TECO 4 is the first two day show we have held so we can use all the help we can get on both days. There is some confusion on the hours for the show as there is one set of times on the fliers and a different time on the web site. Use the hours that are printed below for both days. The club will load the MTL on Friday September 11 at 7 pm and take over to the Crowne Plaza Hotel and park for the night as we cannot get in to setup until after 11 pm. The membership will meet at 7 am Saturday September 12 at 7 am to setup. Please get your badges at registration so you will not be challenged by security each time you try to come back in. Saturday's hours are open to public at 9 am and close at 4 pm

Sunday's hours are 9 am to 4 pm. If there is not a crowd anytime after 3 pm either day TECO staff will make the decision to close the ballroom. Tear down will be after closing on Sunday.

On Saturday night for those wishing to participate there will be an auction. We are looking at about 80 items and this will start at 7 pm and go to 10pm. You may have something to auction off or there may be something you just have to have so you can bid on it.

Those wishing to ride the Cripple Creek Railroad the club membership will meet at the Woodmen Park & Ride on Saturday September 26 at 10 am. We will carpool from there and get lunch someplace along the way. Tickets cost $10.75 for adults, $9.75 seniors 65+ and children $6.25.

The club is going to the Pueblo Railroad Museum and Air Museum on Saturday October 3. We will meet at the Nevada Park & Ride and carpool down from there. The Air Museum is $8 per person and the Railroad Museum is free except if you ride the loco or the caboose. Those prices are $10 for the loco ride and $3 for the caboose ride.

The club is TWENTY YEARS OLD this year so come and celebrate with us. The Dueker's are hosting this year's anniversary party. They will be serving ham so bring s side dish or desert to go with for about 8 people. Chris will have maps on how to get there. Show up around 4 pm and we can get the 50 cent tour of the new digs and watch some railroad movies. Dinner will be around 6 pm.

THE PLAN: Meet at Charley's on Saturday at 9 am and work till 4 pm then on Sunday from 10 am to 4 pm. The job was to replace all the damaged side braces for the 4 ft modules and the corner modules. Just a simple weekend task!!!?

I arrived at Charley's just a little after 9 am. Charley and Lester were hooking up the trailer to bring up to the garage. The coffee was ready! I unpacked my tools and got ready to start.

We unloaded the carts from the trailer and were in the process of getting module out for repair when Mike looked at the ¾ lip of the ramp going into the trailer and asked if this would be a good time to take care of the lip problem. As it was early and we had our coffee this would take only 15 minutes! YEAH RIGHT!!!!! It really took one and a half hours. You know one of those jobs that the more it was fixed the worse it got and the worse it got the more that needed to be fixed. Well I could go one for another 20 pages just on this.

While Charley was performing the 15 minute job Lester & I tackled the first set of four feet modules. You know remove the screws holding the wiring to the braces then remove the screws holding the side braces to the modules and it falls off in your hands. YEAH RIGHT!!!! Glued! Who in "French word" glued this together!!? Another "French word". Well that's what the putty knives and hammers are for. Nails! Who in "more French words" nailed this!!? Well you can imagine how the rest of the morning went and that was just the first module. Rick arrived just after noon and was put right to work and yes he learned a few French words as well. We had to replace all the braces on one module as they were cracked. We did a couple of mental errors but were able to go back and correct them before we got too far ahead. We broke for lunch around 1 pm and when we got back tackled the last two 4 feet modules and Mike the Task master worked everyone till 5:30 before he called an end of the day.

Sunday rolled around a little too quickly. The crews showed up one at a time and were in gear by 9:15 am. We decided to finish up the 4 feet modules and get a coat of paint on them. So we set modules on saw horses while Rick painted. We had to custom cut some new boards so while two of us did that I assigned Charley the task of cutting the tapers for the corner modules. Easy task, no problemo! YEAH RIGHT!!!! Turns out there were three different kinds of construction. Lester was repairing the wiring under the prison module so Charley & Rick started removing the damaged braces off one corner module and Mike finished drilling some new braces. Well all in all we finished the 4 ft modules and two corner modules by quitting time of 5 pm on Sunday. We quickly decided we could meet again next Sunday to finish. As of this writing all the damaged side braces have been replaced and the sheet metal to keep the "C" clamps from damaging the new braces are in place. The wiring has been centered and ready to replace the Jones plugs with the Anderson Power poles when we get ready to do that. The new shipping braces are in place and instruction sheets on how to use them will be given to club members. I'll have photos and more on this job in the next Railhead.

We had 11 out of 20 people show up for the trip. Three of us made right on time. The trip was beautiful and the weather was great. If we do it again I would like to be in the open air car as we couldn't see the hanging bridge very well. We got just a short glimpse of the Royal Gorge Bridge. Did get to see all the work that was involved in putting an irrigation pipe line along the canyon wall all the way up to Park dale.

The group	Bridge carrying irrigation pipe
Old wooden irrigation pipe	Old wooden irrigation pipe and tunnel and braces
Rick & shot of hanging bridge	Entrance to Grape Creek another story

Incorporated 1881 constructed from Denver to Pueblo and not on the original route. Incurred the wrath of other rail road's do to their tactics. In 1885 went into receivership and was foreclosed and renamed Denver, Texas & Gulf RR

Denver, Texas & Gulf RR incorporated 1885 lasted to about 1890 then became Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf a subsidiary of UP. Then became the C&S in 1899.

Note: The Franceville & Glencoe branches were removed in 1898. This branch line is still visible from the Powers Dairy down into Jimmy Camp then lost. It can be picked up again off of Drennen Rd then disappears into a subdivision.

The CB&Q took over the C&S in 1908. This gave the Great Northern & the Northern Pacific joint owners of the CB&Q a direct route to the Gulf coast.

The section of track between Pueblo and Falcon was removed in 1918 after an agreement with the Santa Fe to use their track age from Denver to Pueblo. The track age from Falcon to Conners southeast of Denver was pulled up after a flood washed out much of the track north of falcon in 1936.

Chris, Connie, Lester, Rick, Mary & Mike met at the old Cub foods on Constitution and carpooled from there. We started at Marksheffel & C & S Rds. Do to the wet year we are having weeds blocked the view of the old grade. We did go ahead and traced out what we could. Again weed growth and road construction blocked the best views of the grade. We did get some good photos of buildings in Elbert. Lester had a book on the D&NO with many excellent photos so we could see then and now.

Old lumber yard from the 30's	Mercantile from the 30's
Water tank base in Elbert	Part of grade and some bents remains