Peter's Pond Gets a New Station

Peter's Pond Gets a New Station

Indeed, while this was not the intention for this 'Workday Wednesday' things worked out otherwise.

I arrived Fred's at 6:50 AM to beat the crazy traffic in Ottawa these days.

After raking up the natural debris in Craig Leigh and the surrounding area near St. Helens I met with Fred and he thought Peter's Pond could do with a much improved depot.

Indeed, Father Fred is one happy camper!  

We now have a depot at the correct height in relation to the tracks in Peter's Pond.

 

Work commenced shortly after 7:00 AM and the job was completed by 9:00 AM.

A few minutes after I arrived I checked my watch - time to check in on Father Fred to see if he is awake!

The office lights are on...so he must be up already.

"A Har Matie...there he be's!"

The raking is done.

Here is the depot Fred has wanted to adorn Peter's Pond trackside, but she is resting too high on those concrete blocks!

Fred and I discuss how we want to go about the plan.

First off, that old fascia board is rotten so it has to go.

Done!

We've decided to use these narrower concrete blocks that have been lying around the property to form the perimeter of the base.

We will keep the larger block there (and cap it) to deter folks from taking an angled shortcut through the pedestrian crossing.

Using the garden spade and smaller hand trowel I was able to 'seat' the concrete forms down below ground level in order for their top surfaces to mate exactly with the level of the subroadbed.

Then 1/2 inch gravel was shoveled in the open basin.

A view from the front of the station.

Then a layer of crushed stone dust was added.

I even filled the openings in the concrete with crushed stone.

Everything is now anchored firmly in the ground. 

 A level was used to ensure proper alignment.

Fred will change the brake cable for the switch throw to make it a tad longer as it drapes a little over the station platform.

We catch Train Extra 27 arriving the depot in Peter's Pond.

You can see the brake cable angling across the station platform from this view.

She's a mixed train on this day.

The newly installed depot stars in this video effort.

It's "All Aboard" and off we head to Wellington Lake.

Drone view of the depot.

Hovering video surrounding the depot on all sides.

Low angle view of Extra 27's approach into the station at Peter's Pond.

Low angle video runby.

The view from the rear of the depot.

A rear view video look!

Here we find Chris using his phone to measure how much room is available for a station sign. 

Chris sent along this image my way showing his measurement for the width of the end wall of the station.

Video of Chris's photography!

I placed the large block you see to the right of the image and capped it off.  

As mentioned earlier, this is to protect the station from folks taking a quick 'corner' shortcut through the pedestrian crossing.  

The blocks act as gate posts on both sides of the crossing area.

We see a "going away" video!

Final photo of the depot for today.

And...the final video for the day from down in "The Pond".

Following this video, Chris & I cleared out all the small pebbles from the trackwork in the pedestrian crossing as they were causing the freight cars to wobble quite a bit.

Four of the seven WDWD lads are seen in this (final final) image taken at Peter's Pond.

Doug busied himself with the sanding of the dispatch hut.

Pat found many weeds that needed to be addressed along the right of way.

Bill puts a new piece of sandpaper in the sander.

Et voila!  

She's a looking good now Billy Boy...as are you yerself!  🙈

Bill starts in on this side of the hut while...

...Doug encounters a pesky nail on this side!

Pat gets the 'hair dryer' out!

And...later, he strengthens the guardrails for the walkover at Glen Hammond.

You can never tell what the Billy Man is up to!

Aha!  A gate leading into the Nelson Yard Yardmasters' area that screams, "Keep Out"!

Yuppers...that's Bill's hat...but where is his head?

Yup...he's still got it firmly screwed on!

Love the shirt there, Mr. Scobie!

"Hardy Boy Bill" uncovers "The Secret of the Faulty Turnout in Spruce", the best selling of all the Franklin W. Dixon books.

We realize that two of the boards beneath the trackwork in Spruce were laid "cup up" rather than "cup down".  

Perhaps at the time of installation a couple of summer's ago, the boards may have appeared to be in perfect condition.

With the two "cup up" edges meeting, the turnout rides up and then the next section of track rides down creating a vertical kink as well as a slight 'cant'.

This is something that must be addressed on one of our upcoming Workday Wednesdays...just another task to add to the growing list!

The 'proof' is out there in this rather short video.

Bill is startled by the construction 'gunshot' style of sound emanating from the property being worked on across the street from Fred's place.

Pushing a cut of cars in seemed to work okay.

Video evidence.

Pulling a string of cars is problematic.

See what I mean in this video!

We can't leave you with a mishap video having been the last one shown.

So let's check out Train Extra 27 crossing Brennan's Bridge at the Gut in this video!

Last week George came by and anchored the poles for the 'pop-up' tent directly into the concrete patio stones.

Looking mighty fine there George!  👍👍

A Canadian Moment

We catch a work crew in Western Canada some 40 years or so ago toiling for the track gang.

Another Canadian Moment

Their equipment may be fancier than ours, but it is all work just the same!

A Final Canadian Moment

The crew takes a well deserved break just as we do when we visit the crew lounge.

Three photos courtesy of JD Winkler.

Thanks for checking in on this WDWD blog!

I'm off to band rehearsal this evening as my gang of musician friends and I will be performing for the Annual Ottawa and Renfrew County Dementia Society 'Walk For Dementia 2025' in a couple of month's time.

We always remember to thank Father Fred for opening up the grounds of his wonderful property for us all to enjoy...even if it means "work".

Also, a great deal of thanks to all the lads who made it out today to assist in the work effort.

Fred is most appreciative of all that was done on this fine day!

We are the WDWD crew of the OVGRS up here in Canada