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

Calendar of events for the Pikes Peak "N"Gineers 2007
July
July 9: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
July 20: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital.
July 21, 22: Colorado Railroad Museum Steam Up
August
August 13: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
August 17: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital.
August 24, 25, 26: Camping trip to Chris & Connie’s to explore the D&RG Grape Creek branch line.
September
September 9: Combined picnic at Palmer Lake – 11 am to when ever
September 10: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
September 21: Business Meeting – 7:30 p.m. in the dining room on the fifth floor of St Francis Hospital.

San Luis & Rio Grande R. R.
This is the second year of operations for the scenic railroad and the first year of operation for #X1744 steam locomotive a neat little 2-6-0 oil burner. If I remember correctly the locomotive came from New Orleans. The consist was a converted baggage/mail car, now the snack bar, park benches were placed at the baggage doors so you could record the sound of the locomotive as it worked it’s way up the grades. The second car was converted to rows of benches set back to back so you can look out the windows. The third car is an “Indiana Railroad coach car. The last car is the parlor car.
X1744 heading to the loading area Smoke & steam & scenery
X1744 after the run Over turned hoppers
The speeder group The Gang

The old D&RG line later SP then UP was purchased in December 2005 by the Iowa Pacific Railroad. The line continues freight service as well as the scenic line. At this time the freight service is from Walsenburg to Alamosa then west to South Fork or south to Antonito. The passenger service is from Alamosa to La Veta or Alamosa to Antonito. You can schedule several types of trips with the railroad. Bus service can be provided for one-way excursions. The consist is pulled by a steam locomotive on weekends and diesel locomotive on weekdays.
If you are expecting the jerk of taking off you will be disappointed as the train took off so smoothly that if you were not looking out the window you would not know that we were moving. As we gained speed the cars began the normal rocking motion. To add to our trip a Speeder club was running ahead of our train. We did not catch up to them till we reached the summit. Then they followed us down to La Vita were we all ate lunch.
The weather for our trip was excellent, bright blue-sky clear air. We proceeded to the pass through the San Luis Valley. We went through Blanca then Fort Garland and then started up the pass. With all the snow we have had this year everything was green. The wildflowers out did them selves and little streams were running everywhere. There even a few waterfalls. Several people saw Elk and Deer. We saw what were left of a wrecked boxcar and four overturned hoppers. There are two tunnels on this trip and horseshoe curves. We had our freedom of the first three cars but not the parlor car. You can move around and get different views or find a comfortable seat to sit in and grab a quick nap.
The staff of the San Luis and Rio Grande Railroad was excellent and made sure our trip was a big success. They tried to answer the several thousand questions asked them. Directed us to the best eating places in Alamosa and La Veta.
I can see a lot of potential for this railroad in the future. Even as we were riding the train for the first time there was some discussion of this being a great fall trip. For those of you who missed the opportunity to go, know that the club will be going on this trip again. In the mean time if you wish to setup your own trip you can contact the railroad by Tel#(877) 726-7245, Fax#(719) 587-0522 or E-mail moc.cificapawoi@tnega . You won’t regret it.

Western Museum of Mining & Industry
Lester and Mike loaded the MTL around 4:30 and headed for the museum where Chris and Charley met them a little after 5. Setup took about 3 hours do to changing the configuration of the layout. After we had it all setup we found out we were not going to be sharing the room with anyone, but it was too late. We were ready to run the next morning by 10 am then horror struck! We could not get two of the lines to work. After several fuses and melted power pack we found the problem. Do to the darkness in the room two of the plug ins were plugged into the wrong plugs causing a short. The backup controllers were hooked up and off we went. We had a few wrecks the first day and after that everything went well until we were running a shay. It did not like the blue line do to some grade crossings and then we lost power to a whole section of track. It was a cold solder joint and was quickly repaired. We moved the shay to the green line and it ran great there, gaps in the track and all. I believe some members are going to go and get one of those shays. Friday was a little slow then Saturday and Sunday were busy. We answered questions, worked on some other people’s equipment, and discussed what we could do to make this a better show. One quick thing is to do clinics during the show which would be in line with the purpose of the museum and that is to educate, more on this later. We shut down about fifteen minutes early on Sunday and were loaded and on the road in 40 minutes.
Different module configuration Steve & Lester during the Sunday lull
One of a few train wrecks Two shays
NEW HOME!
The club may have a new home. All club members are encouraged to attend the July 20 business meeting, as this will be the main topic of the meeting. Ron Theisman found a room that is 13 feet by 23 feet and located at the Rio Grande depot. Ron stated that he has about 9 potential members for the club. More info on this information later in article.
The pros for this site are a new home, place to meet and teach model railroading, gain new members, build new modules, and run trains. There is a refrigerator available for our use. We do not have to sign a lease. We would be on a month-to-month basis with a 30-day notice from us to the landlord of our leaving and the same from the landlord if he rents the room.

The cons for the site are as follows. The rent is $200.00 a month. There is restricted parking in the parking lot so you would have to park in the street as all parking lot parking is for the businesses located at the depot. May be able to use parking lot on Tuesday nights. No parking in lot on Friday night. May use parking lot on Saturday mornings. No more than 10 maybe 13 people in the room at one time due to fire code and only one access point. Do to the parking and number of people restrictions in room; no open houses will be allowed. Will be able to run trains on Saturday mornings and not the afternoon. We’re still working on the number of days the room can be used. Keys will be very limited at this time. May have to raise dues again. We will still have to have storage for the MTL.

My thoughts on getting this room are. The room would give the club a chance to rebuild the yards and get them wired plus repair any of the modules in storage. It would give us the opportunity to start doing clinics again. We could gain some new members. We would have a place to run trains.

We could probably get by with the restricted number of people in the room. If we grow we would need to regulate or schedule times for people to be in the room. This could be a problem when giving clinics for more than 10 or 13 people. We could do two clinics so solve this problem. The parking lot restrictions will be a pain but we could probably live with them. We will not be able to have any open houses so this will hurt the potential for operating income. The venture will be solely financed from dues.
This proposal was presented to the board at the June Board meeting by Ron Theisman. He gave us the info I presented. He stated that he may have at least 9 people interested in joining the club if we take the room. Then came the bomb shell, he stated that the potential new members probably would not like to pay the application fee of $25 and that they only wanted to run trains. They may not be interested in doing other club activities. Ron also stated that we could charge them $20 to $25 dollars in membership fees. We were going to invite the potential new members to the July business meeting but do to scheduling differences the meeting was moved to Saturday June 30 at 10:30 am for those who could attend.
My thoughts are we need the membership but do we really need members to just run trains? We need members that want to teach and promote the hobby to others. The club would have to change the constitution in order to oblige these potential members. At first I saw the potential dollars signs instead of active member participation. See you at the July business meeting.