How did the opening weekend go at EBT this weekend with the new operator?

The EBT got the season off to a good start. Saturday morning lots of fans with cameras were milling around the yard long before No. 15 backed out onto the turntable, and by train time there were so many passengers on the platform that the crew had to go back for two more open cars. The unfamiliarity of the new computerized cash registers caused a few slowdowns, but they did let riders and gift-shop customers pay by credit card for the first time. Mr. Salone, the president of the new preservation association, was on hand all weekend, working with the railroad's longtime employees and riding at least one train.

More than two dozen Friends of the East Broad Top members were up for a work weekend that involved a lot of painting and continuing structural work on the main shop building as well as some good progress on the restoration of one of the 19th-century combines (purchased second-hand in 1916 from the Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn). The big FEBT news is that a replacement beam installed over the winter in the shops' boiler house has permitted the removal of cribbing that had covered the stationary steam engine for decades. Shop tours will make a lot more sense when visitors can see the engine that powered everything else. This has been a big project for the FEBT -- it involved jacking up a good portion of the shop roof structure -- and it's a really impressive accomplishment. (Not that, as an FEBT member, I'm in any way biased.)

The EBT speeder crew did a good business carrying riders down to the newly cleared portion of the southbound main, which extends as far as route 475. And Saturday afternoon the 1924 M-3 inspection car and three 1920s speeders followed the 3 p.m. train north to Colgate Grove -- I was on that run and I can attest that it was a perfect spring afternoon for rolling past broad green fields and into leafy woods. Couldn't have been any better. Saturday night the trolley museum did an ice-cream event and ran cars into the evening. Sunday was not as busy as Saturday, but it was a good weekend overall.