Started out yesterday by soldering the uprights to the pennies on 6 new switchtands. After burning myself twice, I decided to do something else! So I set about demolishing the house instead! Divided the living room into a living room/Den area finally, still gotta sort through some magazines and such and store them away. Gonna have to build to more shelves as well.
Today's my last day of work before th trip to Cass. Lots to do tomorrow, before leaving on Thursday. Plan to leavin on the morning and stay in the Company House on Thursday night , then ride the train to Spruce on Friday. Friday evening will stay in a motel and then over to to Durbin to ride the Rocket (Climax Powered) on Saturday. All three classes of geared steam in two days! May come home on Saturday evening or not depending on where we poke around on the way home.
Thursday, September 2, 2004, 0830
Begin the sojurn to Cass today, really looking foreward to a healthy dose of bituinous smoke and saturated steam. Not to mention being out of town and having time to think in general.
Once the main yard is in service, I beleive operations can commence featuring Shay No7 and Mike No8. I feel that they can be used pretty much interchangeably at theis point. The manaagement evaluating the 2-8-2 arrangement verses the venerable Shay. No2 will be assigned as the Brick Plant Switcher, with No7 switch hitting in the Cassville Yard, and the Port Lavender Shifter. At this point, Port Lavender will just be an extention of the run , with trains only going into Cassville Yard simply to drop the tail cars and road engines running round the train. As far as freight movements are concerned, cars for the brick plantcan be dropped on the siding at AC No1 to handle. As long as theres not a coal drag switching at AC No1 the yard tracks there can be used to set cars out of the way . The way freight can then continue on to Anns Creek with just the cars destined for the Co Store and the freight Depot.
Saturday, September 4, 2004 0830
Cass was excellent! just the sort of steam fix that I needed to get really enthusiastic. Went from Cass to the Oates Run tank, then down the hill to Spruce, from there we went up the old GC&E main to The Big Cut, then down to Spruce to let the crew go to beans, then went the opposite direction down the line to the Twin Bridges. Motive power was Shay No11, Old girl looks great and runs beautifully. Got to see Western Maryland No6 under power and No2 and No5 were parked at the Shop, as well as Heisler No6.
Today I'm in Durbin getting ready to go ride "The Durbin Rocket" on the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Scenic RR. Its a shorter trip than at Cass, but one that I've never done before. Really looking foreward to it!
