Dear Pilot,
Your enthusiasm for solar panels is catching. Or rather, I think my guides find an engine taking an interest in anything that is not their own job so novel that they are eager to encourage it. I must admit, I had some concern that I had created a problem. As I’m sure you know, it doesn’t always pay to be curious as an engine. My guides suppose that being curious about things could be part of our job now though. Or at least that it would be Useful to be.
You’ve asked at an opportune time too. I’m not sure they’d have been able to learn so much and figure everything out for us if they’d been fitting it in between their schoolwork.
The technology is still very new and it seems like the main trouble, if one wanted to make a train solar-powered, is size. Solar panels come in different sizes, but the more power you need, the bigger the panels have to be. The ones they will put on the museum roof are quite big, but we’re told we won’t be able to see them from the ground. There are solar panels small enough to power calculators, but calculators are very small themselves, even smaller than adding machines. There are houses that are run on solar power too, but they still have electricity as a backup if the panels don’t collect enough sun (our museum will still have electricity as well).
So, at present, a train would be too heavy to run on solar power because the panels would have to be too big for it to be efficient. Trains also need to run on time so until solar power can store enough electricity to cover when it is not sunny, trains cannot be run reliably off it.
If they keep working on it – and it sounds quite promising – they might be able to figure out how to make solar panels smaller. Or one could make the train lighter instead, I suppose, but any lighter than me and mine and we’re talking doodlebugs, haha!
They are putting in a whole exhibit about energy to go with the solar panels so people can learn more about it though. The U.S. Energy Research and Development administration is sponsoring it since they’re the same part of the government who gave our museum the grant for the panels. The exhibit won’t only be about solar power, but also other kinds of power we’ve used in the past and other new sources. Once we get the solar panels installed, they’ll be connected to a display in the exhibit that shows how they work and how much energy they’re generating so it will all work nicely together.
As you guessed, it is as busy here as it is at your museum. Our June and July attendance were our highest ever for those months. It feels like every month there’s so many more people that some record or other gets broken again.
The CTA’s culture bus program gets more popular every week as well. They’ve even named the routes for the museums they go to now. They call it the “Van Gogh Van” when it’s going to the Art Institute, the “Orient Express” for the Oriental Institute, “Tut Tut” when it goes to the Field Museum, the “Roots Route” for the DuSable Museum of African American History, and “Go Fish” for the Shedd Aquarium. For ours, the route is called “Your Bus to the U-Boat” which caused some dismay in the yard. We have so many things here, I do wish it were a little less specific. I get the impression U-505 would prefer not to be the focus either, but he is the most popular exhibit here so it’s hard to argue with putting your best seller forward. Certainly that is what the Q would have done and it does mean people come to see all the rest of us too.
We don’t have a library per se; I’m told it’s called an archive here because it’s not just books and papers but all the objects the museum keeps but doesn’t currently display. They have cabinets and shelves to keep everything organized. The main thing is keeping it all clean and dry. If there’s too much moisture in the air, it can cause damage over time, so the temperature and humidity are controlled to protect all the museum’s stored exhibits.
I asked if moisture in the air was bad for us out on the lawn. They said it was complicated, and then that we shouldn’t worry. As far as museum exhibits go, we’re built to weather the elements and are very sturdy.
I think about that sometimes though. I’ve always been considered delicate for an engine; 999 likes to tease me about it sometimes. She likes to say she doesn’t know how an engine could break a speed record being as careful as I was. If she’s ever crashed though, you’d never know it because whatever she hit surely got the worse of it. When you’re built light, you have to be more mindful because as fragile as we are, people are even more so.
Mr. Lohr had several heart attacks before he passed away, but he loved the museum so much he kept coming back after each one, perhaps before he really should have. I am relieved then – for you and for him – that your Mr. Hansen has decided to pull back a bit, even if he doesn’t exactly need to. We all have our limits. We all need to be overhauled every so often. He seems like a sensible sort and I’m sure he’ll be back at the museum as soon as he’s recuperated.
In the meantime, it sounds like the rest of you are looking after each other and have the place well in hand.
Your friend,
Pioneer