Curator of history wendell huffman looks over one of the many unrestored railcars in the museum’s collection.
On the rails The Nevada State Railroad Museum gets back on track after a damaging flood
O
n a Monday afternoon in midApril, a handcar rolled down the track at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City. Working the lever at the center of the muscle-powered car was a family of four. The sound of their laughter carried to where Adam Michalski stood in semi-darkness, peering up with a flashlight into the 45 tons of steel and iron above his head.
The Virginia & Truckee No. 25 steam locomotive was scheduled to run during a special reception for state legislators the following day, but, before that could happen, Michalski and a few of his coworkers needed to service and inspect it to make sure it was up to the job. Standing beneath the train in a service pit cut deep into the cement floor of the museum’s shop, Michalski held a heavy metal plug in his hand—one of four that had been removed from the massive locomotive earlier that day. He had carefully cleaned the plugs and wrapped them in elastic tape before coating their threads in a
mixture of oil and graphite, taken from a coffee can labeled “duck butter.” The greasy concoction had long since spread to his hands, and from there to the crisp blue denim of his new overalls. He had only to place the last plug in its hole. After that, the train could be pulled outside, where his teammates waited with a forklift to boost its heavy steam dome into place. By the end of the day, the train’s tender would be filled with water. If that water came pouring back out of any of the plugs, Michalski would know he’d made a mistake somewhere along the way. It’s worth noting that this work wasn’t out of the ordinary. The museum staff performs maintenance of this sort every year before firing up the trains for the tourist season. It was, however, a first for Michalski. And, as the museum’s curator of education, it was a job that normally wouldn’t fall to him. Lately, however, things at the museum haven’t been entirely normal. “You just never know what you’re going to get each day,” Michalski said. “Like today, I’m working on putting plugs into a
steam locomotive. … I have a meeting about websites on Thursday. Friday, I’ve got an events committee meeting. Sunday is the Easter egg hunt. But, the good thing is, I enjoy it all.” Some of these duties are new for Michalski. With a museum attendant position vacant since August, he’s had to pick up some slack. And he’s not the only one. On the day the No. 25 was serviced, the restoration crew—to whom engine maintenance generally falls—was technically short two people. Restoration specialist Rick Stiver was there but assigned to temporary light duty. Mort Dolan, another veteran of the department, was there, too. But he—like Michalski—represented an extra set of hands, called in to temporarily fill a vacancy he himself created upon accepting a position as the museum’s facilities manager. An hour later, with the steam dome in place, the crew stood chatting as the locomotive’s tender filled with water. Like Michalski, they were all happy to take time out of their schedules for the task. The mood was light as the group joked about what might happen
Story and photoS by Jeri Chadwell-Singley
if Michalski’s replacement plugs didn’t hold back water. In truth, a leaky plug—which there was not—might have posed an annoying setback to the day’s project. But even if the locomotive’s entire 2,500-gallon tender had emptied on the spot, it couldn’t have compared to the deluge that had inundated the same space just a few months before.
Taking sTOck In early January, while the rest of the region kept its eye on the rising Carson and Truckee rivers, a major catastrophe quietly unfolded at the railroad museum. For Michalski, who was there when it happened, it was another first. “I was in my office all day,” he said. “It was just raining.” Heavy rains continued through the morning as Michalski worked on, unaware. By the time Wendell Huffman, the museum’s curator of history, stopped by in the early afternoon, the situation had become serious.
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