It is that time of the year…Who is planning on joining in for the Fun and friendship ?
Please indicate on this thread…
The Invasion starts on Thursday July 16th, in Bellville Ontario, and ends on Monday July 20th at the Finger Lakes Live Steamers, at Mirango New York.
Full plans for the Invasion will be posted very shortly.
Please direct any questions to me, at: [email protected] or (613) 723-1911
Please make your commitment ASAP, here on this thread.
Thank you,
Fred
Jean and I will be attending the Invasion, but only the Ottawa segment.
Looking forward to it - reminder: NO rain, LOW humidity, cool temperatures. Well, we can hope, can’t we?(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
Anyway, reservations have been made.
Ah, this sounds so fun, Fred. I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know you at ECLSTS. We would truly love to make it up. Sadly though, this will not be our year. Much too much going on in our lives right at the moment. It is on the bucket list when things mellow out some. Hope everything goes well and Bruce gets his weather wishes! I’ll be looking for the photos…
I think I can mosey on up to that thing…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Jan and I plan to make our annual trek. Our plan this year is to spend more time in upstate New York and go up to Barry’s arriving on Wednesday the 15th, to begin the long weekend and complete the Invasion Weekend back at Finger Lakes on Sunday evening. Looking forward to the cooler weather.
Could somebody please get a message to Barry that we will probably not make his ops? We are headed toward Fred’s if Jan’s Dad stabilizes, but I don’t know if I will get up there by Wednesday. Hopefully leaving tomorrow, Monday morning.
Ric Golding said:
Could somebody please get a message to Barry that we will probably not make his ops? We are headed toward Fred’s if Jan’s Dad stabilizes, but I don’t know if I will get up there by Wednesday. Hopefully leaving tomorrow, Monday morning.
I did!
OK, so here it is, Saturday, midnight, on July 18th, 2015. All that is left of the latest INVASION OF FRIENDS, is the Sunday drop-in at Doug Matheson’s, and the Monday operation at the “Friendliest PLACE IN NEW YORK…The Finger Lakes Live Steamers”.
The first part of the INVASION was on Thursday in Bellville Ontario, at Barry Birkette’s place…and a great day it was… then on to Ottawa, and the IPP&W.
I can only say that as host of the IPP&W, two days of operations, that it seems to have been the BEST EVER.
I always am truly concerned that the “Invaders” find friendship and great fun, here, with the regular crew, and other guests…well this year, I watched what I figure was the best ever party, operation, and fellowship, EVER.
After hosting too many of these parties to even attempt a count…I can sincerely say that this one was “THE BEST”.
THANK YOU everyone for all your individual efforts, in joining together and helping us all be proud of the true friendships we all celebrated, while having great operating experiences together, over all the days in Bellville, and Ottawa.
Monday at the FINGER LAKES LIVE STEAMERS will be another day of great FRIENDSHIP…
I guess we should all try to do it again next year…Try to get Ken Brunt to tell us how many years we have been doing this…PLEASE…I’ve lost count. Maybe we should celebrate some sort of record, next year.
Thank you all…
Fred Mills
So glad to hear it Fred. I know it’s a lot of work getting read for a gathering ,or invasion, of this type. It makes it all so worth while when you can walk away with sentiments like that at the end. I sue hope the invasions will continue since I love the chance to be in attendance soon. Hoping some pictures will start to show up here.
Thanks Fred
My first experience at the Invasion, great bunch of people and really enjoyed it. Hope to get down to the next stage at Finger Lakes.
Just a few shots from the day
This was a request.
Friday group picture
There were at least 3 other cameras taking pictures of the group, too.
What a great bunch of people! So glad all is well up north. If I ever won the lotto I’d bus the whole lot out here to the POC.
The IPP&W started a wonderful thing and its fun just to experience everything vicariously on LSC.
Posting this at Friar Fred’s request
Thanks, Fred, for a great invasion.
I’ve posted tons of pictures at my garden blog from the Thursday, Friday and Saturday sessions.
To see pics from Barry’s session in Belleville, check out http://gardenrailroadottawa.blogspot.ca/2015/07/american-invasion-of-friends-visit-to.html
To see pics from Dave’s amazing garden layout in Picton, check out http://gardenrailroadottawa.blogspot.ca/2015/07/american-invasion-of-friends-daves.html
To see pics from our IPP&W standard gauge session, check out http://gardenrailroadottawa.blogspot.ca/2015/07/american-invasion-of-friends-2015-freds.html
To see pics from our IPP&W narrow gauge session, check out http://gardenrailroadottawa.blogspot.ca/2015/07/american-invasion-of-friends-freds.html
Thanks, once again, for a great weekend!
Mike
Thanks Mike !
Wow, what a QUICk visit. And what a lot of fun. It was so good to see everybody again and so much fun to operate. We really enjoyed ourselves, although I think I took the fewest pictures ever.
For us, it started early Thursday morning. After a nice breakfast over at Tutti Frutti with some of the crew, we headed over to the IPP&W for standard gauge operations.
One thing I REALLY appreciated this year was that the sign up list allowed any visitor to sign up for any train, or any position, such as yardmaster. None of the slots were prefilled and it gave us all an opportunity to do exactly what we wanted to try.
Of course, there’s a lot of socializing before you start a session.
Here Jan and Jean catch up while Gary looks on.
Before we started, we had the group photo posted earlier. Here’s my view of the occasion. We gathered in a corner by the town of Bell.
Jean and I started with Train 302. It starts in Firgrove, then Bell Junction, Peter’s Pond and ends up in Nelson Yard.
(And, the software wants to rotate the picture!)
Jean is the engineer and takes the train through Bell. I brought the RS-3 up just for the Standard gauge operations. To the right of Jean is Glen Hammond, then far right is Nelson Yard.
Next, we ran up to Peter’s Pond. Here we helped the train ahead of us do a bit of switching; it’s a lot easier when there’s a locomotive on either side of the cars.
Peter’s Pond is the home of Norton’s Fishery (complete with a giant fish), as well as a number of industries that are only reached by a single track that goes up to the left. There’s no runaround up top, so you want to plan your moves ahead of time.
One of our destinations was my infamous Sludgeworks…
After we left there, it was on to Nelson Yard where we became Train 312.
(Heh…rotated the OTHER way. It shouldn’t be rotated at all…)
Anyway, it leaves Nelson Yard headed to Block House, Spruce, Ironwood, St. Helens, and finally ending up in Craig Leigh.
Here, Train 312 is switching Block House.
While we were switching Spruce, Fred had to perform some emergency repair on a switch in Ironwood.
Later on, I helped Ken and Hank work in Nelson Yard.
I let Jean have the camera while I took out some other trains…
It was sure fun seeing old friends again…
Here, Doug talks with Nicole. Behind Doug is Gaetan (almost hidden), Fred, Ric, and Jan.
Plenty of time to socialize between trains…
L-R: Barry, Paul, Leila, Nicole, Ed, Diane…and somebody’s knees…
Doug ran dispatch for some of my trains. Ric also had a turn…
It got a bit wet on the last run, but I was able to finish the train before everything got put away. (This was Train 68 out of Nelson Yard)
It was a tad cooler up there… Here, it’s down to just Ken and Gary.
Saturday was a bit warmer. Also, time for Narrow gauge operations. I brought my Shay for this one.
Switching Ironwood, below.
Terry showed, up, with Ig.
(There must be a way to rotate these! When you open in new tab, the orientation is correct.)
Later, Jean and I took out the ore train. It starts in Firgrove, picking up all the empty ore cars on the way, and ending up in Craig Leah, with 15 cars. There, it gets the loads and reverses the process.
A good view of part of the railroad: Jean rests at the top of Peter’s Pond. The ore train is making its way up to Spruce. Leila and Chris are switching Ironwood. Way in the back, Stu sits near Mt St Helens.
The ore train passes through Ironwood.
The ore train picks up the last 5 empties and starts to back up to get the caboose in Ironwood.
In Craig Leah. Jean prepares to depart. Ken was the yardmaster.
At the end of the day, John, Fred, and Ken relax.
On Sunday, Jean and I headed over to Doug and Barb for a bit of standard gauge operations. Jean always has to check out Barb’s beautiful flowers.
Paul and I took Train #211. It was 16 cars long and I used my RS-3 as a helper.
A lot of fun! Thanks to all the work from everybody for another successful Invasion!
Well I asked for them and you guys did not disappoint! Thanks for all the pictures every one. Looks like an amazing time. I really need to get up.
Fred, is there a reason for the white guard rails on the switches in the staging yards? Also, in the same yard are different colored circles. Are those just track hold downs, or do they have a deeper meaning?
Randy,
I’m not sure what you mean by the white guard rails. It could just be different metal that has weathered differently? He also paints the ends of some of the ties to indicate clearance points.
In Nelson Yard, they have different colored circles for each of the yard tracks. Then they have a box of corresponding colored pennies. When you’re building the trains, you first assign a color for each train. For instance, you decide that train 312 is going to be red. Then you go through the yardmaster’s switchlist and put a red penny on each car that will go on that train. This just makes it easier to switch the cars - now you can easily determine where each car should be without having to constantly refer to the switch list.
Here’s a closeup of the picture above:
You can see that we’re almost done setting everything up as most of the cars are on the right track. In the lower right you can also see lighter colored guard rails on that switch.
The final phase of the Invasion is the return to Finger Lakes Live Steamers near Clyde New York. Thanks to our gracious hosts, great company and good friendship. Does it look like they are having fun?
The guard rails on those switches have been replaced with Aluminium rail. The original plastic ones were out of gauge, and caused derailments.
Almost all the Aristo wide radius switches used on the IPP&W/RP&M have been rebuilt with new guard rails and brass throw bars.
Thanks Bruce and Fred.
Yes I can see in your photo Bruce, that most of the switching has been done. It looks like Ken is in relaxation mode before heading out!
Fred, I’m sorry to hear you had to go to all that trouble to get reliable turnouts. The angle and lighting must be just right in the first photo where I noticed it. In Bruce’s shot they are much less noticeable. You have a fantastic looking layout and I’m looking forward to making it up for a future Invasion.
