The Rubber & Rawhide Railroad

Progress Report for 10th May 2009

This Page Created on May 16th, 2009

Rubber Room becomes a Staging Area

Finally, the Rubber Room gets a new lease on life, as the site of two sidings directly feeding from the East Garage Yard! Unfortunately, the tracks are a bit short, but plans are already being made to extend them to the West wall of the room!

The Cars that didn't fit.

While all of the East Garage sidings are fifteen feet, the Rubber Room is only fourteen, and some of that was not available when this photo was made. (The reason will be evident shortly!)

The Garage Portal tracks over the East Garage Yard

Garage Portal Tracks in perspective

A different perspective allows most of the East Garage Yard to be seen from just North of the Garage Portal. The track cleaning locomotive on Track Five awaits permission to take the mainline, while through the shrubbery one can just make out our passenger train on Track One.

Porch Trackage Changes

Our operations folks continue to complain about the limitations that four foot curves have imposed. And, we needn't tell you that Julio's complaints have never really ended. Even though all mainline trackage has been eight to ten foot diameter for some time, even crossing a four-foot switch on the straight leg excites our larger locomotives perilously.

The tracklaying crew somehow got a few more ten foot switches, and without telling anyone, took advantage of the confusion surrounding running the track cleaner to quietly remove the last three offending switches. It sure surprised our passenger train engineer when he was flagged to a stop just short of Julio's Station!

Re-tracking the Porch

Juliio doesn't appear to be very concerned, but we bet he knew in advance. Was it the Crew's promise that it would only take a day?

Roadbed Crew cuts third Porch Return Track!

A long time ago, we had a neat Reversing Wye here, but no one liked it. Then, Operations said what they really wanted was a track to enable them to make a loop on the porch. Well, yes, that did mean using four foot track, but we already had it.

Now Operations has really dug in their heels, with Julio's griping about the poor connections to HIS "Magic Portal" being their marching orders to relocate the Return Track yet again.

Porch Loop to traverse the French Drain!

It will be a close thing, but the track laying crew has seen this roadbed, and they think they can keep eight foot minimum curves at each end of the porch.

They did get a concession from Julio: No, he couldn't see any reason for his own parking siding AND a separate Station track, especially since the latter just happened to be on the Phase Two Main Line!