It's getting time to note plans, preparations and progress for the 2018 Fall Work Weekend.
Fred Morse has led volunteers the past many weeks so that 1,000 ties were ready by the end of today (Saturday, September 15th). Don't believe his claims we overwork him -- we had trouble keeping up with him today cutting and stacking the last bunch of ties! Here's a photo of the tie piles at Sheepscot -- there's many more staged at Top of the Mountain. Cut tie ends at Sheepscot were treated by Mark Cheetham later in the day.
Roadmaster Joe Fox and fellow volunteers have sorted and stacked 100 sticks of 60-pound rail. Here's a small sample of the rail stacked, with layers sorted by 5 east and 5 west running rails, ready for transport to the Mountain Extension.
Today (Saturday, September 15th), Joe led a group of volunteers to dig through our inventory of rail joint bars and identify 235 that fit our rail and are judged good. The bars were stacked on pallets.
Plenty of track bolts and spikes are stored at Sheepscot, so all track material is now at hand to build new track down the Mountain. Thanks to Mike Fox and assistants, the right-of-way is ready for the goal of 1,400 feet of new track Columbus Day weekend. We know that amount of new track is possible -- in 2001 we completed the push from Sheepscot Mills over the new Humason Brook trestle, and in 2003 from Trask's Crossing to Alna Center. While some of us may have gotten older, we're fortunate to have younger members and friends join us since then.
All we need now is good weather Columbus Day weekend Friday - Monday, October 5th through 8th, and a strong volunteer turnout. Work weekend volunteer turnout has never been a problem. Can we set a new work weekend record of 100 volunteers on site Saturday?