Tuesday, December 4, 2001: CRANE DAY! (Page 2)

The crane swings the caboose into position over its trucks on the rails!

As we attempt to position the caboose over its trucks, our crane operator discovers something a little alarming: the caboose's box weighs around 20,000 lbs ... not the 12-14,000 lbs we estimated. Because this weight is approaching that 25,000 lb capacity of the crane, he is unable to postion the caboose directly over its trucks without tipping the crane over! This calls for a little engineering ingenuity: we decide to roll a set of trucks up under the far end of the caboose, lower the caboose onto that one set of trucks, reattach the straps, and then gently scoot the caboose on the one set of trucks down the rails until the other end is positioned over the remaining set of trucks! Follow that? Take a look ....

After the caboose is attached to one set of trucks, and balanced sort of on the other, we undo one set of straps and move the other set closer to the crane so that we will be able to lift just that end .... and keep the crane upright!

The caboose is slowly moved forward to position it over the last set of trucks ...

Just about in the right spot ....

Nels watches as the crane lowers the caboose onto the last set of trucks.

... a little lower ....

... just a little lower ...

By 1:00pm .... Done! Mission Accomplished!

WELL DONE GUYS!!!

Hey ... there's a caboose in the yard!

Kris and Sally climb aboard!