Garden Railroading: WDWD - February 14th

Valentine's Day WDWD Happenings

Doug sent along these images and captions for our enjoyment on this very special day - Valentine's Day! The following words are all in Doug's voice.

Fred and I joined Bill in the RGS shops to work on the Glen Hammond station. The task for the day was to complete the plywood sub-roof ready for sheathing with sheet metal.

I had my trusty Canon camera and took pictures as the work progressed.

Since our last workday Wednesday, I had cut the plywood pieces for the sub-roof and Bill had erected the roof rafters.

First step was to fasten the ops bay gable end to the roof rafter. Bill cut the brace and clamped it to the soffit.

Then the gable end was glued and pin-nailed to the brace. Remember, the roof is removeable.

Our attention turned to the main roof which would need to be measured for a notch to fit around the ops bay gable end.

The roof was then notched and put in place...glued and then screwed.

The second half was tackled next. Bracing was cut and glued to the soffit to support the fascia.

These braces required beveling to get a good fit.

Finally the second half of the roof was glued.

And then screwed into place.

The plan is to install a sheet metal roof glued with contact cement to the plywood.

With that in mind, the ops bay roof cannot be installed until after the sheet metal is put in place. A full piece of metal bent in half to completely sheath the main roof is the goal.

Preventing leaks is priority one! Even though the ops bay sub-roof would not be attached at this point, we nonetheless decided we were up for the challenge of cutting the plywood underlay.

The geometry was a bit tricky but we used very hi-tech methods to determine the roof angles. Here you can see Bill measuring while Fred suggests the best approach.

With the measuring done, the roof pieces were cut and trial fitted. The old adage is "measure three times - cut once" but we measured just once and then cut three times to arrive at a reasonable fit for the sub-roof.

And so ended another Wednesday's work. The next step is the fabrication of the sheet metal roofing. This will take some time to get made so there will be a short break in construction. When we resume in a few weeks with the sheet metal roof in hand, we will be back working at Fred's in the IPP&W shops.

Thanks so much for this wonderful update, Doug. You, Bill & Father Fred accomplished quite a bit in a single session!

In other news, last night was our monthly OVAR meeting where a large contingent of OVGRS folk were in attendance.

For the display I brought out models in three scales.

I'll share a few "overall" images from the night and let Bernie & Mark showcase the countless models more closely through the pages of next month's Interchange newsletter where they are the two hard-working editors.

Fred asked me to bring the large scale 40' boxcar which Doug Culham custom painted and lettered. He and Fred made some modifications to the kit and they did a "first rate" job. It is lettered for the Canada Steamship Lines adorned with the number 5. I also brought out the plow/flanger which was built from scratch by the late Doug McKenzie, one of the early members of the OVGRS.

Our guest speaker, Steve Manders, hailed from Kingston and he delivered an incredible presentation with museum quality artifacts set up near the front of the room.

I learned a great deal from his presentation.

A closer look!

This is why I love attending our monthly OVAR meetings - attaining new knowledge and getting to spend quality time with our railroad kin.

Did I mention already the variety of scales in the display?

Well, a third scale joined the fray at this table!

These next three pictures are but a small sampling of the individual locomotives and varied rolling stock found at each of our meetings.

Love the detailing and weathering on these plows!

Simply outstanding modeling!

We have perfectly tiered display stands to showcase the various examples of rolling stock and locomotives.

Such great diversity is evident here as we have models depicting trains from North American and Europe. Often models from other parts of the world show up as well.