Mountain Extension - Official Work Thread

[Paul Uhland]

So who's going to fire up RC4, pop on his Uber hat  and madly zoom workers between all the projects , while barely avoiding Saturday's passenger traffic?  
What a country!  

[Mike Fox]

North bound Kubota Express. Maiden voyage for 1015 as well. The car worked very nice.





Vacant no more. Here I am getting the excavator to the bottom of the washout.



The rest of the trees out of the way and some of the top soil removed.



Looking back at the Kubota.



Did I ever mention I love digging someplace that has been untouched in 125 years...looky what I see.





I believe they may be survey rods, due to where I found them. What say you?

Ready to leave it for the week. These pipes are just temporary.

[Paul Uhland]

Mike...great work. Why the temp pipes?
Good to see 118 back at it.

[Ira Schreiber]

Are the pins possibly from a wood culvert?

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Pins could be from a wooden box culvert as Ira noted or they could be drift pins from a trestle that was filled in.

[Joe Fox]

I'm thinking the latter because the books say there was a cattle under pass near ToM.

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

You may be right Joe.  It's a logical place for an underpass so cattle could have access to the river.  The cattle pass in Whitefield is in a similar fill.

[Mike Fox]

The temporary pipes are in case it rains enough for the stream to flow. Keeping the sediment out of the stream is a requirement, and these pipes tied into the remporary dam I built should help. Downside, I get to move them to work in there.

The pins were driven into the soil. No rotten wood found there. Just the short rusty pins. They were at the foot of the east embankment, or where it would have been.

[Jeff Schumaker]

Thanks for the visual update, Mike. That's an interesting find you have there.

Jeff S.

[Bob Holmes]

Mike, glad that 1015 worked so well!  You put so much time and energy into it from start to finish, and it has already proven it's worth in one trip.

[Mike Fox]

Projected schedule for the next few weeks.

We need track built. Safety spiking would be ok for now. Rail, ties and jointbars are up there. Need bolts and spikes. Prefer to have this done by Aug. 5.

Saturday 7/22. I will be arriving mid morning. Machine work.

Saturday 7/29. Finish prep work. Check pitch with Brendans laser level. Mark center with a stake. Get things ready to tie down crane.

8/5. Set pipes. This will involve setting the crane up on the newly built track, tying the North end on the crane down for added security during the lift. A flatcar will be needed to shuttle the culvert sections.

8/12 is the Annual Picnic, so am not anticipating much work that day, other than maybe some machine work.

[Mike Fox]

What is this I see?



Hmmm. Starting to look like something



There it is. An old pipe.



But what is this next to it? A mud sill for a trestle bent?



And on each side...



And ready for another week.

[Joe Fox]

looks like Narrow Gauge in the Sheepscot valley was correct with the old trestle at ToM. Although they must have filled it in an put a culvert in once the trestle started to age.

[Bill Reidy]

WOW!  Very interesting archaeology, Mike.  Thanks!

[Fred Morse]

I wonder if the pipe had a layer of gravel over it for the cattle crossing and also to keep the mud sills dry. The bents seem wide enough apart for the cattle to cross under the train track.