AUGUST

August 20

We had a great trip with the Partners Group of the Blue Ridge Parkway with the Superintendent, and a retired super along with Board members. We gave them a tour of downtown Roanoke, went to the Last Chance project south of Roanoke, Mill Mountain and to the Explore Park. On Sunday we had a great trip to Chateau Morrisette, you all missed a great day, and had wonderful participation from the VW club. They came over last Wednesday and cleaned the windows on the buses we were going to use so the view would be better this year. Thanks to Mel for getting this arranged.

Thanks also to Mel for getting some Door Rubber donated! It is expensive stuff and he got over $300 bucks worth donated for the Mack! Great job Mel!

August 12

We have been working with Ricky Hall and Johnny Thompson to get the proper clutch and pressure plates for the dry clutch to put in the 4905 Buffalo so we can move it in the lot. Eric Alexie has donated some great workbenches and tools so we can continue to improve the shop. Ben still has the dozer on the lot so we will try to finish spreading the asphalt on our upcoming workday, the 26th of August.

We have found out that the 30 ft Metro in DC is not drivable at this time. It has been out of service for a while and will try to arrange for a trip to pick it up. They want us to get it in the next 30 days. There is every indication that we will be able to get it running, it just needs a little work from what we can determine at this point.

The folks at Alexandria Transit have sent us the  manuals for the Orion 1 which is most helpful. These should really come in handy as we will likely have to work on that bus sometime in the future.

Harry Messimer invited the members to come to his house to see his collection of Greyhound and Trailways memorabilia. A real treat for us all.

JULY

July 28

We have rearranged the yard with the help of Robert Young with the red Buffalo, the Danville 3301, the WMATA AM General and the second Pentran all being moved toward the rear. This of course was after our "dozer man Ben" cleaned and graded the area and spread the planed asphalt all over that space to make it usable. It looks great and really opens up some space. We also redid the parking inside with the Richmond Metro going inside until we can find and fix the leaks in the roof.

The Orion has CC&T lettering now and the wheels have been painted so it is ready to go. What a great bus Alexandria made available to us! We have found and are purchasing a dry clutch for the second Buffalo and need to get a pressure plate and discs for it before we can install the unit. We need to do that soon as William is going to be leaving Roanoke and moving to Florida. We are going to miss you man, as you have really helped get some of this collection moving literally!

The 62 AB&W is now ours with title and tags so we have reached a milestone on that one. We are still working on getting the same on the 4104. Our request for the old wrecker is moving along and we anticipate having it on the property soon. Kennie is keeping up with that acquisition for us and we really appreciate his assistance.

Eric Alexie came by on Wednesday night and donated a lot of tools to the cause and "E", we are most appreciative for your help. It was great seeing him. And, the best news is that Mark Williams has returned safely from Iraq and we are looking forward to seeing him a lot more at the Buseum.

Our request for the 30 ft WMATA Flxible Metro has been approved and we are awaiting instructions on when it will be available. We are not aware of its condition and that could be a challenge in getting it to Roanoke.

 We do have some trips coming up in August several coming up in September as well.

Thanks again to everyone who has been so helpful this month. 

July 7

It’s shaping up to be a busy summer at the CC&T. Thanks to BT and Joe for their help on the Nordt wedding and to Mel, William, BT, Karen, Scooter, Kennie for assisting at Motor Madness. Mel did a wonderful job of getting us involved and we had a good reception. Best of all, we received an offer of donated paint for the Mack! We hope everyone had a safe 4th of July.

Good news with work continuing on the Mack and delivery of the Orion 1 from Alexandria. The Orion is a great coach and came down the Valley on I-81 as if it belonged there everyday! We have taken tags off the RTS to place on the Orion to cut costs and to use our best buses in fleet duty. Have received the title to the Buffalo needing the transmission and already have it tagged as an Antique. Thanks to all who have stepped up and helped us in our recent fundraising efforts.
 
Thanks to Tom Cox of Motor Madness we had a nice article in the Motor Madness RT insert. Tom has been wonderful to work with as we attempt to successfully integrate some of our activities with those of the Virginia Museum of Transportation. We were able to place three buses for Motor Madness, on the evening of July 3rd, at the Civic Mall. Our appreciation to BT,Karen, Kennie, Scooter, and William for making it possible to move all this equipment.
 
BT took the Mack on an excursion up Williamson Road and was rewarded with cheers and delight. Thanks to Brett for some neat signage that we  have on the Mack for such occasions. We need to get this bus finished and on the parade circuit!
 
Had a large event on Sunday afternoon with help from BT, Joe and Bev using three coaches and all went well. Wednesday night we discovered that we have a wheel separation on the Mack that will require looking at newer hubs on the rear. Freddy is working on some lighting and William and Scooter are putting a CD player in the Gillig. Thanks to Scooter and William for a computer we can use to program the sign we bought for one of our coaches.
 
We await news on the Federal funds so we can start serious work on several coaches awaiting restoration. We continue to look at the use of the Railroad property and we are getting some quotes on fencing and fill possibilities at the moment.