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

Calendar of events for the Pikes Peak "N"Gineers 2007
 
November
November 5: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
November 9: Load MTL at 12:30 pm head to Denver to setup
November 10 & 11: Great Train Expo at National Western Complex in Denver.
November 21: Business Meeting & Nominations – 7:00 pm clubroom at Rio Grande depot.
November 24: Club swap meet
December
December 3: Board Meeting – Howard’s Pit Barbeque – dinner at 6:30 p.m. – meeting at 7:30 p.m.
December 16: Corporate Meeting & Elections – 7:00 pm St Francis Hospital dining room on 5th floor.

Nov 16 Business Meeting
Nominations for club officers for next year will be open. If you think you would be an asset to the managing of the club let a board member or other club member know so you can be nominated. The current board members are Superintendent – Lester Coburn – does not want to run again. Assistant Superintendent - Rick Shumpert – will run again. Station Master – Paul Schemm – do not know at this time, Paymaster – Chris Dueker – will run again, Members at large – Joe Morgan – past Superintendent – Mike Peck – Mary Peck – none have declared.
Nominations are for all offices except for past Superintendent position. Please attend this meeting, as it is your club.
GTE Show
We will load the MTL around 12:30 on Friday Nov. 9. Get a bite to eat and head to Denver to setup. We will meet Dan Benton there to add two 4 ft modules that he built. This setup will be 18’ by 22’. Makes for long trains. Show times for Saturday and Sunday are 10 am to 4 pm. We usually try to get there around 9 am to clean ∓ check the track.
November Swap Meet
As of this writing we have five confirmed vendors. We will be notifying them on when they can setup for the show. The club will setup the MTL on Friday Nov. 23 after 5 pm. Vendors will be allowed to do the same or setup on Saturday morning after 8 am.
We need manpower to work the door, collect the money from the customers and give out raffle tickets for door prizes. We expect all members to participate in the running of the show. We will need to have five people running trains during the show. One will be the dispatcher. So everyone bring trains to run and we can rotate running trains through the dispatcher. A dispatcher for the show will be selected at the November Business meeting.
PPNG Weekend
This is the last installment of this article.
The next morning after we had all awakened sufficiently, and had breakfast, we broke camp. Connie and Karen went to dump the trash we had accumulated, and I rode with Lester on back to Ray's place to meet with him, and to spend a little time chatting, while we waited for Connie and Karen to show up. When they did, we headed for Temple Canyon Park. The road headed slightly south of west out of town and was okay for a while, but when we made the turnoff for the park, the road got rough. It was in worse shape than when Connie and I had driven it a little over a year ago. It was evident that a lot of it was due to the recent storms, where the little gullies wash over the road.

The road has a couple of switchbacks in order to drop down to near creek level to cross Grape Creek. On one of the corners, one can see the old railbed, now a trail, following the creek upstream. We parked next to the bridge approach and headed upstream on the trail. There have been several boulders placed across the trail entrance to prevent people from driving up the trail. Apparently, there was a need for this.

As we walked along the trail, there were a couple of groups that had apparently camped overnight next to the creek, a little below the trail. There were a lot of camping spots available, though they were not "authorized" camp spots.

Further along the trail, there was a rocky wall where Connie and I had seen the drill hole where blasting had been done. We did see one borehole, but it was not the one we saw last year. Either the light angle was different, or the rocks had changed. We find it difficult to believe that someone made off with the rock we were looking for.

There was one place where the roadbed had almost washed out completely, so the boulders at the start of the trail seemed redundant. Several places, where side streams (dry now) flowed into Grape Creek, there was evidence of stone culverts where the railbed went over.

After about a half-mile or so, there was a fence across the railbed, blocking further progress on the old railbed! That was not there 15 months ago! I checked the Fremont County Assessor's website later, and, sure enough, we had reached the edge of Temple Canyon Park, and the fence was the edge of private property. Nuts! We could have walked another half mile or so along the railbed, 'till it crossed the creek. And, no, there isn't any sign of rail, spikes, or trestles to be seen. It seems to have been picked pretty clean, if there was any left after the tracks and ties were taken up over a century ago.

So, with a little disappointment in our hearts, and a hot sun overhead, we headed back. Ray was quick to point out good fishing spots. He's an avid fisherman, and I'm sure he'll be back to try his hand (pole?) at a later time.

Once we got back to the cars, Connie and Karen decided to wait while Ray, Lester and I continued downstream following the railbed. It was probably about 25 feet or so above the creek level, cut right out of the rock face at that point, though I don't recall seeing any obvious boreholes. We didn't go far, maybe a couple of hundred yards before we decided to head back. By then, we couldn't be sure where the railbed was, though we could make some guesses.

When we got back to the cars, we thanked Ray for coming along and tried to decide if we wanted to go back the way we came, along the rough road out of Canon City, or continue on, since the road did. Ray went on, and we decided to also. The road headed mostly northwards and we met up with Highway 50, then turned and headed back into Canon City, where we had lunch at Big Daddy's Diner, a 50's style place.

When we finished lunch there, we decided to check out an old mining community southwest of there, which required us to go about five miles out of town along the road towards Westcliffe. There was a turnoff there that went eastward through the community and where Connie and I had seen quite a few rail cars sitting on a track.

When we got to the vicinity, there were fences up around a very large area. It appears that some developer is developing a huge area for building and selling. I would guess the area is several hundred acres, possibly a thousand. What that meant, is that we couldn't walk up to the foundation remains for a close look. It was all fenced off. Another disappointment! Next time, I'll have to check everything out before planning excursions.

Anyway, we drove on, making a wrong turn first, before going down the right road to the track siding we had seen with the old rail cars on it. And, nuts! The cars weren't there. Guess that'll teach me to assume things don't change in a year.

With that, we continued on into Florence. When we stopped there, Connie and I were in the lead car with Karen and then Lester behind. I got out and told each of them "And that concludes our tour. Have a nice day!", which got chuckles out of both Karen and Lester.

With that, we all headed home. All in all, everyone agreed that it was a very pleasant weekend.

Drill hole Lester, Ray and his wife, Chris and Karen at Soda Springs
Old structure at Soda Springs

Club Anniversary Party
The Peck’s welcomed club members and wives and family on Saturday October 13 to celebrate the club’s 18 anniversary. Some came early to run trains and others came to visit and eat. We had planned on watching a train movie but everyone was having such a good time visiting and getting to know each other we didn’t show one. It was great to see most of the new members show up. We had 25 people participate in the party. Most were in the kitchen most of the time. Something we’ve come to expect when people come to visit
1st group eating in front room. Crowd in Kitchen
Crowd in kitchen Visiting after dinner

Rock Island Days
Lester, Rick, Mike & Mary met at the storage unit and loaded the MTL around 5 pm Friday October19 and headed to the Rock Island Roundhouse at Roswell. They met other club members there and we set about setting up. We tried to add two 4 ft modules and found out we couldn’t so we ended up with a 14’X14’ layout and half a yard. After setup we had the business meeting.
October 20 was a nice day to start with. The club had a good turn out of members. Some brought trains to run and some didn’t. Yes those that came with out trains were harassed about that. Thomas the Tank train went to work after some air was added to a low tire. Some “G” scalers setup a small “G” scale layout outside and we welcomed guests. Things went just fine until the winds kicked up around 1 pm. The “G” scale group had to pickup their trains as the wind kept blowing the cars over. We started having problems as well. We ended up cleaning track every time a gust of wind blew dust into the round house. Four o’clock finally came and we tore down and headed to storage.
Thomas the Tank Train “G” scale at Roswell
Chris is setting up Colemanville in the sun