THE RAILHEAD

Calendar of events for the Pikes Peak “N”Gineers 2006

December

January

Business & Corporate Meeting

December 15 is the annual corporate meeting. Elections of officers will be held during this meeting. Other items on the agenda for this meeting are working on the events calendar for 2007. Bring some snacks for a short party after the meeting and items for s swap meet.

Calendar for 2007

Items to be discussed for 2007 are the club trip, shows, module work sessions, clinics, and other items club members would be interested in. Bring your ideas so we can get them listed on the calendar.

Party & Swap Meet

After the corporate meeting there will be a small party of snacks and drinks. During the party for those who wish to bring items for trade or sale will display them and you can see if there is an item you really have to have.

Great Train Expo

We met at the storage unit around 12:30 pm and loaded the MTL and went to lunch. We arrived at the show around 3 pm and finished setting up about 6:30 and headed home. The Peck’s met Lester at the park & Ride in Monument and headed for Denver. Upon our arrival we met Paul and set about setting up trains to run and check track for loose connections. Rick showed up just before the show opened. The event was crowded most of the day. Lester was finally able to find some passenger cars for his Rock Island Rocket to use with the E6 B unit. Mike challenged the Gremlins by running a 91car train. Later in the day a few Gremlins came out and all those issues were resolved. Craig Klienman showed up in a wheel chair. He fell on his driveway after the last storm and broke his hip.

On Sunday Lester, Chris, Mike & Mary carpooled up to the show in the snow. Made it hard to see trains along the way. We were setup and running trains 10 minutes before show time and Mike made the error of saying just wait till the crowd arrives and the Gremlins will come out. He was right. We had a few derailments and a couple of the controllers wouldn’t work. Then boom all was well again. As the day proceeded we did have some track issues, but were repaired by replacing rail joiners that were loose. A couple of strangers showed up. Charley Bay and Steve Bentz arrived around noon and told us about the heavy snow on Monument hill. Then it started to snow in Denver. Just before the show closed the snow stopped. We tore down and loaded the MTL in an hour and were headed home.

Holliday Village Event

We loaded the MTL in the snow on Wednesday evening and headed for Fort Carson. Upon arrival we found the facility closed and no one around. Rick went to check at Headquarters to see if there may be someone to help us. This is when we found out the base was closed do to the storm. We made a quick plan and left the trailer at the site and headed home. Mike received a call the next morning and found out there was a misunderstanding in the times of our arrival. Calls went out to everyone to see if they could help setup 2. A group showed up and we set the MTL up in the dark until we could get some lights on. When the show opened Thursday night we were ready. We had a steady crowd Thursday and Friday nights. We arrived Saturday to run and found out that do to another snowstorm the base was closed and the event cancelled. So we headed home and waited for Sunday. The sky was clear and we headed to the show.

We got to see another stranger at the event. Mike Lindenbusch was there to run his tank train, which was a big hit. We had a few train wrecks and other gremlins. Some of the gremlins we had were in the form of small hands reaching over the Plexiglas. The most interesting gremlin occurred later Sunday. All of a sudden Lester and Chris’s trains quit running. While Lester was working on that problem Mike’s train stopped working. Lester disconnected his throttle from the power unit and then Chris’s train started running again. Then Lester discovered that Chris had control of his train even though he was disconnected. After a quick look under the layout Lester found the problem. Someone had crawled under the layout by the yard and unplugged the wiring underneath. Then plugged red into yellow and yellow into red. Blue line was just unplugged. After that everything ran fine.

We received many thank-yous for attending the event. We received many compliments on the layout. We were able to give some advise on repairs to HO equipment and maybe turned some into “N” Gaugers.

Mike L running his tank train with Santa in the back	Chris watching the trains go by.
Lester’s Christmas train	Rick’s 12 days of Christmas train wreck

Rio Grande La Veta Pass Route

The club decided to ride the Rio Grande La Veta Pass Route for the club trip this year. Suggestions for when to go are sometime in May or June or maybe on the 4th of July. Mike is checking into dates, times and pricing. Upon checking out the web site there are 13 different trips one can put together. A round-trip ticket for the Alamosa to La Veta & La Veta to Alamosa trip is $40 for adults, $25 for child, and $30 for seniors. I’ll get the breakdown on ages for child and senior. The train leaves Alamosa at 10:00 am seven days a week. We could car pool down early in the morning ride the train and carpool back home. Another thought would be to carpool down the night before ride the train then head home. Think of what you would like to do and bring it a meeting so we can get this scheduled A.S.A.P.

Work Sessions

Now that the weather has turned colder we have moved the work session on the MTL to Mike P’s garage. We can work on two modules at a time on the table setup. Most of the repair work has been to replace damaged track, add toggle switches to power sidings, and repair anything that has been damaged. Mary has been repainting the backboards as needed. I’ll be adding the work sessions to the calendar of events section when they are scheduled.

Articles for the Railhead

I need articles and photos for the railhead. I’ll keep pumping out small articles on Colorado railroads, but I need your input on your favorite roads you would like to see in the railhead. I could use any clinic articles you would like to share or see. I may have to resort to having Mary give me recipes to put in the Railhead.

Train Showcase Hours

Ran into Ron at the GTE show and I asked him his hours at the store. So here goes. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the hours are 10 am to 6 pm. Saturday hours are 10 am to 1 pm. These hours are good till May.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each and everyone of you!!!

Drive safe for the holidays and have a blessed Christmas and New Year.