This Spring Work Weekend was our last chance to do some much-needed main line maintenance during a work weekend for the next three or four years due to the Mountain Extension beginning this fall that will be our push to reach 218. A lot of planning went into making the Spring Work Weekend a success, and a lot of prep work was done as well. Starting on Saturday April 21st we had a team of horses, who also pull the horse drawn wagon during Victorian Christmas, brought in by the Verney’s to pull flatcar 118 to recreate scrapping the railroad on a stretch of track that was to be rebuilt. With the track removed, Mike Fox came in with the excavator and bulldozer to move the old ties out of the way, and level the ballast off to give us a new sub-grade to build new track on top of.
Friday of the Work Weekend we had a track crew size of around 20 that built the 310’ of track that was torn up the previous Saturday. This was a new process due to the rail still being on flatcar 118, instead of the normal work flat. The crew worked very hard to put the track down, and we had some laughs about the muck that was on either side of our work area. Meanwhile back at Sheepscott a crew of 20+ worked on the new stairs to the house, moved machines around to relocate the Machine Shop into the Shop extension built a few years ago, a few other projects around the yard, and the wonderful kitchen crew made our hungry volunteers some great meals.
Saturday was another busy day as our track crew grew to a size of about 40, and we split up into three crews. We had a ballasting crew who ballasted 650’ of track, a tie changing crew who changed out 63 ties in a single day, and a tamping crew that tamped 150’ of track starting at the north end of Davis Curve, and working their way North. Two ballast trains were run back and forth from the Davis Grade work site to Alna Center to shuttle stone. Back at Sheepscott a crew of 40+ moved machines, worked on the stairs, did a few small projects, and the kitchen crew made 2-3 meals to feed our volunteers.
On Sunday the crew was a little smaller and did more tamping, changed out a few more ties, and did some other odds and ends, as well as the Sheepscott crew continuing with their projects. Special thanks to everyone who helped make the Spring Work Weekend a success, but an extra special thanks to our track crew who helped fix our main line who worked hard to not only get track built, but also to change ties, and various other projects. We got more track work done during this weekend, than I had actually thought we would do, so again, Thank You. Hope to see everyone this fall when we continue Down the Mountain.
Joe Fox