It wasn't quite as perilous as I made it sound. Everyone involved is pretty much aware that (a) this stuff is heavy and dangerous and (b) it's also irreplaceable. One of the reasons we got relatively little done for three-plus hours' work was because we were moving everything slowly and as carefully as we could (except for the silly stunt with the PCC, but it turns out that there is apparently a slight sag in the tracks at that point and the car probably would have stopped on its own anyway).
For example, the motorman called down to the lot of us surrounding the car on all sides -- maybe eight of us, each person keeping an eye on a particular switch or truck. "Only one of you," he said, pointing at the person who would authorize movement, "can say 'start,' but anyone can say 'stop.' Also, the command to stop is 'stop,' not 'whoa' or anything else."
I called a "false stop" once myself, while we were moving cars on the museum's "main line," when I saw one of the volunteers trotting over from the car barn waving his arms. Waving your arms repeatedly is usually a "stop" signal, and I thought he might have seen a problem from a distance that none of us had seen, so I called "stop," but it turned out to be nothing. Better safe than sorry, though, and nobody complained.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-04-24 09:58 pm (UTC)For example, the motorman called down to the lot of us surrounding the car on all sides -- maybe eight of us, each person keeping an eye on a particular switch or truck. "Only one of you," he said, pointing at the person who would authorize movement, "can say 'start,' but anyone can say 'stop.' Also, the command to stop is 'stop,' not 'whoa' or anything else."
I called a "false stop" once myself, while we were moving cars on the museum's "main line," when I saw one of the volunteers trotting over from the car barn waving his arms. Waving your arms repeatedly is usually a "stop" signal, and I thought he might have seen a problem from a distance that none of us had seen, so I called "stop," but it turned out to be nothing. Better safe than sorry, though, and nobody complained.