Workday Wednesday September 11th

WDWD September 11th

A gorgeous morning today found four lads out in Fred's backyard.

Pat toiled with yard maintenance while Bernie worked with the labeling machine and moved a few industries around.

Fred handled some rolling stock maintenance while Mike worked at the far eastern end of Ironwood placing two structures to new locations.

We find Bernie using the blower to clean up the area where he moved around a couple of industries.

This is the new location of Ellens Elevator seeing as Chris had created the industry from scratch!

The larger green building sitting on the mainline in back will be moved to a new location on the railroad.

We now have a specific spur designation for the Mackenzie Lumber industry and for the Ellens Elevator.

Ranger Rick keeps a continuous lookout for forest fires from his perch in the tower!

Pat kept himself occupied with weeding and trimming back the bushes close to the right of way.

He uses two pieces of rolling stock to check the clearance tolerances along the line.

A much needed break as Pat chats with Father Fred about this coming Saturday's operations.  

Pat has informed us that this Saturday is HOTRAK but he, like Dilip, will come to the OVGRS session in the morning first and then make his way over to the HO set-up in the afternoon.  Thanks, Dilip & Pat.  

Without you both helping to boost our numbers we might not have a session seeing as many are away at the Narrow Gauge Convention in the States as well!

Here's Father Fred in discussion with Bernie, Pat & me on this lovely Wednesday morning!

Fred really likes that new belt Lisa & I picked out for him - one with the stretchy material.  

No more 'mooners' from Father Fred!  Hey...I'm just kiddin' ya Freddito!  😎👀😎🙈🙈🙈

Mike (me) devoted my time to setting up and leveling the various buildings to the east of Ironwood.  

Note the new location of the old Mackenzie Lumber structure at the end of the Ironwood Brick sidings.

I also straightened up the abandoned coaling tower in the background that had been leaning precariously against the fence along the back property line.

Here is a lower level look at the scene.  

A possible plan is to have the far coaling tower rebuilt and converted into a mine with an elevated enclosed mine shaft drifting downwards over top the mainline in back towards the nearer brown structure.  That would look really cool!

A final glance at the situation for the time being.  

The two farther buildings are simply supported by some 'Rube Goldberg' assembly of rocks and wood...not permanent as of yet!

Bernie went to town with the trusty 'label maker' and we fixed up old spelling errors and created new industry names.

Yes, we will have a chat with our Train Masters, Dilip & Steve, to let them in on the new names...although, at the moment we have named some industries that are served at the already existing team tracks where the actual new name need not be addressed in the RailOps program.  

The industry name is there but cars designated for the building are sent to the adjacent 'team track' which is already in the RailOps program.

Hey folks, this was the labeled track in Spruce for the last couple of seasons and nobody noticed about the 'swithing' lead!!!  Never heard of a 'swithing' lead!

Situation rectumfied...oops, rectified!  👀

Much better!

"Hey Bernie, while you're at it with that label 'doodad' could you fix up the Hamer Manufactoring sign for me!  

Yes I was good at factoring in math in high school, but I'd prefer to manufacture things!  Heh heh!

Situation rectumfied again...that's 'two bums up'...err...I mean 'Two Thumbs Up"!  👍👍

Ahh...the best facility on the entire railroad!  💖💗💘💝💞

Now, this industry will have to be placed in RailOps as a new destination designation!

The new location of the 'Ellens Elevator' looks great as witnessed in this already shared image!

Note:  With this new Ellens location now found at Lilly, we have decided to rename the 'Ellens Crusher' in Cedar Rock after Bob Clarke.  It is now the 'Clarke Crusher'.  

Yes, Bob already has 'Clarke Grade' & 'Clarke Canyon' named in his honour but 'Clarke Crusher', like 'Ellens Elevator' are both fine examples of Alliteration!

Bernie has sent along these next three images with cars placed at the industries at Lilly.

Bernie wrote:  I got out a tray of cars and populated Lilly. The maximum we should put in there are two cars at each location. For switching out, only one car per industry otherwise there will be no room to switch out two cars. 

The photos show the four cars with enough room to switch out one car from both sides. Actually, you can move two additional cars on the Ellen side, but is difficult enough to switch due to physical challenges bending over and stretching. Might be a brain teaser for some. 

Bernie snapped this aerial shot as well.

Bernie also wrote:

We added Selver Stock Yard at Mont St Helens as a destination. This is because crews are not placing cars in the proper industries, probably because they are in a hurry to get to Ironwood before another crew coming from Spruce. 

Bernie & I have often wondered how hard is it to put stock cars at the stock yard? 

This seems to be the only location where crews throw cars in wherever, even though there is a large switching lead. 

This facility at the far end of the Bravo Lumber spur is the new 'Austin Automotive' warehouse where parts inventory for Ralph Austin's larger automotive facility (located somewhere outside of Spruce) comes in.  

The warehouse has an agreement with Bravo Lumber that boxcars carrying automotive parts are allowed to be dropped off on their siding...so RailOps need not worry about renaming the siding at all.

Bernie had a great idea to name the farther track by the fence line leading out from 'The Corners' to below Mount St. Helens "Brennan Pass"...after Pat Brennan.

Here is the continuation of the Brennan Pass leading into Brennan's Curve at ground level.  The 'Pass' runs beneath the entire length of Mount St. Helens.

Eastbound trains exit 'Brennan Pass' at 'Brennan's Cut' where the rocks had to be blasted to make way for the railroad tracks.  

'Hayes Falls' makes up the one side of 'Brennan Cut' where our good friend, Doug Hayes, took a tumble (fall) while stepping over the rocks at this location - thus the moniker of 'Hayes Falls'.

Here is a photo of the real Brenner Pass located along the Austrian/Italian border.

This industry known as the 'Ice House' track will now be named 'Allardyce Ice' or 'Allardyce Ice House' but RailOps does not require a name change.  

The spotting location can remain as the "Ice House" track even though it will receive the new label with Robin's surname on it beside the tracks.  

Robin keeps his cool along the railroad line when 'the going gets tough' so we figure he has 'ice in his veins'...thus the newest moniker.

The dry gulch will now be known as 'Goodie's Gap' in honour of our hard-working WDWD crew mate, Bernie Goodman.  Sometimes I may reference it as 'Goodman's Gap' as well.  The three bridges that span the gap remain as the Fred Mills Trestle, the Lawrence Watkins Trestle and the Pat Brennan Bridge.

We still have some regular operators whose names do not adorn an industry, a siding or a geographical location.  This will be addressed in the near future!

Hey, we enjoyed a wonderful evening last night at OVAR...great companionship, great models, great food!

I brought out the latest HO project I am working on for an NMRA friend; the Canadian Pacific Engine Service Set #1 from Kanamodels...a Canadian company no longer in existence.

Thus far I have constructed the octagonal 40 000 gallon water tower.  

I have the sand house to construct next and then the coaling tower last.  

For next month's OVAR meeting I will bring the same diorama out with the inclusion of the sand house - to be built.  

Finally, the following month I intend to bring the completed diorama out with the coaling tower completing the scene!

I always promote our large scale aspect of the hobby when I attend our monthly OVAR meetings.  

This D&H car was my 'battery car' when I first purchased my Delaware & Hudson GP38-2 from Gord Bellamy.  

Later, our good friend, Paul Norton, removed the electrical 'innards' and installed them into the engine proper for me.  Thanks Paul!

We always have a great display of models on the two separate tiered display consoles we have at OVAR.  

I won't post other pictures of the great models as our very own Bernie & Mark will do so in our monthly newsletter known as "The Interchange".

I arrived early to the OVAR meeting when I met a lovely gentleman who was putting out four decorative plates on the 'Free' table.  

I thanked him for setting them out and for being a lovely ambassador to the hobby.

I told him that I already have a few decorative plates showcasing Boston & Maine steam locomotives.  

He offered the four plates to me but I told him to leave them on the table seeing as other OVAR members may be interested in CP and CN decorative plates.  

Love the double-header shown on this plate...a true "Symphony in Steam"!

At the end of the evening when Bernie and I were helping to close up shop in the hall, the plates were still there.  

Nobody had taken them...so I have brought them home to bring out to Father Fred's to be placed somewhere in the boardroom or his workbench green room.

Perhaps we may be able to hang one or two under the canopy in the great outdoors along the back wall where the cupboards are hung...if that is feasible.

At any rate, the subject matter is glorious!  

Indeed it is a "No Contest" between the automobile and the steam locomotive!

Lovely!

Love this scene of the 'yard goat' hard at work in Toronto!

Indeed, the diminutive locomotive is working "In the Shadow of Giants" dwarfed by the towering Royal York Hotel.

Gorgeous!

Aha!  A diamond in the rough!  Not a CP nor a CN locomotive!

Indeed a 'diamond in the rough' is spotted 'hitting the diamond' along the route of the Baltimore & Ohio!

And all of our OVGRS members are diamonds to us all!

To all of our American friends of the OVGRS we keep you in our hearts on this eleventh day of September.  May we never forget.

Thanks for checking in on our Workday Wednesday blog entry!

I'm digging way back into the history books as I had visited ancient Rome some 15 or so years ago.

Hey Fred, while the Trevi Fountain is a beauty to behold...it never did hold a candle to our very own 'Peter's Pond'!

Here's our handsome Father Fred!

Our weather forecast for this coming Saturday's session is very much in our favour so we are all smiles.

We will miss those members who are down south at the Narrow Gauge Convention as well as those who are attending the HOTRAK local set-up.

Fortunately we have a sufficient number to run all trains with mostly single-person crews.

We are the WDWD crew of the OVGRS from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada