Well, there's no doubt about it - 2005 was a hot summer here in Central Illinois.
It's not that we couldn't have worked on the railroad more, but the heat really
just took the fun right out of it. We did, however, manage to lay about 500'
of track this season in addition to a number of other projects detailed below.
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Here a shot of the new SCRR sign added to
the front gable of the depot. That was quite a project - from the custom
lighting, to the custom font used for the laser-cut acrylic lettering,
it took about 3x longer that anticipated. This sign really lends some
credibility to the railroad even though Phase 1 is not yet complete. |
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Here's the shot of the depot with its new
track 2 turnout just installed and ready for the throw arm. This was the
first #6 switch built for the railroad, the others are all #8. On the
left, the diverging mainline heads north into the two depot tracks. |
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Looking south out of the depot storage area. Still
need a little cleanup to be done in this area. |
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Here
we can see the completed depot area. The loading and passing tracks are
both ready for use and the landscaping is finally complete. |
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Here's a shot from atop the depot. This perspective
makes it easy to see the loop on the north end of the project where the
two berms will support the mainline on each side of the 55' trestle. The
trestle is the final element of Phase 1 and should be completed next spring. |
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Another shot from atop the depot, this time looking
south from the storage area on to the driveway crossing. |
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A last shot from atop the depot - this time
down into the passenger loading area. While there are still a few small
items to complete in this area, it's essentially complete. |
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One of the biggest and most expensive projects
this year was completion of our driveway. The temporary railroad crossing
had to be removed and a new one needed to be designed and built. |
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A new steel crossing was fabricated from
flat steel stock, painted and bolted to the new pavement. It has worked
out quite well so far. |
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Here is a shot north of the depot where the
new pad will be poured to support the hydraulic scissor lift for loading
and unloading trains. |
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Here's the finished pad with the new scissor
lift installed. It has a few more details that need to be added for completeness,
but it works like a charm. The basic lift is from Harbor Freight and has
a 6,000# capacity - a topper was fabricated to turn it into a 'train'
lift. The topper is 10' long which should handle 99% of all the rolling
stock that will be visiting. |
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Here's a night shot of the completed depot
with all of its accent lighting and new sign installed. |
