PIKES PEAK "N" GINEERS MODEL RAILROAD CLUB
THE RAILHEAD
April 2007 SEEKING SERIOUS N-SCALE MODEL
RAILROADING SINCE OCTOBER 13, 1989
  

Calendar of events for the Pikes Peak "N"Gineers 2007

April
April 7: Workday on MTL at the Peck’s from 1 to 4 pm.
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.
April 21: Workday on MTL at the Peck’s from 1 to 4 pm.
April 22: Train Collectors Show at the city auditorium cost is $3.00
May
May 12: Lecture on Colorado’s Historic Railroads at 3 pm at the Western Museum of Mining & Industry
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.

Workday
The club has set April 7 & 21 aside to do some work on the MTL. To get ready for the Western Museum of Mining & Industry show it was suggested we add a mine site to the layout. Some repair and maintenance to the layout also needs to be performed.
Colorado’s Historic Railroads
The Western Museum of Mining & Industry is hosting a lecture on Colorado’s Historic Railroads. The lecture will be given by Mr. Larry Dorsey, who is affiliated the Colorado Railroad Museum. The lecture begins at 3 pm on Saturday May 12. You will need to RSVP at 719-488-0880 to attend. This event is free and donations are accepted.
Beer Question
In last months Railhead I asked the question “How many cases of beer are there in a boxcar?” An employee of the Coor’s Brewery asked me this question at the last GTE Show. He used to load the boxcars. He quoted 7200 cases fill a boxcar. I forgot to ask if that was cases of cans or bottles.
Boot Hill Club Show
On Friday morning Charley Bay & Chris Dueker arrived at the Peck’s and we loaded their gear into the van and headed to storage. We met Rick Shumpert and Lester Colburn there. We loaded the MTL and headed out to breakfast. We went a different route this time. We used Hwy 94 to 40 then south to 50. We were going to stop at the museum in Cheyenne Wells but it would not be open until Memorial Day. We got to the fairgrounds in Garden City and began unloading. We encountered a problem with the 6 ft rack and found out we had bent the lower frame. This will be repaired during one of the workdays. Rick & Mike setup the electrics as Lester was not with us, but he made a great diagram for us to follow. The show ran from 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday followed by an open house to run trains on a HO layout. Sunday’s hours were 11 am to 4 pm. The crowds being small, Mike decided to keep adding cars to his train. He ended up with 125 cars and 4 Mikado’s pulling them. Rick was running a long train as well. At 2 pm we started reducing the size of the trains to get ready for tear down. We took an hour and a half to tear down and load with four of us, as Charley got sick on Saturday and stayed in bed Sunday. On Monday morning we headed out.
Run at Joe’s
On Saturday May 19 from 1 to 4 pm, Joe has invited everyone over to run trains. If you have “G” scale bring it as Joe has a large outdoor “G” scale layout as well as “N” scale in the basement. See you there.
Strasburg’s Claim to the Golden Spike
This is another article sent by TJ Downey from the book “I Never Knew that About Colorado” by Abbot Fay.
The first true transcontinental railroad

Much has been written about the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Point in Utah. The 1869 event marked the completion of a railroad across the West so that one could travel across the United States entirely by train from coast to coast.
This site has been designated as a national monument. A very tasteful and spectacular dramatic show is seen at the visitor center, climaxed by the curtains parting to show the two locomotives meeting. Many famous paintings and a few photographs celebrate the event. This spot linked the Central Pacific Railroad from San Francisco to the Union Pacific Railroad out of Omaha, Nebraska.
However, it was not truly a transcontinental railroad. As there was no bridge over the Missouri River at Omaha, a passenger would have to cross the river by ferry, leaving one train and continuing on another.
Completion of the first truly transcontinental railroad took place three miles west of the town of Strasburg, in Colorado, on August 15, 1870. There, the road building crews of the Kansas Pacific Railroad met, with no great fanfare, to form a continuous rail system from coast to coast. Travelers could stay on trains all the way, from east to west. They came by way of Kansas City, bridging the Missouri River there, and continued to Denver, where they could go north to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and on to San Francisco.



Charley, Rick, & Mary at Garden City show. “G” scale layout next to us at Garden City.

Alamosa Train Trip
We are in the final stages of planning for the trip. As of this writing there are 19 people going. We are one short of getting the group discount. If you know of anyone who may wish to go let Mike know so he can get the info to them. There are 11 tickets available and a block of 14 rooms. These will disappear on April 30. For those of you who are going you need to contact the hotel and reserve your room. Contact Mike Peck for this information.