PIKES PEAK "N" GINEERS MODEL RAILROAD CLUB
THE RAILHEAD
|
March 2007
|
SEEKING SERIOUS N-SCALE MODEL
RAILROADING SINCE OCTOBER 13, 1989
|
|
Calendar of events for the Pikes Peak "N"Gineers 2007
March
March 12: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
March 16: Load the MTL and head for Garden City, KS
March 17 & 18: Boot Hill Club Show in Garden City, KS
March 19: Head back home
March 23: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital.
April
April 9: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
April 20: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital.
May
May 14: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
May 18: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital.
May 19: Run trains at Joe’s from 1 to 4 pm.
June
June 1,2, 3: Club trip to ride the Alamosa Train.
June 8, 9, 10: Western Museum of Mining & Industry show.
June 11: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
June 15: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital.
Boot Hill Show
We will load the MTL at 8 am and head out. We’ll be setting up at the fair grounds.
GTE SHOW
We loaded the MTL at a little after noon on Friday the Feb. 23rd. Lester, Rick, Mike & Mary met Charley at Rosie’s Diner in Monument for lunch. After lunch we headed for Denver to setup. Setup lasted for about 5 hours. The reason for this was do to the fact we found two broken wires that had to be soldered and a gap in some rail that separated and needed soldering as well. There was a problem with the yellow throttle. The yellow throttle may need to go in for repair. We ran a test engine on all lines before we left.
All of us commuted each day except for Rick; he opted to stay in Denver. We awoke to high winds and some blowing snow. Mike & Mary picked up Chris at the Park & Ride at Woodmen & I-25 and headed to Denver in the snow. We saw five wrecks along the way and just took our time. Once we passed the old Gates factory we had dry roads and blue sky; go figure! We had a busy day with four of us running trains. Lester was supposed to get there but was snowed in and couldn’t get out till after 1 pm. A walking Craig Klienman, who has been recuperating from a broken hip, visited us. As we headed home, we saw no trace of the snowstorm we traveled up in, that’s Colorado!
On Sunday Paul arrived at our house just before 7:30 am and we loaded trains and headed for the Monument Park & Ride where we met Chris, Lester & Charley. We loaded their trains and headed for Denver. The crowd on Sunday was larger than Saturday, and was busy until closing time. We were loaded and on the road by 5:15.
We received many compliments on the layout and answered many, many, many questions. We may have recruited a new member, we’ll see. All in all it was a great show.
Run at Joe’s
Joe has offered to have everyone over to run trains at his place on May 19th from 1 to 4 pm. See you there!
Alamosa Train Trip June 1, 2, & 3
The bid for the motel room is $72 per night plus tax. The price is the same for single, double or more as this is a group rate. At this time I have twenty people singed up. Mike needs to confirm the number of rooms needed as soon as possible. He has been informed that the rooms are going fast. If you think you may go let Mike know so he can hold a room for you. We can drop the rooms at the end of March if you can’t make it.
Western Museum of Mining & Industry Model Show
Keep the dates of June 8, 9, & 10 open for the Western Museum of Mining and Industry Model Show. The hours for this event are from 9 am to 5 pm all three days. The Club has been invited to participate in this event to represent railroading. Rick Shumpert and Mike Peck met with Brad and went over the space for the layout. The first space may have been too small for the lazy “W” layout. So we will be in the library and will have to arrange the layout to be a 14’ by 22’ rectangle with viewing on three sides as we will be up against a bookcase. This should be an exciting and educational show for everyone.
March Business Meeting Moved
Do to the fact that most of us will be on the road to Garden City the March Business meeting has been moved to March 23. At the meeting there will be a clinic on making a special tool you cannot live without.
Alphabetical Railroad Stations
The following article is from “I Never Knew that about Colorado” by Abbot Fay, provided by T. J. Downey
From A to P, anyway
When the Missouri Pacific Railroad established a special branch line from Kansas to Pueblo in 1887, the subsidiary was named the Pueblo and State Line Railway Company. Being carried away with an obsessive desire for putting everything into proper sequence, railroad officials decided to name the stations along the route from east to west in alphabetical order, for part of the distance, at any rate. They were even able to use their own names on several of the stops.
Around some of these stations, towns grew up. Some of the stations were later re-named or disappeared completely. The stations, from the Kansas border westward, were: Arden, Brandon, Chivington, Diston, Eads, Fergus, Galatea, Haswell, Indman, Jolliett, Kilburn, Lolita, Meredith, Nepesta, Olney and Pultney, They were located in Kiowa, Crowley and Pueblo counties.
Surviving on modern maps, along Colorado State Highway 96, are Brandon, Chivington, Eads, Galatea, Haswell and what is now called Olney Springs.
A famous, or, according to many, infamous name of one of the towns, is that of Chivington, named for the so-called “Fighting Parson,” who led a massacre of Cheyenne Indians in 1864. The Indians, under Black Kettle, had been promised that if they went there, they would be protected. The incident remains perhaps the darkest stain on the history of the white man in Colorado.
Just to add a little more info on the last paragraph. At the time of the Sand Creek Massacre, Colorado was in the process of becoming a state. It was determined back east, that Colorado was too uncivilized to be a state at that time.
Trivia
OK! For you beer drinkers, here’s a question for you to ponder. How many cases of beer does it take to fill a boxcar? Answer! See next months Railhead.
Great Beer Train Wreck
As you can see from the two photos above many, many, many cases of beer were lost in a horrible train wreck. An on going investigation into the incident is in progress. As soon as the investigators arrive at the cause and fault, heads will roll.
