Large Scale Central

Canadian Ops Session

Operations
#1

Some of the members of the OVGRS (Ottawa Valley Garden Railroad Society) that operated on the IPP&WRR (Ironwood Peter’s Pond & Western) are traveling through Carlyle, Illinois in September with a stop over on their way to Marty Cozad’s. Besides some Southern Illinois hospitality, a Bar-B-Q, and some tourism in St. Louis, we are planning one or two evenings of ops sessions on th KVRwy. The pressures on. We hope to get some of the GGRC (Gateway Garden Railroad Club) members to join us, but we have never tried a midweek, evening ops. The GGRC is quite a spred out group, with many of the members living 50 miles away and some living over 100 miles from Carlyle. We’ll have to see how much we can put together. As posted earlier, http://www.largescalecentral.com/LSCForums/viewtopic.php?id=6256 we always has things to do, to improve the ops between sessions. One of the big projects was an additional siding inside the basement on the Southern Branch. This would eliminate bottlenecks and also allow for a limited ops session in the basement during bad weather or when I want to mess around by myself in the cold of winter or, as now, in the heat of summer. This is the Southern Branch -

In the above picture, if you look hard at the right middle of the picture, you can see the plug where the track goes to the outdoors through a baesment window. Here it is from the other direction -

If you look in the upper middle of the picture along the left border, you can see the wye, that the new Southern Interchange track will bypass. These are old pictures of where the new track and plywood framing will go. The heat is on, 93 degrees at 6pm, Sunday evening and expected to hit 100 degrees in the next couple of days. The new plywood framing is complete and was lifted into place today. Its screwed, glued and braced enough to remove all clamps, but some additional bracing will be put in before roadbed and track are started. If this temp stays like this, a lot will be completed this next week. New pictures will be posted shortly. (I have to put in a disclaimer for Jan - she says she wants everyone to know that I am responsible for cleaning the train areas in the basement if I’m going to broaadcast these pictures to the world of the internet. Consider that now done and I can go back to enjoying my shop and what’s in it. To complete this project, all that has been purchased is a 4 x 8 sheet of 1/2 inch plywood.)

#2

Tell Jan that is a horrible mess , and NO WHERE ELSE in America , is there that kind of a bad mess , other than what Ric has done … :slight_smile:

#3
Dennis Paulson said:
Tell Jan that is a horrible mess , and NO WHERE ELSE in America , is there that kind of a bad mess , other than what Ric has done ................... :-)
ya haven't seen mine yet............;)
#4

amateurs

#5

Okay, I owe you a progress report and some fresh pictures. We are adding the “Southern Interchange” track on the Southern Branch in the basement. Compare this picture with the one above

This is the look from the other direction, the glue bottle is sitting on the “Southern Interchange” and you can see the “Southern Branch” mainline coming in from the basement window.

This is where the “Southern Interchange” will bypass “Luke’s Wye” to allow interchange and car storage.

And yes, I have gotten around to actually starting to lay roadbed and track. (its not all plywood) This last picture was taken with the flash on.

#6

Ric, It’s looking good, but you do know, your having just too much fun…

#7

Maybe I’ll be allowed out in Sept

#8

We are two weeks out from the Invasion of the Canadians. Doug Matheson and I have been working feverishly with RailOps and everything else trying to make this an enjoyable and not to stressful experience for anyone, including myself. Watts had some used 1600 turnouts and that really allowed me to advance the trackage at the KVRwy to a level not expected to be reached for another couple of years. We have had the industrial complex in the basement (the Timesaver Industrail Yard at J. Allen, that many of you have seen at the ECLSTS) and we now have an outside industrial complex, KV Water at Consoldiated. There has also been an increase in re-opening old coal seams along the right of way outside and another industry at Sweetwater. All this adds to the freight traffic and actually moves the major traffic from tourism cars and rail busses to minor freight traffic and tourism during the summer months.

Traditionally, we have had a Spring OPs Session on the last weekend of April and the first weekend of November is the schedule for the Falls Ops. This additional special event OPs Session for our northern friends has pushed and proded the maintenence and improvements. The KVRwy can now brag to having all equipment equipped with Kadees and many of them are now body mounted. That is except for the log disconnects that are still link and pin. Coal traffic from the mines outside goes to the basement to the processing plant at Owl’s Bend, before heading for Fiddle, our gateway to the world market, or for any local use. Lumber is now hauled exclusively outside from KV Cabins, that has opened up a whole new timber range, to Log Siding at KV Water Industrial Park. Where it is transferrred to trucks to be taken to the local saw mills. So the only time logging equipment will be found in the basement is for storage or maintenance. Chemicals for the natural taste of Ski at Excelsior Bottling Plant #2 is totally shipped from Fiddle, but the water comes from the new pumphouse at Sweetwater and is once again hauled by rail.

Passenger traffic is still an ongoing revenue producer for the rail enthusiast along the KVRwy and we now can boast about private car traffic running between KV Cabins, our mountain log camp retreat, and Old State Light, the major tourist attraction in the area.

As this event gets closer, we’ll get some pictures posted and keep you all informed, if your interested.

#9

Hope you guys have LOTS of fun. Maybe one of these days I’ll get out there and make sure your doing it right!..:wink: