Abraham Lincoln and Caterpillar

Kim and I with the Lincoln Family

Yesterday we went to the Abraham Lincoln Museum and Presidential Library here in Springfield, IL. Everyone should visit this museum. The presentations are so modern. There are times when you think the presentation is a real person and not a media presentation. I came away learning a few things. One thing was that most everyone opposed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The blacks thought it was too lenient and the whites thought it was too strong. Lincoln gave his life for his country even before he was assassinated. He had an ideal and wouldn’t sway from it. Another fact is that Lincoln finally got some relief from the civil war when Lee surrendered – just 6 days before his assassination. One other thing is that two years before Lincoln’s death, his son Robert fell down beside a railroad car at a station and was pulled up by another young man. The man who did this was John Wilkes Booth’s brother. The museum made me appreciate my freedom and the price that was paid by our patriots.
Today we visited the Caterpillar diesel engine plant in Peoria. They make over 500 engines a day. It was a fascinating place. The robots were amazing. There are so many robots that are supervised by so few workers. The engines start down the line with just an engine block that is from the foundry and the machines drill all the holes and thread everything. It is just quite amazing. They used to have 15% failure (of some sort) in the test room. Now they have a wet test system that spins the motor at 600 RPM (with no fuel) but computers check over 300 things and find faults before the engine is fully assembled and this catches reoccurring problems earlier on the line and also cuts the engine failure in the test room to under 5%. Engine test time is reduced and this saves them lots of diesel fuel.