewayand the Zoo Drive exit, and then parked alongZoo Drive while we waited for the crane. Thecranes still had to break down to be streetlegal again and took another hour to hit theroad but by 11:00 a.m. they were on their wayand then were quickly re-rigged to lift againinside the northwest corner of the Park alongTrack 8-West. Unloading was much morecomplicated due to the access and clearanceissues. And it was compounded by the factthat the nine-axle truck carrying the car bodycan’t back with a load. It had to pull straightin the gate and up and over Track 8 betweenthe two cranes, and then with the load up inthe air, back out from under the load, with metowing the back end with Travel Town’sloader. And lifting the house wasn’t mucheasier. Since one crane had set up with itsoutriggers fouling the track, and the secondtruck also had to pull up and over the track,we had to move the car body out of the way.That meant the smaller crane had to retractits outriggers, we pulled the car body to theeast with Charley, the crane reset its

outriggers, the truck pulled in, the craneslifted the house, the truck backed out, thecranes set the house on the ground adjacentto the track on blocks, the crane again pulledits outriggers in, we pushed the car body backinto place, Charley escaped to the East, thecrane reset its outriggers, and they againpicked the house up and finally placed it onthe car body. But that simple description wasin reality a major chore. The car body had thevertical drive shaft sticking straight up in theair, and that had to be plumbed perfectly intothe bearing in the center of the house. Inaddition, the slewing gear had to mesh ex-actly with the bull gear and the gib ring hadto align perfectly around the circumferenceof it all. Needless to say, that in itself took anhour or more to accomplish. But I have toreally tip my hat to the crew from Smith Broth-ers Crane. Little of the unloading had goneaccording to plan, largely due to more weightin the car body, and the fact that the truckscould not back in. But the crane operatorsand riggers never complained. We just putour heads together, and figured out how tomake it work. And work it did. We were stillon time compared to the estimate, and not asingle injury.

Since January, we’ve spent almost every Sat-urday and a few Sundays putting the drivetrain back together, repairing air leaks andreplacing rubber diaphragms in all the op-erators. But we’ve operated it twice underits own power now. And have even used itto switch once. We have a lot of mechanicalwork to do, and still more painting and othercosmetic work, but by the time you read this,the boom should be reinstalled, and whoknows, we may have even done a small liftor two.

10:20 p.m.: Both halves of the crane areback together at Travel Town, the sitecleaned up, and Smith Bros. have packedup their cranes and gone on to their nextjob ... an exhausted, filthy and delightedGreg Ramsey can finally take a breath.

4:50 p.m.: Now at Travel Town, aftera lot of site preparation (and lunch),the car body has been lifted off thetruck and held in the air while the 9-axle truck backed out from underneath.Soon the car body will be loweredonto the Museum rails.

5:55 p.m.: The car body is on the railsand has been moved out of the way byour locomotive “Charley.” The second9-axle truck has pulled in across thetrack and Smith Bros. cranes have liftedthe machinery house off the truck. The9-axle will now back out of the way.

6:27 p.m.: The 9-axle truck out of theway, Charley pushed the car body backinto position under the machineryhouse. Now comes the delicateoperation of realigning the two pieces:“threading a needle” to get the centerdrive shaft perfectly lined up.

Bob shows off the interior of thePullman car Rose Bowl.

“Johnny T” at the Bar in the famous “LittleNugget.” (Ruh family photograph, ASRAcollection.)

36

American Locomotive Crane 1887 by Greg Ramsey Polar Express Pajama Party

One of our patrons comes dressedappropriately in his Thomas pajamas!

And another contemplates howmany marshmallows to put in thathot chocolate…

Our Executive Director stirs up somehot chocolate for patrons in hersnappy pajamas and festive hat!

The crowds gathering!

Volunteer Manager Paulette Westphaland a caring patron address holidaywishes to troops overseas. Thesecards and letters to Santa were workedon while waiting for the movie to start.

Thanks to Best Buy on Los Feliz forthese great TV’s! Shop at Best Buy!

STREAMLINERS

Naomi DespresArnie & Judy FishmanHenry LewinLinda VertreesChris Yoon Kim

YARDMASTERS

Mickianne BradshawJudeth CosgroveRachel ParkJamieson & Bethany PriceKathryn Ragat

All Aboard!A warm welcome to the newest members and renewing supporters of the Travel Town Museum Foundation.

EXPRESS AGENTS

For membershipinformation, call

323-668-0104

Melissa ArizpeGus BardenKen Bray-AliBristow FamilyDale BrownKim CampbellCervantes FamilyMichael ChristansenKim CochranRiley CohnJuliana CrovchDavid A. DeJutePatrick DoreMargie EdisonChristopher & Mary EichlerJeffrey FinkLisa FisherLaura Frazer

Peter & Jaime GertmenianKelly & Connor GilmoreLouis J. GonzalezFrederick V. GrenotMaria GrimsonMarina GroysmanLaura HornNicole JacobsonJonas JohnsonGino JoukarMarilynne KennedyWendy KnutsonSavina KollmorgowAlec KruegerTina & Mark LavalleeKaren LewerTerry MaylingEileen McCarthy

Michael MeloWilliam MeyersWendy MillerAndy & Lisa MilneKristine MitchellSandra MolieriVicky MontesKim NakamuraJonathan NormanMelissa O’GaraIleana OrtizDean & Jennifer PappasLucas PearceChristine PetersJune PolinDiane & Timothy PriceBenjamin RaimoRay Reynolds

Shari RosenthalDavid RussellJordan Daniel SalasSuzanne SanchezRocio SandavalOliver SchaackBarbara SchlosserJake SchneiderPam ShamshikiHenry & James SilvaRuss SquiresEric SteinShari SteinbergRoss TanseyMartha VenturaStephanie Williams

This past Christmas season we had a wonderful holiday celebra-tion with our Polar Express Pajama Party! Over 130 people enjoyedhot chocolate and cookies while watching our favorite holidaymovie, starring Tom Hanks. This year the festivities were evenbetter thanks to the Los Angeles Best Buy store, located on LosFeliz next to Toys-R-Us and Costco. They allowed us to borrowfour “big screen” television sets to view the movie, and we wereable to have our patrons spread out through Holden’s Corner andthe Butler Building to enjoy the movie. Santa was also welcomingvisitors that evening!

If you or your business would like to sponsor this event for thisupcoming year, please contact Nancy Gneier for information. Welove bringing special events like this to our patron families, but wealso need help like the generous donation from Best Buy.

American Hoist and Derrick locomotive craneserial number 1887 was built for the U.S. WarDepartment and delivered to Madison, Indi-ana, in 1943. It is a Model 508CD of a nominal40-ton capacity, the CD standing for Caterpil-lar Diesel, the engine manufacturer. Its servicehistory hasn’t been completely researched yet,but we do know by the 1960s it had made itsway west and was working at the Douglas Air-craft Plant in Torrance, California, along withan EMC Model 40 and a former Navy flatcar –both of which would eventually be donated tothe Travel Town Museum.

I first became aware of the crane sometime in1997, when a Travel Town volunteer ap-proached me as President of the SCSRA andsuggested that Boeing Aircraft (which hadmerged and absorbed McDonnell Douglas)

might be willing to donate it as well as someother equipment. I contacted Boeing and sub-sequently sent a letter in December 1997 re-questing donation of the crane and a flatcar, aswell as other material. It turned out our requestwas a bit premature, but in January 1999 Boeingcalled and asked if we were still interested. Ireplied with another letter indicating our intentto go forward with the acquisition while Iworked to get approval from the City of LosAngeles, as well as figure out how we wouldever get it to Travel Town. Originally, the Dou-glas plant had access to both Southern Pacifictracks as well as the Alcoa Spur off of the SantaFe’s Harbor Sub, but by this time the connec-tion to the SP was long gone, and though theAlcoa spur still reached the edge of the Boeingproperty, the plant railroad was no longer con-nected to it. To further complicate things, eventhough the City readily agreed to accept thecrane, what we thought was going to be theimminent start of construction of our new Pa-vilion building at Travel Town prevented ourtrucking the crane directly to Travel Town. Sowe were going to have to figure out someplaceto store it for a few years.

By March 1999, Boeing had formally donatedthe crane and flatcar. We used the crane to loadthe flatcar and a couple of leftover track panelson a semi and sent them to Travel Town. By thetime the truck returned, we had removed thecrane’s hook and prepared the boom to come off,and we lowered it directly onto the truck. Afterthe semi left, we moved the rest of the crane offBoeing property and surrounded it with rent-a-fence. This was at best a temporary situation soin October of 1999, I sent a letter to the BNSF, thistime writing directly to Robert Krebs, Presidentof the BNSF, asking for a waiver of the frictionbearing rule so we could move the crane north.This time, our requestwas approved, and asthe local BNSFpeople reported to me,

1998: American Locomotive Crane 1887 duringits last days at the Boeing (McDonnell-Douglas)plant in Torrance. The boom was removed andtransported to the Museum a few days afterGreg Ramsey took this photo.

8:54 a.m.: Now separated from thecar body, the machinery house isturned 90-degrees and loaded onto awaiting 9-axle truck.

8:45 a.m.: After two hours of set-up,the first lift was to pick the “machineryhouse” up off the car body.

9:10 a.m.: With the machinery houseoff, volunteers took quick advantageoff this singular opportunity to inspectand lubricate the turret rollers. This islikely the first time these rollers hadbeen exposed in fifty years - andprobably the last time for another 50!

9:30 a.m.: The car body, with trucksattached, is lowered onto the second9-axle truck for the drive to the Park.

the letter was sent back down the chain of com-mand with a note on it from Mr. Krebs to “makeit happen.” But we were still having troublelocating a place to store it. Finally we foundanother spur in Hawthorne, and I was able toget permission from Somerville Plywood to storeit next to their warehouse, and on November 29,1999, we made our first move on the mainline.

Development soon threatened our new spur,and by the fall of 2000 I had obtained permis-sion to not only make another move over theBNSF, we had permission to move overMetrolink tracks to a new storage locationon the Levitz spur off of West San Fernandojust below the 134 freeway. Unfortunately,it would sit there for the next six years, a vic-tim of further delays with construction of thePavilion building and the SCSRA leaving theTravel Town Museum.

I have had a number of informal discussionswith trucking firms over the years to deter-mine what it was going to take to truck thecrane to the Museum. In 2006, I started get-ting serious. Contractors Cargo examined thecrane, the route and the Museum, and gaveus an estimate of over $68,000 to move thecrane in one piece. That was way beyondany kind of budget we could justify for thecrane, and clearly we had to find another way.It was suggested early on we would have toseparate the crane into at least two pieces forthe move, and I began to seriously study howthis could be done. Unlike a modern cranewith hydraulics or diesel electric drive, ourcrane is a diesel direct drive, with a verticaldrive shaft connecting the machinery houseand the car body. (Note from editor: The“car body” is the deck part with the wheelsattached. The “Machinery house” is thecab part that is the big blue box in all the

pictures.) It wasn’t clear howthings came apart.

(continued)

4 5

We’ve Been Working . . . On the Railroad!The first few months of 2007 have been very busy ones for TravelTown’s hard-working volunteer team. At the forefront of theseefforts has been reassembly and rehabilitation work on

the newly-arrived AmericanLocomotive Crane. Our vol-unteers have logged in over700 greasy hours on this bigpiece of equipment - before,during and after itsHerculean move to the Mu-seum in late December. Thusfar, most of the work hasbeen “mechanical” – realign-ment and lubrication of

gears, rebuilding of air-operated control systems, and trial move-ments of the trucks and machineryhouse. In the coming weeks, the effortswill culminate in the “stepping” of theboom, rigging of lifting cables, and thena much-needed repainting. We’re plan-ning a formal dedication ceremony laterthis year, so watch for updates!

Just down the track from theAmerican Crane… Round twoin the repainting of theMuseum’s wood-sided South-ern Pacific Box Car is in fullswing. We’re pleased and for-tunate to have another greatgroup of high school studentsfrom the nearby Zoo MagnetHigh School working with us onthis refurbishment project. Un-der the leadership of MuseumStaffer John Coghlan and Foun-dation Director Nancy Gneier,two groups of students areworking alternate weekdays onthe Box Car as part of their highschool class curriculum. Thestudents learn a myriad of bothskills and history while they areworking at the Museum!

Greg Ramsey meshes with the gearsinside the American Locomotive Crane.

Over on Track 8-West, we’ve had more than fifty teens and adultstaking part in TWO Boy Scout Eagle Leadership Projects - perform-ing upgrades and reha-bilitation work on this dis-play track area. EagleScout candidates Gre-gory Ramsey and NickPerino each lead a taskforce; one group remov-ing and replacing wornout track ties and the sec-ond group erecting alandscape retaining wallalongside the track.Three cheers for both ofthese fine young men!

Greg Gneier and BradSlosar installing the lastfew bolts on the theConrock’s new pilot beam.

Brad Slosar prepares todill bolt holes in the new“pilot beam” for theConrock locomotive.

Somehow, in the midst of everything else, our volunteers also foundtime to put a new pilot beam on the “Conrock” steam locomotive.

The front beams on many of the Museumlocomotives have virtually disintegratedover the 50+ years they have been out-doors in the Park.For the Conrock,a new Douglas firtimber was pur-chased, drilled,treated withwood preserva-tive, painted andthen mounted onthe front of thelocomotive. Wehave a number ofother engines at

Travel Town that desperately need thissame operation. We can certainly use a fewmore good volunteers to help with this –no special skills needed.

We’re very excited to report that re-habilitation work has begun on thevenerable Southern Pacific steamlocomotive No. 20! Under the lead-ership of Museum Volunteer PaulBoschan, the little 1890’s locomo-tive is on its way towards a return toSTEAM operation! The locomotivewill be disassembled and rebuilt fromthe rails up, receiving a new boilerin the process. Paul is proprietor ofBoschan Boiler & Restorations, Inc.of Carson, California – you can seesome of his firm’s fine work chug-ging around on the Disneyland Rail-road! We’re excited to have Paulvolunteering with us at Travel Townand look forward to seeing the S.P. 20 under steam again!

The Desjardins sisters,Samantha and Sabrina, areregular features on theHolden’s Corner circuit!

When not at Travel Town, John workswith Operation Lifesaver. Here we seehim with the famous Santa Fe 3751,portraying Travis the Safety Owl at arecent OLS safety presentation at LosAngeles Union Station.

John Stumreiter begins work onthe S.P. 20’s smoke box.

An unusually sombermoment for Steve Devorkin;removing old glass fromthe crane window sash.

Always with a smile, Kirk Reinholtztightens the gib ring bolts on theAmerican Locomotive Crane.

Arthur Mesa (left) andAaron Snyder removeloose paint from the topof the boxcar - the roofhas also been preppedand corrosealed, aprocess which preventsrust from spreading.

Valerie Watson (left) andAllison Senac put a lastcoat of paint on the southside of the car.

Eagle Scout candidate Nick Perino andcrew shovel ballast to finish their landscapewall project along Track 8-West.

Eagle Scout candidate Gregory Ramseyleads his task force on a big tie-replacementeffort on Track 8-West.

In addition to Paul Boschan, we’re also very pleased to welcomeseveral other new volunteers to our Travel Town family! JohnEvans, a native of the United Kingdom, has joined our DocentTeam and our Board of Trustees. John has a longtime interest intrains and was actively involved in the successful restoration of abig 2-10-0 steam locomotive in Great Britain.

We also want to welcome and congratu-late sisters Samantha and SabrinaDesjardins, two high school volunteerswho have each recently completed 50volunteer hours! Great work, girls!

Making Travel Town a true “family af-fair” we also welcome Kirk Reinholtz,his wife Virginia Choate, and their sonDerek to our volunteer team. Derek cameout one Saturday to serve a few hours aspart of our High School Service Learn-ing Program; mom and dad asked if theycould hang around for the orientation…by the end of the day, all three were cov-ered with grease from an exciting day’s

w o r kon the Locomotive Crane! Sincethen, Derek has made time betweenmountain biking and high schoolswim meets to log in over 50 hoursat the Museum; Virginia joined inwith our Docent Tours and Kirk im-mediately become a key part of ourCrane restoration effort. Specialcongratulation go to Kirk who hasalready surpassed the 100-hour markas a Travel Town Volunteer!

We’re always looking for new vol-unteers – and, as you can see, wehave a myriad of projects and jobsgoing on – something for nearlyevery talent or interest, whether

you like to get greasy or stay clean. Please stop by the Museum orgive our volunteer coordinator Paulette a call or email if you wouldlike more information on joining our great Travel Town VolunteerTeam! 323-668-0104 or volunteers.tt@traveltown.org. You can evenregister on-line at www.traveltown.org!

Come Jointhe Fun!

Visitwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.tr.tr.tr.tr.travavavavaveltoeltoeltoeltoeltown.orwn.orwn.orwn.orwn.orggggg

and click on“Volunteer at Travel Town”

to learn more!

Steam restorationist, PaulBoschan - delighted to beworking on the “SP 20.”

Southern Pacific locomotive No. 20 -as she looked at the start of therehabilitation project.

Volunteer leader GregGneier shows son, Tim, thefiner points of rebuildinga 1937 Pullman door lock.(Greg has never actuallybeen to Martha’s Vineyard,only heard about it.)

4 5

We’ve Been Working . . . On the Railroad!The first few months of 2007 have been very busy ones for TravelTown’s hard-working volunteer team. At the forefront of theseefforts has been reassembly and rehabilitation work on

the newly-arrived AmericanLocomotive Crane. Our vol-unteers have logged in over700 greasy hours on this bigpiece of equipment - before,during and after itsHerculean move to the Mu-seum in late December. Thusfar, most of the work hasbeen “mechanical” – realign-ment and lubrication of

gears, rebuilding of air-operated control systems, and trial move-ments of the trucks and machineryhouse. In the coming weeks, the effortswill culminate in the “stepping” of theboom, rigging of lifting cables, and thena much-needed repainting. We’re plan-ning a formal dedication ceremony laterthis year, so watch for updates!

Just down the track from theAmerican Crane… Round twoin the repainting of theMuseum’s wood-sided South-ern Pacific Box Car is in fullswing. We’re pleased and for-tunate to have another greatgroup of high school studentsfrom the nearby Zoo MagnetHigh School working with us onthis refurbishment project. Un-der the leadership of MuseumStaffer John Coghlan and Foun-dation Director Nancy Gneier,two groups of students areworking alternate weekdays onthe Box Car as part of their highschool class curriculum. Thestudents learn a myriad of bothskills and history while they areworking at the Museum!

Greg Ramsey meshes with the gearsinside the American Locomotive Crane.

Over on Track 8-West, we’ve had more than fifty teens and adultstaking part in TWO Boy Scout Eagle Leadership Projects - perform-ing upgrades and reha-bilitation work on this dis-play track area. EagleScout candidates Gre-gory Ramsey and NickPerino each lead a taskforce; one group remov-ing and replacing wornout track ties and the sec-ond group erecting alandscape retaining wallalongside the track.Three cheers for both ofthese fine young men!

Greg Gneier and BradSlosar installing the lastfew bolts on the theConrock’s new pilot beam.

Brad Slosar prepares todill bolt holes in the new“pilot beam” for theConrock locomotive.

Somehow, in the midst of everything else, our volunteers also foundtime to put a new pilot beam on the “Conrock” steam locomotive.

The front beams on many of the Museumlocomotives have virtually disintegratedover the 50+ years they have been out-doors in the Park.For the Conrock,a new Douglas firtimber was pur-chased, drilled,treated withwood preserva-tive, painted andthen mounted onthe front of thelocomotive. Wehave a number ofother engines at

Travel Town that desperately need thissame operation. We can certainly use a fewmore good volunteers to help with this –no special skills needed.

We’re very excited to report that re-habilitation work has begun on thevenerable Southern Pacific steamlocomotive No. 20! Under the lead-ership of Museum Volunteer PaulBoschan, the little 1890’s locomo-tive is on its way towards a return toSTEAM operation! The locomotivewill be disassembled and rebuilt fromthe rails up, receiving a new boilerin the process. Paul is proprietor ofBoschan Boiler & Restorations, Inc.of Carson, California – you can seesome of his firm’s fine work chug-ging around on the Disneyland Rail-road! We’re excited to have Paulvolunteering with us at Travel Townand look forward to seeing the S.P. 20 under steam again!

The Desjardins sisters,Samantha and Sabrina, areregular features on theHolden’s Corner circuit!

When not at Travel Town, John workswith Operation Lifesaver. Here we seehim with the famous Santa Fe 3751,portraying Travis the Safety Owl at arecent OLS safety presentation at LosAngeles Union Station.

John Stumreiter begins work onthe S.P. 20’s smoke box.

An unusually sombermoment for Steve Devorkin;removing old glass fromthe crane window sash.

Always with a smile, Kirk Reinholtztightens the gib ring bolts on theAmerican Locomotive Crane.

Arthur Mesa (left) andAaron Snyder removeloose paint from the topof the boxcar - the roofhas also been preppedand corrosealed, aprocess which preventsrust from spreading.

Valerie Watson (left) andAllison Senac put a lastcoat of paint on the southside of the car.

Eagle Scout candidate Nick Perino andcrew shovel ballast to finish their landscapewall project along Track 8-West.

Eagle Scout candidate Gregory Ramseyleads his task force on a big tie-replacementeffort on Track 8-West.

In addition to Paul Boschan, we’re also very pleased to welcomeseveral other new volunteers to our Travel Town family! JohnEvans, a native of the United Kingdom, has joined our DocentTeam and our Board of Trustees. John has a longtime interest intrains and was actively involved in the successful restoration of abig 2-10-0 steam locomotive in Great Britain.

We also want to welcome and congratu-late sisters Samantha and SabrinaDesjardins, two high school volunteerswho have each recently completed 50volunteer hours! Great work, girls!

Making Travel Town a true “family af-fair” we also welcome Kirk Reinholtz,his wife Virginia Choate, and their sonDerek to our volunteer team. Derek cameout one Saturday to serve a few hours aspart of our High School Service Learn-ing Program; mom and dad asked if theycould hang around for the orientation…by the end of the day, all three were cov-ered with grease from an exciting day’s

w o r kon the Locomotive Crane! Sincethen, Derek has made time betweenmountain biking and high schoolswim meets to log in over 50 hoursat the Museum; Virginia joined inwith our Docent Tours and Kirk im-mediately become a key part of ourCrane restoration effort. Specialcongratulation go to Kirk who hasalready surpassed the 100-hour markas a Travel Town Volunteer!

We’re always looking for new vol-unteers – and, as you can see, wehave a myriad of projects and jobsgoing on – something for nearlyevery talent or interest, whether

you like to get greasy or stay clean. Please stop by the Museum orgive our volunteer coordinator Paulette a call or email if you wouldlike more information on joining our great Travel Town VolunteerTeam! 323-668-0104 or volunteers.tt@traveltown.org. You can evenregister on-line at www.traveltown.org!

Come Jointhe Fun!

Visitwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.tr.tr.tr.tr.travavavavaveltoeltoeltoeltoeltown.orwn.orwn.orwn.orwn.orggggg

and click on“Volunteer at Travel Town”

to learn more!

Steam restorationist, PaulBoschan - delighted to beworking on the “SP 20.”

Southern Pacific locomotive No. 20 -as she looked at the start of therehabilitation project.

Volunteer leader GregGneier shows son, Tim, thefiner points of rebuildinga 1937 Pullman door lock.(Greg has never actuallybeen to Martha’s Vineyard,only heard about it.)

36

American Locomotive Crane 1887 by Greg Ramsey Polar Express Pajama Party

One of our patrons comes dressedappropriately in his Thomas pajamas!

And another contemplates howmany marshmallows to put in thathot chocolate…

Our Executive Director stirs up somehot chocolate for patrons in hersnappy pajamas and festive hat!

The crowds gathering!

Volunteer Manager Paulette Westphaland a caring patron address holidaywishes to troops overseas. Thesecards and letters to Santa were workedon while waiting for the movie to start.

Thanks to Best Buy on Los Feliz forthese great TV’s! Shop at Best Buy!

STREAMLINERS

Naomi DespresArnie & Judy FishmanHenry LewinLinda VertreesChris Yoon Kim

YARDMASTERS

Mickianne BradshawJudeth CosgroveRachel ParkJamieson & Bethany PriceKathryn Ragat

All Aboard!A warm welcome to the newest members and renewing supporters of the Travel Town Museum Foundation.

EXPRESS AGENTS

For membershipinformation, call

323-668-0104

Melissa ArizpeGus BardenKen Bray-AliBristow FamilyDale BrownKim CampbellCervantes FamilyMichael ChristansenKim CochranRiley CohnJuliana CrovchDavid A. DeJutePatrick DoreMargie EdisonChristopher & Mary EichlerJeffrey FinkLisa FisherLaura Frazer

Peter & Jaime GertmenianKelly & Connor GilmoreLouis J. GonzalezFrederick V. GrenotMaria GrimsonMarina GroysmanLaura HornNicole JacobsonJonas JohnsonGino JoukarMarilynne KennedyWendy KnutsonSavina KollmorgowAlec KruegerTina & Mark LavalleeKaren LewerTerry MaylingEileen McCarthy

Michael MeloWilliam MeyersWendy MillerAndy & Lisa MilneKristine MitchellSandra MolieriVicky MontesKim NakamuraJonathan NormanMelissa O’GaraIleana OrtizDean & Jennifer PappasLucas PearceChristine PetersJune PolinDiane & Timothy PriceBenjamin RaimoRay Reynolds

Shari RosenthalDavid RussellJordan Daniel SalasSuzanne SanchezRocio SandavalOliver SchaackBarbara SchlosserJake SchneiderPam ShamshikiHenry & James SilvaRuss SquiresEric SteinShari SteinbergRoss TanseyMartha VenturaStephanie Williams

This past Christmas season we had a wonderful holiday celebra-tion with our Polar Express Pajama Party! Over 130 people enjoyedhot chocolate and cookies while watching our favorite holidaymovie, starring Tom Hanks. This year the festivities were evenbetter thanks to the Los Angeles Best Buy store, located on LosFeliz next to Toys-R-Us and Costco. They allowed us to borrowfour “big screen” television sets to view the movie, and we wereable to have our patrons spread out through Holden’s Corner andthe Butler Building to enjoy the movie. Santa was also welcomingvisitors that evening!

If you or your business would like to sponsor this event for thisupcoming year, please contact Nancy Gneier for information. Welove bringing special events like this to our patron families, but wealso need help like the generous donation from Best Buy.

American Hoist and Derrick locomotive craneserial number 1887 was built for the U.S. WarDepartment and delivered to Madison, Indi-ana, in 1943. It is a Model 508CD of a nominal40-ton capacity, the CD standing for Caterpil-lar Diesel, the engine manufacturer. Its servicehistory hasn’t been completely researched yet,but we do know by the 1960s it had made itsway west and was working at the Douglas Air-craft Plant in Torrance, California, along withan EMC Model 40 and a former Navy flatcar –both of which would eventually be donated tothe Travel Town Museum.

I first became aware of the crane sometime in1997, when a Travel Town volunteer ap-proached me as President of the SCSRA andsuggested that Boeing Aircraft (which hadmerged and absorbed McDonnell Douglas)

might be willing to donate it as well as someother equipment. I contacted Boeing and sub-sequently sent a letter in December 1997 re-questing donation of the crane and a flatcar, aswell as other material. It turned out our requestwas a bit premature, but in January 1999 Boeingcalled and asked if we were still interested. Ireplied with another letter indicating our intentto go forward with the acquisition while Iworked to get approval from the City of LosAngeles, as well as figure out how we wouldever get it to Travel Town. Originally, the Dou-glas plant had access to both Southern Pacifictracks as well as the Alcoa Spur off of the SantaFe’s Harbor Sub, but by this time the connec-tion to the SP was long gone, and though theAlcoa spur still reached the edge of the Boeingproperty, the plant railroad was no longer con-nected to it. To further complicate things, eventhough the City readily agreed to accept thecrane, what we thought was going to be theimminent start of construction of our new Pa-vilion building at Travel Town prevented ourtrucking the crane directly to Travel Town. Sowe were going to have to figure out someplaceto store it for a few years.

By March 1999, Boeing had formally donatedthe crane and flatcar. We used the crane to loadthe flatcar and a couple of leftover track panelson a semi and sent them to Travel Town. By thetime the truck returned, we had removed thecrane’s hook and prepared the boom to come off,and we lowered it directly onto the truck. Afterthe semi left, we moved the rest of the crane offBoeing property and surrounded it with rent-a-fence. This was at best a temporary situation soin October of 1999, I sent a letter to the BNSF, thistime writing directly to Robert Krebs, Presidentof the BNSF, asking for a waiver of the frictionbearing rule so we could move the crane north.This time, our requestwas approved, and asthe local BNSFpeople reported to me,

1998: American Locomotive Crane 1887 duringits last days at the Boeing (McDonnell-Douglas)plant in Torrance. The boom was removed andtransported to the Museum a few days afterGreg Ramsey took this photo.

8:54 a.m.: Now separated from thecar body, the machinery house isturned 90-degrees and loaded onto awaiting 9-axle truck.

8:45 a.m.: After two hours of set-up,the first lift was to pick the “machineryhouse” up off the car body.

9:10 a.m.: With the machinery houseoff, volunteers took quick advantageoff this singular opportunity to inspectand lubricate the turret rollers. This islikely the first time these rollers hadbeen exposed in fifty years - andprobably the last time for another 50!

9:30 a.m.: The car body, with trucksattached, is lowered onto the second9-axle truck for the drive to the Park.

the letter was sent back down the chain of com-mand with a note on it from Mr. Krebs to “makeit happen.” But we were still having troublelocating a place to store it. Finally we foundanother spur in Hawthorne, and I was able toget permission from Somerville Plywood to storeit next to their warehouse, and on November 29,1999, we made our first move on the mainline.

Development soon threatened our new spur,and by the fall of 2000 I had obtained permis-sion to not only make another move over theBNSF, we had permission to move overMetrolink tracks to a new storage locationon the Levitz spur off of West San Fernandojust below the 134 freeway. Unfortunately,it would sit there for the next six years, a vic-tim of further delays with construction of thePavilion building and the SCSRA leaving theTravel Town Museum.

I have had a number of informal discussionswith trucking firms over the years to deter-mine what it was going to take to truck thecrane to the Museum. In 2006, I started get-ting serious. Contractors Cargo examined thecrane, the route and the Museum, and gaveus an estimate of over $68,000 to move thecrane in one piece. That was way beyondany kind of budget we could justify for thecrane, and clearly we had to find another way.It was suggested early on we would have toseparate the crane into at least two pieces forthe move, and I began to seriously study howthis could be done. Unlike a modern cranewith hydraulics or diesel electric drive, ourcrane is a diesel direct drive, with a verticaldrive shaft connecting the machinery houseand the car body. (Note from editor: The“car body” is the deck part with the wheelsattached. The “Machinery house” is thecab part that is the big blue box in all the

pictures.) It wasn’t clear howthings came apart.

(continued)

72

On the Platform . . . Bob ArbuckleThis issue’s On the Platform features one of our wonderful do-cents, Bob Arbuckle. And we congratulate Bob on his recent mar-riage to Linda Lammers!

Bob began volunteering at Travel Town in 1997. Railroads were afamily business for Bob; his wonderful dad, the late Wayne Arbuckle,had a long career with the Santa Fe Railroad and volunteered with usfor several years in the ‘90s after his retirement. Wayne had a pro-found effect on our volunteering program, giving first-hand knowl-edge of working on the railroad, from brakeman to front office to receiv-ing clerk. Wayne received his “Brakeman” card from the Santa Ferailroad back in 1955 and proudly showed it off whenever he volun-teered! Wayne knew how to spend his retirement years – he gave backto the community by volunteering not only here at Travel Town butalso at the Gene Autry Museum and the Natural History Museum!

We got to know Bob when he accompanied his dad to our Christ-mas parties and other Travel Town events. Bob now continues hisfather’s tradition by regularly volunteering as a docent for us, withthe Pullman car Hunter’s Point being his favorite.

Earlier this year, the Travel Town Museum Foundation received avery wonderful donation from Rich Ruh, Grandson of Johnny T.

Ruh, the bartender of theLittle Nugget. The entire Ruhfamily has been very sup-portive in our restoration of“The Little Nugget” and thiscontribution is a fantastic ar-tifact! This book has originalsignatures, poems, and trav-eling notes from riders of“The City of Los Angeles”dating from 1942 through1945 — attesting to the fact

that “the Little Nugget” was one of the few lounge cars that oper-ated during World War II, a period when troop movements tooktook precedence and the government forbid the operation of “non-revenue” cars in the train. This book appears to be the sequel to theoriginal signature book that is currently at the Union Pacific Mu-seum in Omaha, Nebraska. The last entry in the first book wasdated December 6, 1941 (for you younger folks, that was the dayBEFORE the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor). One of the famoussignatures we recognized was from Tommy Dorsey, a band leaderknown for such songs as “I’m getting Sentimental Over You” and“I’ll Never Smile Again.” Another famous band leader who signedthe book was Benny Goodman, famous clarinetist.

Looking at the signatures and the comments in this book is likelooking into the past. Imagine traveling across the country in opu-lent style – maybe this is your first trip across our great nation,maybe you’ve made the trip several times for business. You decideto go into the bar car for a drink and sign your name to a book onthe counter. Many folks are very appreciative of the great servicefrom Johnny; one complains about the food that has been rationed(instead of steak in the dining car, he could only have hamburger or

“The Little Nugget” Guest Book Comes Home!chicken). Maybe some time 50 years in the future someone will pullup a blog from 2007 on Myspace.com, but I rather doubt it. Thisbook is a wonderful time capsule of comments and public opinionabout traveling in the 1940s.

Here’s a poem from someone who signed the same page as TommyDorsey:

Physically a train is a cold thing of steel,Spiritually it is a warm human thing you can feel-Why?That’s easy-It’s the engineer, the fireman, the conductor, the steward,Gentleman all, prime hosts of the landThree cheers for them all – long may they stand!

Another poem:We rode in this car but not very farThe girls who were with us were “movie stars”The roadbed is excellent and we’re not kidding,But believe it or not our cocktails went skidding!

A.B. Malouf and Sperry Lawson from Los Angeles

Red arrows indicate the signaturesof Tommy Dorsey (above) andBenny Goodman (right).

Congratulations to thenewlyweds!

I contacted American Ohio LocomotiveCranes of Bucyrus, Ohio, and they suppliedus with lots of technical advice, new opera-tors’ manuals, and component weights. Theirsales manager, Craig Goodenough, even of-fered to come look at our crane on his nexttrip to the West Coast. He supplied us with awealth of knowledge of how it could be dis-assembled, and he left me with the confidenceI could safely take it apart, and even moreimportantly, that I could put it back together.

Greg Gneier and I met with a number of craneand heavy trucking contractors, but the bestoffer came from a combination of Smith Broth-ers Crane services and Homer Mann Truck-ing. The City was going to process the pur-chase orders, so we submitted the quotes tothe Travel Town staff, and waited for Citypurchasing system to run its course. My jobmakes me travel extensively and often, butthe end of the year is generally a slow time forme, so we were trying to fast-track this so wecould make our deadline of trucking the craneby the end of 2006. We set a date for Decem-ber 28th – because it was between the holi-days, I had a larger crew to work with.

During the fall, several of us started disas-sembling parts of the crane, at least thoseparts we could without taking away its abilityto move on its own. Finally on December23rd, we moved the crane from its parkinglocation for the last six years and moved it tothe west end where the cranes would haveroom to lift it onto trucks. We begin to takethe drive mechanism apart, and after taking abreak for Christmas, we got serious on the26th. By the afternoon of the 27th the twosections were ready to separate. Early thenext morning, a large crew of Travel Townvolunteers gathered next to Levitz and beganremoving fencing and barricades. On cue, thetwo Smith Brothers cranes and support trucksrolled in at 7:00 a.m. Over the next hour, thecrane crews “built” their cranes, preparing

them to share the two expected 115,000 poundlifts. By 8:00 a.m., the first of the nine-axletrucks had arrived and we were soon liftingthe house off the car body. Adding the loadsfrom the two cranes, the house was weigh-ing in almost 12,000 pounds less than we ex-pected. It was quickly swung over the streetand onto the first truck. As soon as the housewas centered and cribbed, the truck pulledforward and the second pulled into place.Once the riggers had re-rigged for the carbody, it too went into the air. Unfortunatelywe then found out where the missing 12,000pounds was. The load was still within thecapacities of the combined cranes, but as theywere swinging it out over the street, therewere a few tense moments as the load meterslowly crept up near the limit as it boomedout to reach the truck.

By 10:00 a.m. the trucks were loaded, and wetook off for Travel Town via the 134 freewayand the Zoo Drive exit, and then parked alongZoo Drive while we waited for the crane. Thecranes still had to break down to be streetlegal again and took another hour to hit theroad but by 11:00 a.m. they were on their wayand then were quickly re-rigged to lift againinside the northwest corner of the Park alongTrack 8-West. Unloading was much morecomplicated due to the access and clearanceissues. And it was compounded by the factthat the nine-axle truck carrying the car bodycan’t back with a load. It had to pull straightin the gate and up and over Track 8 betweenthe two cranes, and then with the load up inthe air, back out from under the load, with metowing the back end with Travel Town’sloader. And lifting the house wasn’t mucheasier. Since one crane had set up with itsoutriggers fouling the track, and the secondtruck also had to pull up and over the track,we had to move the car body out of the way.That meant the smaller crane had to retractits outriggers, we pulled the car body to theeast with Charley, the crane reset its

outriggers, the truck pulled in, the craneslifted the house, the truck backed out, thecranes set the house on the ground adjacentto the track on blocks, the crane again pulledits outriggers in, we pushed the car body backinto place, Charley escaped to the East, thecrane reset its outriggers, and they againpicked the house up and finally placed it onthe car body. But that simple description wasin reality a major chore. The car body had thevertical drive shaft sticking straight up in theair, and that had to be plumbed perfectly intothe bearing in the center of the house. Inaddition, the slewing gear had to mesh ex-actly with the bull gear and the gib ring hadto align perfectly around the circumferenceof it all. Needless to say, that in itself took anhour or more to accomplish. But I have toreally tip my hat to the crew from Smith Broth-ers Crane. Little of the unloading had goneaccording to plan, largely due to more weightin the car body, and the fact that the truckscould not back in. But the crane operatorsand riggers never complained. We just putour heads together, and figured out how tomake it work. And work it did. We were stillon time compared to the estimate, and not asingle injury.

Since January, we’ve spent almost every Sat-urday and a few Sundays putting the drivetrain back together, repairing air leaks andreplacing rubber diaphragms in all the op-erators. But we’ve operated it twice underits own power now. And have even used itto switch once. We have a lot of mechanicalwork to do, and still more painting and othercosmetic work, but by the time you read this,the boom should be reinstalled, and whoknows, we may have even done a small liftor two.

10:20 p.m.: Both halves of the crane areback together at Travel Town, the sitecleaned up, and Smith Bros. have packedup their cranes and gone on to their nextjob ... an exhausted, filthy and delightedGreg Ramsey can finally take a breath.

4:50 p.m.: Now at Travel Town, aftera lot of site preparation (and lunch),the car body has been lifted off thetruck and held in the air while the 9-axle truck backed out from underneath.Soon the car body will be loweredonto the Museum rails.

5:55 p.m.: The car body is on the railsand has been moved out of the way byour locomotive “Charley.” The second9-axle truck has pulled in across thetrack and Smith Bros. cranes have liftedthe machinery house off the truck. The9-axle will now back out of the way.

6:27 p.m.: The 9-axle truck out of theway, Charley pushed the car body backinto position under the machineryhouse. Now comes the delicateoperation of realigning the two pieces:“threading a needle” to get the centerdrive shaft perfectly lined up.

Bob shows off the interior of thePullman car Rose Bowl.

“Johnny T” at the Bar in the famous “LittleNugget.” (Ruh family photograph, ASRAcollection.)

A Publication of the Travel Town Museum Foundation

Greetings from Travel Town!

AMERICAN SOUTHWESTERN RAILWAY ASSOCIATION

P.O. BOX 39846 - GRIFFITH STATION

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90039323-668-0104 • www.traveltown.org

Volume 5, Issue 1May 2007

The Travel Town Tender is a publication of the Travel Town Museum Foundation, a d.b.a. of the American Southwestern Railway Association, Inc. The Association is a501(c)(3) non-profit educational corporation, dedicated to the preservation and interpretive presentation of railroad history. We work in partnership with the Los AngelesCity Department of Recreation & Parks, helping to support their operation of the Travel Town Museum. Contents © A.S.R.A., Inc., 2007, unless under other copyright.

Nonprofit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDGlendale, CAPermit No. 6

Have you been out to Travel Town to see the “Crane” yet? TheWorld War II era American Locomotive Crane was donated severalyears ago by the Boeing Corporation and was finally moved to theMuseum during the last week of 2006. Its large size and extremeweight made transporting it to Travel Town quite the challenge; infact, it had to be separated into THREE pieces and required a seriesof different movements to get it all into the Park. Museum volun-teers have been working overtime since mid-November, both toprepare for the “final move” in December and since then to com-plete the re-assembly. Under the fantastic leadership of TravelTown Volunteer Greg Ramsey, the big girl is nearly back togetherand ready for a formal dedication! The operational, Diesel-pow-ered crane was built in 1942 for the United States War Departmentand has a lifting capacity of 50 tons. Mr. Ramsey will share moreexciting details with us elsewhere in the Tender.

The long-awaited arrival of the Locomotive Crane is just the tip ofthe iceberg when it comes to exciting projects going on at TravelTown this spring. Since the first-of-the-year, we’ve had TWO moregreat Boy Scout Eagle Leadership Projects completed at the Mu-seum. Although the two scouts come from different locals, theirprojects worked in tandem to address a single long-standing dis-play track issue. In December, Eagle candidate Gregory Ramsey, ofOxnard Troup 234, came in with a battalion of his fellow Boy Scouts

to perform a tie replacement and general remediation effort on Mu-seum display Track 8-West – getting the track ready for the off-loading of the arriving Locomotive Crane. Once the Crane wascomfortably “on the property,” our next Eagle candidate, NickPerino, of Burbank Troup 234, mounted an effort with fellow scoutsand students from Bellarmine-Jefferson High School to constructa landscape and ballast-retaining wall along side the same Track 8-West. All of us at Travel Town are proud and appreciative of thegreat job both of these scouts did in leading their respective projectsto successful completion!

But wait, I may have saved the most exciting news for last… howabout a working steam locomotive at Travel Town? Well, I’m excitedto report that we’re on the way towards that goal! Under the leader-ship of Museum Volunteer Paul Boschan, venerable Southern Pacificlocomotive Number 20 is headed for a complete operational rehabilita-tion. Once completed, the S.P. 20 will be the first steamer to operate atTravel Town since the early 1960s. (I’ll bet there’s not many of ourreaders who remember the days when old Oahu No. 18 was chuggingaround the Park.) The S.P. 20 project is just getting started, so keep aneye on future Tenders and be sure to stop by the Park often to watchthe progress on this great locomotive resurrection!

See you at the Park!

Together again! After several decades apart, American Locomotive Crane 1887 wasfinally reunited with her old companion CS&CV No. 1 at Travel Town on December 29,2006 (above). The two World War II military units worked together at the DouglasAircraft plant inTorrance, California, in the 1950s and 60s. Our beloved little red engineeventually left Torrance for an assignment at the McDonnell-Douglas plant in LongBeach and came to the Park in 1989.

A vintage shot from the Travel Town Archives showing the two together at Douglas,around 1960

Greg Gneier, PresidentMay 2007

Fun reading and education in two beauti-ful color books about traveling in the“good old days.” As volunteer director,I am always looking for books thatpresent the history of railroad travelthat our docents can read and thusinterpret our passenger cars. Twofantastic books recently publishedfill this bill nicely: Travel by Pull-man, a Century of Service by JoeWelsh and Bill Howes (MBIPublishing Co.) and Santa Fe’sSuper Chief and El Capitan,1936-1971 by Patrick Dorin(TLC Publishing Co.) Both of thesebooks really provide great informationabout traveling on the trains, and golly,we sell them both in our gift shop! Come

in and pick up a copy and learn about customer ser-vice aboard the trains.

— Nancy G.— Nancy G.— Nancy G.— Nancy G.— Nancy G.

New at the Gift Shop!

A color copy of this newsletter isavailable on our website at

www.traveltown.org -- click the“Hours & Activities” button. If you

would like to sponsor the TravelTown Tender being printed in color,

please contact Nancy Gneier at323-668-0104. Thanks!