We are making steady progress on roadbed construction at Youth Community Park. On Sunday October 25, 2009, several club members got together with wheel barrows, shovels and a small rototiller to excavate a section of sub-road bed. We then filled in the dug out area with gravel, leveled it, and packed it down with a tamper. This is the layer of rock that our track will rest on. In about two weeks we will hold another track building party with the intention of making the track that will go over this newly built section. If all goes well, we may have a nice long section of track in place at the park before Thanksgiving. Now that’s something to give thanks about!
On Saturday October 17, 2009 members of the Redwood Empire Live Steamers met at Youth Community Park to begin removal of the sod along the railroads right of way. Jim rented a sod cutter the previous day and was able to make three passes over the work area in a very brief amount of time. Paul brought his garden tractor and we were able to easily roll the sod, pack it into the bucket of the tractor and take it to the waiting dump truck. We were able to finish clearing the area in a little less than two hours! Join us on Sunday to finish the excavation. We will be using a roto tiller to dig a two foot wide trench and clear the trench with shovels.
On
Saturday September 26, 2009 the Redwood Empire Live Steamers were assisted by Alexander, Samantha, and Nicholas Holland at Youth Community
Park in conducting a right of way survey for our permeate railroad track. We used templates bent at several different radii to determine
how many of each type of track panel would be needed. As the templates were laid out, we marked the ground with wooden stakes, paint
and finally a shot of herbicide to keep the area clear of grass. By the end of a very hot day, we had completed 80% of the survey. The last section to be surveyed will require a fair amount of brush clearing, but we have a good starting point for our upcoming
track laying. Check the “help wanted” section of the web page for more details on upcoming building parties!
Just a quick update on our event at the Fall Home & Train Show not that I can remember the exact counts but I can give you at least a heads up on it.On Friday we gave about 132 rides, on Saturday about 304 rides and on Sunday about 330!!! Not bad, huh. It was a good thing Jim had 600 more tickets made. We only have about 137 for our final run in October, so he’ll run a few more.All in all it was a great time and thanks to Terry for seeing that we were invited.
Ross Perrin, General Manager at Train Mountain arranged for us to have a meeting with their Track Shop Staff, Paul Aragon, Chris Curtis and DJ Galer. Jerry Crane, TM Staffer, met us and lead us over to the Track Shop on Friday, June 26th at 4:00. The three staffers, Paul, Chris & DJ gave their expertise on track building and answered questions from our members. Paul's famous words, "Stay away from kicking track panels into place!" The Train Mountain Track & Switch Shop guys were great to take time during the 2009 Triennial to meet with the following club members: Don, Ann, Kyle & Ellie Bruner-Welch; Steve Waterfall (and his brother,Tom); Jim Martorella; Jim Jones; Dave Fontes (and son, Joseph) & Bill & Pam Shilling
On Wednesday June 10, The Redwood Empire Live Steamers braved
the infamous Lake Sonoma Rattle snakes to collect a trailer full of fence building material. This puts us another step closer to track
construction, however, we still will need to purchase 2400 feet of split rail to finish this project. Any additional donations of
material or funds will speed this project along.
At last, a ground breaking of sorts has begun at Youth Community Park. The Redwood Empire Live Steamers have laid their first twenty feet of track complete with ballast and decorative redwood bark chips.
The city of Santa Rosa is asking that we install a split rail fence around our planed track in the areas where it bounds the turf. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to donate surplus split rail fencing from Lake Sonoma but we will also need to purchase or find alternate donations to help us overcome this challenge.
Dave, Jim & Steve picked up borrowed flat bed truck to get the track panels from TurtlePost in Tracy and brought them to Jim’s. The truck was loaned by the Cooper Crane & Rigging, Inc. Dave's employer) and Pam will send a Thank-You letter to them for their generous donation of truck, gas, and fast track pass.
Jim and Steve finished designing the jig for our track and have already assembled a few track panels. Every thing is going smoothly. We expect the panels to be ready in time to start laying them in Youth Community Park this spring during the good weather.
On rainy days when we cannot work at Youth Community Park, many club members are working hard at home on projects to improve the railroad. Above: Anti theft anchors are being fabricated in the RELS Cloverdale shop.
Our sod busting days are over!
As of 2:00pm on Sunday December 13, 2009, members of the Redwood Empire Live Steamers removed the last piece of sod from the lawn area of Youth Community Park. Only an unforeseen change in busses hours at the local quarry prevented us from putting in the remaining rock base. This is a major accomplishment, a real impact on the ground and a demonstration of what motivated volunteers can accomplish. We now will be focusing our efforts on building the track panels that will go in this newly cleared right of way. It will not be long before we have a point to point railroad in operation.