Spring has arrived.

Hello everyone, hope that you are enjoying the first signs of Spring now that it has officially arrived. Our next workday on the Grand Scale will be Saturday, April 4th. The project in the forefront should be cleanup of the area for our meet in May, as we will be hosting many new people, and we need to make a good first impression.We will also be working to make the turntable functional for the May meet. Ken Eells has been up working a couple of days each week on the pit rock work and filling and contouring the pit to conceal the concrete work. We may start laying down the loop rail during the meet, which would be a great demonstration for our visitors.

In addition, here is what we need to accomplish in the short term, and continue after the Summer break:

• Cleanup of the "Boneyard" area, including moving the sand house back up into place, sorting and piling the rail, either down there or staging it up above to go across the bridge, and moving the tie piles back up next to live rail.


• Get the speeder functional, which can be done at Brendon's over the summer.


• Get some wheels back under the ballast car, which can also be done over the break.


• Get the track that we have down ballasted, lined and tamped.


• Weld on the steel walkways onto each side of the bridge, which we will hopefully convince Roger to do in the Fall. ;)


• Re-stake the centerlines for the Mule's Relief fill on the west side, Rick can help us to remember where the current buried stakes are.


• Re-contour the area in the wash and terraform to get rid of the "construction zone" look. Remove the road up to the loop, and replace it with an unobtrusive footpath.
  

We need to have the majority of these projects complete before we move on to the next "big" project, whatever that may be. Working as a team, most of the above projects can be done in a couple of weekends, so they shouldn't affect our Manifest Destiny too terribly.

Have a great week, and I hope to see you on the 4th! - Chris

Pic by Bill Souder