Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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GTW Dude
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Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

Unread post by GTW Dude »

Hey all, just wanted to let you guys know but tickets for the Michigan Transit Museum summer trains have gone on sale. If your interested you can find the link on our website here: http://www.michigantransitmuseum.com/tr ... edule.html

Our first date of operation is on June 5th and goes throughout the summer. Hope to see you out there!

-Gabe
Last edited by GTW Dude on Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:07 am, edited 2 times in total.

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AARR
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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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Thank you for letting us know
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

GreatLakesRailfan
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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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Does this mean that you can't buy tickets before boarding the train anymore?
~ Charles W.

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GTW Dude
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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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GreatLakesRailfan wrote:
Sun May 22, 2022 7:44 pm
Does this mean that you can't buy tickets before boarding the train anymore?
No, you are still able to buy tickets before boarding the train.

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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

Unread post by GP30M4216 »

Great to hear and hope you have good ticket sales throughout the season this year! Anything new cooking with the equipment stored at the Mt Clemens Sub end of the line? I heard last year some work was ongoing to a few of those pieces and a general cleanup and organization of storage equipment and items.

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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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Things are looking up for the museum this year. the equipment at West Yard as it is called has been getting some very well needed attention and membership applications are up!

At some of the first work sessions of the year, two of our members, Alex and Rachel,worked on clearing up all of the documents and tools in the Milwaukee road and Hygrade reefer cars along with the GTW Express boxcar. Rachel figured out that our Hygrade car was actually used to transport hotdogs it's entire life moving back and forth between manufacturing plants. She is doing an ongoing repaint and re-decaling/lettering of the entire car which it has desperately needed. Alex also did some small repaint work on the GTW Express boxcar repainting the white line and GTW red noodling on one side of the car. Currently, he is working on re-doing the lettering on some of our boxcars and has outlined old markings that have faded over the years. So far, the work done to these pieces of equipment looks really good and will definately go a long way to preserving the equipment on our roster.

Some of our equipment is located on parts of the track where we do not have the ability to access them well. A problem we have is that one or two of our cars are not in a condition to be moved around at this time and we do not have the ability to put them off on a siding or even pull the cars out temporarily to work on them so we must make-do with what we have at the moment along with a strict budget to work on said pieces until we can access others which will hopefully be solved sometime during the season.

As some of you may know, our main locomotive USAX 4040 recently had a problem with it's cooling fan which needs to be fixed before we can run anymore trains this season. Outsourcing for parts on even a CAT remotored Alco can be a pain but hopefully the wait won't be too much longer.

This past weekend a group of volunteers including myself, went on a MOW train consisting of our Fairmount Ox Car, Speeder, Flatcar, and Skeleton Car to cut branches along the ROW that were previously hitting our passenger cars. Unbelievably, we managed to get the entire ROW all the way up to Gratiot IN ONE DAY. Something i had been told by our speeder driver Max Bozarth, hadn't been done close to that in YEARS. On the second day we went back out with the MOW train and cleaned up all of the sticks and branches we had cut and left alongside our mainline and loaded them onto the train to be disposed of. So now, the entire ROW from North Ave to Gratiot has been cleared.

All around, it's looking like a really great year for the museum. A lot of equipment is getting much needed attention and we have a lot of friendly volunteers ready to help when the time comes. I would encourage anyone who may be interested to join the museum as we are always looking for new members to join and can always use an extra helping hand around the museum or equipment. Even if that's not your thing, we'd love to have you on one of our trips out to the Selfridge gate and back. I'll probably be your car host or conductor in training.

Heres to hoping the season goes better than expected :D

-Gabriel
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Last edited by GTW Dude on Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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More photos.
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AARR
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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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Thank you for the report on your equipment. You have an interesting collection.
PatC created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Don Simon no more they want AARR I'm chopped liver, well if you want AARR this is what I'll give ya, bad humor mixed with irrelevant info that'll make you roll your eyes quicker than a ~Z~ banhammer...

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MP73point4
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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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I recently came across this picture of 4040 in service in Morocco ca. 1953. It must have been almost new. Note the European style couplers and buffers.
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http://baldwindiesels.railfan.net/rs4tc/usaf4040-dh.jpg
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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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Yep, that’s our 4040. That must have been when she was re-gauged to fit the 5 foot track over there. She was equipped with special trucks which allowed her to be re-gauged easily should the US Air Force need to ship her elsewhere before MTM received her.

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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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So, a little more to the story behind the photo of 4040 in Casablanca. The picture was actually taken by my dad who was stationed there from 1953 to 1955 while in the Air Force. He wasn't interested in trains, he just took pictures of various things around the base while he was there. Now 70 years later, he has a son interested in trains that made the connection to this engine at MTM. He grew up in Michigan, took this picture in Morocco, and here that engine is in Michigan today, 70 years later! Quite a coincidence.
He's still kicking, 87 years old now. He lives in Ohio, and I'd love to get him up here to ride behind it sometime. You'll have to get her running again.
The 4040 may very well be the first of this model, RS-4-TC, built. It has the earliest in-service date for this model (7/53 vs 10/53) even though US Army #1247 has a lower construction number.
Also, here's a link to the builder photo below. Interestingly, it has conventional couplers here. I suppose that was so it could be shipped to a port for shipment overseas.
https://rrmuseumpa.andornot.com/permalink/archives11000
Image
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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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GTW Dude wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:05 am
Things are looking up for the museum this year. the equipment at West Yard as it is called has been getting some very well needed attention and membership applications are up!
Is there any particular reason you guys only operate on Sundays?

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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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MP73point4 wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 2:35 pm
So, a little more to the story behind the photo of 4040 in Casablanca. The picture was actually taken by my dad who was stationed there from 1953 to 1955 while in the Air Force. He wasn't interested in trains, he just took pictures of various things around the base while he was there. Now 70 years later, he has a son interested in trains that made the connection to this engine at MTM. He grew up in Michigan, took this picture in Morocco, and here that engine is in Michigan today, 70 years later! Quite a coincidence.
He's still kicking, 87 years old now. He lives in Ohio, and I'd love to get him up here to ride behind it sometime. You'll have to get her running again.
The 4040 may very well be the first of this model, RS-4-TC, built. It has the earliest in-service date for this model (7/53 vs 10/53) even though US Army #1247 has a lower construction number.
Also, here's a link to the builder photo below. Interestingly, it has conventional couplers here. I suppose that was so it could be shipped to a port for shipment overseas.
https://rrmuseumpa.andornot.com/permalink/archives11000
Image

Good news, 4040 as of today was up and running with new bushings for her cooling fan. She ran 5 trips today with 1 test run and 4 revenue runs. She ran amazingly cold with the temperature of the engine barely reaching 180. She is back and ready to go for the season.

I showed the photo of 4040 in 1953 to a few crew members today and they were surprised. There’s only a handful of photos of 4040 in 1953 or in original form for that matter and the photo you posted we were unaware about. Alex, our head mechanical guy confirmed to me today that 4040 was in fact first of her class as you stated. 4040 is a very interesting locomotive to say the least and definitely a unique one to operating in Michigan.

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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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NS3322 wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 4:03 pm
GTW Dude wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:05 am
Things are looking up for the museum this year. the equipment at West Yard as it is called has been getting some very well needed attention and membership applications are up!
Is there any particular reason you guys only operate on Sundays?
We are 100% volunteers and all of us come from 5 minutes to an hour away. A lot of us have full time or part time jobs so we can’t operate throughout the week. Saturday we use to work on equipment and do MOW work. In turn, this allows us to operate Sunday which also means larger ridership because more people have Sunday off. Not just visitors but volunteers too.

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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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GTW Dude wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:05 am
Things are looking up for the museum this year. the equipment at West Yard as it is called has been getting some very well needed attention and membership applications are up!
Hey I just wanted to give a shoutout for this valuable update and for all the work being put in! Trimming branches, doing trackwork, detailed painting and lettering isn't the most glamorous work, but it's all necessary to run and maintain a museum collection and operation right. Getting some fresh paint on storage boxcars and reefers doesn't add a dime to the operation bottom line, but paint protects the metal beneath, and if the metal degrades too much - then it's not worth storing anything inside. The lettering and other paint details are fascinating, too. I think the general public visits a tourist railroad/rr museum operation expecting a certain amount of "character," but completely ratty looking equipment doesn't inspire to come back again, or assume that thing are in good mechanical repair.

Anyhow, thanks for sharing this update and best of luck making additional progress this year when the temp isn't hovering at 100 degrees!

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Re: Michigan Transit Museum Tickets On Sale!

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NS3322 wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 4:03 pm
GTW Dude wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:05 am
Things are looking up for the museum this year. the equipment at West Yard as it is called has been getting some very well needed attention and membership applications are up!
Is there any particular reason you guys only operate on Sundays?
Museum is all volunteers, no one is paid and to gather enough volunteers to do train rides we keep it to only one day a week and the best availability.

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