Workday Wednesday Events

WDWD Events From This Week

Chris and I made it over to Father Fred's for the first official Workday Wednesday session of the season.

This follows the hard work put in by a much larger crew the previous Saturday in cleaning up the railroad and surrounding property where we also set up the main lounge area with canopy.  

Structures were put in place around the layout as well.

Fred wanted us to test out the trackwork so I brought along my CN RS3 diesel to put the railway through its paces.

After I had set out a few cars to make up my train in Craig Leigh I noticed a 'noticeable' gap in the rails on the near track in the passenger terminal area.  

I've snapped this image of Chris performing some track maintenance.

Chris has managed to push the rail joiners back in place!

Train Extra 7831 was the first train of the season to run.

This video was shot before the maintenance work was done.

Take note of a few cars wobbling as they cross that substantial gap in the rails.

We are underway in this video movement.

Another look on video from a different angle.

Here is my power on the train CN RS3 #7831.

The crew can check in on the livestock with the stockcar placed immediately behind the headend power.

Such a lovely livery.

The Delaware & Hudson moves coal along the IPP&W.

A triple dome tankcar.

Love the insignia for British American Oil Company on this chemical car.

No loads on the flatcar today.

Another D&H beauty.

The Ironwood Road van pulls up the rear of our train.

We've cleared Craig Leigh and have come to a stop in St. Helens before getting underway once more as exhibited on video.

Train Extra 7831 rolls by the videographer at Ironwood.

Chris continues with the weeding while I check out the trackwork ahead of my train.

Exiting Spruce on video tape.

Video of my train passing beneath 'The Rockery'.

Of planes & trains on video.

The bridge railings require attention as spotted in this video footage.

Passing by the depot in Glen Hammond, I notice the main window on the station has popped loose since the structure was placed out for the season as evidenced in this video.

Without the window I easily spot our dear friend, Lawrence, working away on yet another project at his work table.

Aha...he is constructing this very station for Glen Hammond as noted at the far end of the table!

That's better!

Love the semaphore.

These next few videos will showcase a couple of issues Chris & I encountered in this area of the railroad.

Chris has noticed in this video effort that most of the spikes on the Lawrence Watkins Trestle have come loose over the winter.

He gets down to work to re-spike the rail in place.

Great effort Chris!

In this video I back my train slowly over to the trestle in question when Chris & I notice something rather alarming.

There certainly is some sort of skirmish between trucks and rail as the freight cars move slowly through the questionable area in this video.

In this continued video the yellow reefer seems to have the greatest difficulty passing through the turnout and has been sent to the RIP Track aka Fred's workbench to have its wheel gauge inspected.  

Fred, Chris & I eventually determine that we will have to lift the track at some point in the near future and relay the timbers as there is a strong 'vertical kink' between two adjacent timbers.  

Perhaps some new wood may be required.

This video shows me continuing west through Bellamy and the junction trackage.

My final video from our morning at Fred's shows just how quickly the grass has grown since Dilip mowed the lawn the previous Saturday - and our workday was on the Wednesday!

This is the video Chris shot of me shooting my preceding video!

Pat arrived as Chris and I were tending the fabled 'Rust Garden'.

Why - it's a 'tug of war' as those danged weeds sure can stick to the soil!

Pat drove Fred to The Colonnade Restaurant for their weekly "History Circle" meet and Chris left for home on his bike while I waited for Lisa to pick me up.  

This gave me about 15 minutes more of 'work time' where I was able to fill an entire garbage can with debris over the area where the pond used to exist.

We have ordered a 10'x10' pop-up canopy for the area where the pond used to exist.  

As an addition to our existing crew lounge canopy, it most certainly will come in handy for shade for the lads and lasses during our post-ops lunch!

I also found time to snap a few images of some of the newly donated standard gauge cars to our fleet.

I love this Ironwood Road 40-footer which I believe Doug C. lettered for Fred.  

(Correct me if I am wrong, Freddie!)

How's about this "Blue Boy"!  

Loverly I say!

Who doesn't love multi-coloured freight cars such as this B&O beauty! 

Oh...those were the days! 😍

In other news, our illustrious dispatcher, Doug Matheson made it over to my place this morning to check in on the developments with our O-scale sawmill project.

That's Doug on the right with fellow project participant, Rob Kazakoff on the left.

I created this retaining wall to hold back the elevated land along a future roadway situated on the second segment of the full diorama.

The longer length of basswood indicates an extension I will build to lengthen the wall toward the farther slope.

Doug regales Rob & me with tales from sawmills past.

Rob himself is a true craftsman modeler and expert on all things sawmills.

He has built a sawmill and a machine shop in HO scale in the past.

An aerial shot (with a figure lying down between the wagon and the Linn half-truck).

Some quick video footage showcasing some of the various human roles in a sawmill.

The 'millwright' (head engineer) is the gentleman with the moustache standing in front of the boiler with the overalls and the red shirt.  He is responsible for all of the machinery. 

The 'block setter' (in the green shirt and red bandana) rides the log carriage while the 'head sawyer' activates the levers to control the upper sawblade and the carriage.

Continued video work of the gentlemen who toil in a sawmill.

The 'off bearer' also acts as the 'saw trimmer' and he positions himself between the live rolls and the feed table for the edger.

This next video remains in focus 'close-up' but loses focus as I move away from the mill.

The 'piler' holding the two boards has the role of stacking the lumber on the deck near the shipping area.

This video shows a general overview of the sawmill as it stands now.

Further to activities in this busy train week, I brought out two of Fred's large scale cars to our OVAR dinner meeting on Tuesday evening for display.

I do this to promote our large scale hobby each month.

The pair joins various other models I showcased across three scales (G, O & HO).

My buddy, Rob Kazakoff (who was sitting with Doug in my crew lounge a few images back) gifted me this lovely HO structure of the Drake Theatre.

His rendition of the Nautilus Diner tucks up beside the theatre.

There's Fred's CPRail "International of Main Division" 40' boxcar with the KLWO radio station and Malcolm's Record store which Chris Lyon gifted me sitting up front.

The theme for the meeting was 'non-Canadian' so the "International of Maine Division" fit the bill nicely.

We see Fred's Carnation Milk reefer...from upstate Washington. 

My research tells me that the name "Carnation" for the milk actually came from "Carnation Cigars".  

The owner of the milk company was passing by a cigar shop and saw the name "Carnation" printed on the sign above the store window - liked it and named his milk company with the same name!  

Whodaknown!

And...finally...where's there's Fred...there's lovely ladies!

That's Donna & Felicity sandwiching him!

Our skipper is one happy camper!

Well, that's it for this WDWD blog entry with plenty of variety for you!

We hope to gather this Saturday for one more run-through of trains before our official ops begin two weeks hence...although Mother Nature may have other thoughts!

Let's hope she changes her mind!

We are the OVGRS of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada