Everyone stands around talking in low tones. The black, white and crimson squares of the museum floor are awash in yellow electric cables as thick as your thumb. Outside in the parking lot the tender, removed earlier today, waits on a truck. The problem is that the I-beams are a couple of inches too long to fit through the doors. So they are going to slide the locomotive onto the back of the flatbed while it's still indoors.
People consult quietly.
Ray Hutt, Peter Liebhold and Steve Lubar of the American History staff join in. The riggers, big men, big all over, in straining T-shirts, their hard hats on backward, look to the transportation curator, Bill Withuhn. The project manager looks up at him. She wears her hard hat straight on, with her chestnut hair flowing down behind. A museum specialist in the history of technology, she has been a project manager for four years.