Workday Wednesday - October 4th

First Workday Wednesday of October

Doug C., Lawrence, Mike and Fred gathered in the great outdoors in gorgeous summer weather to work away on the railroad.

Seeing as few leaves have fallen and few blades of grass have grown over the past little while there really wasn't too much "gardening" to be done on this fine fall morning.

We enjoyed a great visit and Mike, Doug & Fred learned a few things from Lawrence's latest electrical projects.

I encountered Lawrence at the crew lounge table working away at something that looked rather interesting.

"What could it be?" I thought to myself.

Then I headed indoors to find Fred and Doug hanging out around the famous boardroom table.

Lots of activity going on around here!

Doug had kindly made the labels for the west end of the railroad for us!

They look great, Doug!

We agreed not to put them out for our final session of the season only to be exposed to the winter weather conditions...best to wait until the spring!

Fred was later working away on a D&RGW caboose for George.

The 0505 is a beauty!

Looking good, Fred!

Lawrence tells me that this little processor is just as powerful as your everyday home computer.

He went on to say the school children are given these to see what kinds of concoctions they can come up with!

Love it!

Video of Lawrence in the crew lounge.

I brought out my smaller file to work on that switch that had been causing some grief last week at Bellamy only to find that someone else had already filed the elevated part down already.  

If that was you, Chris...thanks for doing so as the truck I used as a test truck rolled beautifully through the frog!  👍👍

This builder's plate is found high up on Fred's wall in the boardroom.

Later, I found Lawrence and Fred working away in Craig Leigh.

Lawrence was showing Father Fred how the miniature computer could act as a transmitter/receiver.

This would propel the locomotive forward.

Alas, Lawrence tells me that more work has to be done to have the transmitter connect to the receiver.

Each turn of the wheel can be calibrated with the computer...amazing!

Video of Lawrence working away.

I brought along the Dolbeer Donkey Engine I am currently building for our dispatcher, Doug M. in O-scale.

For fun, I placed it in its natural environment.

We're in Ironwood just west of the depot.

She's looking mighty fine!

This has been a rather tricky model to build.

I still have more work remaining to complete the model.

Too much fun.

Much of the piping was built from scratch and materials outside the kit as per kit instructions.

I applied a wash over the boiler - thus the wet appearance as it hadn't dried fully when these indoor photos were taken.

This build is as much a lesson in scratchbuilding as it is in kit building.

Again...there is still much more to accomplish on the model before I can call this project "done".

Video of the Dolbeer Donkey Engine in Ironwood.

Here's a baggage car from Doug Matheson's Northland Railroad, the railroad we exchange cars with in Craig Leigh on a fictitious basis.

I'll be bringing the baggage car out to our next OVAR meeting as it is my goal to display at least one large scale specimen at each of the ten OVAR meetings throughout this season.

Aha!  I found my 40 foot B&M boxcar to bring home for my display table in my crew lounge seeing as there are no more Standard Gauge sessions to run this season.

A look across the street from Fred's driveway.

When I arrived home from Fred's I came across this hole in my brick wall!

Was it a large rat who created it?

No rat to worry about - it was the two lads who are installing a gas stove in my crew lounge in the basement of our house.

Here's the stove as it stands while I am typing up this blog.

Their workbench on the carpet floor resembles many of our model railroad workbenches.

Love the hearth pad.

Coming along nicely!

The elbow.

Heading upwards and onwards into the great outdoors!

Nice finishing touches up at the ceiling.

I'll post images of the finished product in my next blog entry!

Fred and Lawrence outdoors.

Father Fred is relaxed in the boardroom.

Here's hoping that the 100% rain forecasted for Saturday morning's session moves either far north of Ottawa or far to the south to enable us to get our final session of the season in!

All the best, Fred, Lawrence, Doug, Mike & the entire OVGRS group!

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada