Maintenance of the right of way and other stories

With more hospitable weather and the impending operating season approaching for our miniature railway, it was time to begin to prepare the miniature railway track for the new season. 

In the images below, we see the first work train of the season in action. We worked to replaced the removable track sections and relaid a connecting track section which was disturbed by the NBA event  activities over the winter. Although there is more work to do, the circuit is complete and was quite usable for work train service, a promising sign.

Another image below shows an equipment plate currently nailed to a pillar in stall 31. In the latter days of the roundhouse stalls 31 and 32 were used as a battery-charging shop. We still have the large glass rectifier in the museum and the high-amperage electrical connectors are preserved in their original locations on the wall.

As announced earlier, Leon's Roundhouse store has now closed and the final two photos show store manager Gigi doing some last cleanup and "the red arm chair" in the resulting space. The red armchair was made locally famous by photographer Norm Betts in our early years. During the roundhouse renovations Norm shot the chair in various locations amid the construction. I thought this image (although not to Norm's quality) made a good bookend to the saga.

Posting and images by Michael Guy

Click on each image for a closer look!