MARCH

March 8

Work continues on the St. Pat’s surprise. When it’s finished, this baby should turn some heads. Ed has been headlining this project, and next week we’ll see the final results.

March 3

Ed, BB, Jean spent this week working on a special surprise for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. William and Justin doing duty on the mechanical side of things. William has determined that we can get the new Buffalo from Virginia Truck with the wrecker we have and hopes to do it soon. He also has arranged for a loader to help spread the planed asphalt next week. William and Justin also did some work on the Chiquita and the Mack. We have several driving projects scheduled for the next several weeks. This is our chance to shine with our peers.

FEBRUARY

February 25

We had a great crowd for the workday. BT and William did a lot of work moving buses around and getting some  work done on the fleet. The 53 Mack crew led by Russ continued to make great progress on the body as we get ready to paint the coach. We moved most of the running fleet back inside  for storage and put the 179 back in the line up near the shed. William got the Chiquita running and we took it around the block several times. It is truly a sweet running coach. The Washington GMC is running well and we still are awaiting the title.

Wednesday night we had a meeting and decided to put the Pumpkin and the Mack in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. We will use the pumpkin for shuttling the participants and the Mack will be in the Parade with the Pumpkin. Russ, Harry and Mel are working to get the pumpkin shined up. Justin has joined us on Wednesday nights and it doing a great job of  helping.

It appears that we will be officially the states museum of transit after having the bill pass the Senate this week. I will let you know when we get the final ok. Thanks to William and Brett for their ideas on how to place this on the coaches.

February 22

It's coming from Alexandria! A 1991 Orion, 40 footer will be joining our collection. It should be headed our way in 60-90 days. It's interesting to note that seven of these same buses will be headed from Alexndria to New Orleans where they may be most needed.

Work continues on the Hampton Mack and it's coming along nicely. Thanks to Harry, Lewis, Mel, Russ, Scooter, William, Justin, BT, Freddy, Ed Charlie, and Bev. Just to be able to mention so many names shows the kind of support we have these days—for which we are very grateful.

JANUARY

January 28

We had a sunny warm January workday and lots of folks helping out. Thanks to Lewis and BT for working on the roof, Russ, Mel and Harry who kept up the work on the Mack. Russ really knows his stuff with the sander!  William and Bev went to Valley Metro for some transmission fluid and advice (mental fluid). Freddy worked on the Grumman back lights while Kenny helped us move buses around and get them oiled, and cleaned.

William called to see if we could get our 4905 delivered and pulled  up a little later with a wrecker towing the bus. He moved it in and also convinced the owner to let us have it for a few days so we could move some buses around in the yard. Special thanks to Eric who came with some donated tools.

Hauled several hundred folks on Friday night and Sunday morning for the Episcopalians. Everything went well—thanks to Joe, Kenny, and BT for their assistance and to all who came on Saturday. A job well done.

January 11

Wow! What a great crew came to the buseum Wednesday. We are making some fantastic progress.

Mel has been stripping the back of the “new” old Mack, which is now all done on the upper door. Lewis and Harry were putting up lights on the walls on each side of the Mack while Russ was working on the damaged back door.

Russ, Ben and Lewis also got doors up entering the new shop area. William and  Scooter were working on the RTS which now starts right up. Then with ith BT and Freddy they worked on the 179 which we are working hard to get started.

Bev visited Billy Myers in Bedford County Wednesday afternoon working on arrangements for the SMT Mack #303 and the ACF Brill—both in this scrapyard. Thanks to Robert Young for taking Bev down there.

January 4

Had a great crowd for this week's worknight. Mel, Harry, and BT worked on the Mack getting lenses off and preparing to start the body work on one of the buses.

William worked all day and moved the 179 outside as well as starting up the Blacksburg 66 GMC.

A great bright spot this week: the AM General is running from its own fuel tank. Many of us remember when Lewis and others worked to get water out of that tank after flooding in 2003. We continue to work on the Richmond Metro and have some computer issues on the ignition system.