Our Build East Track Construction Crew was back out for its first Saturday work session in February which happened to coincide with the first day of the month. Alas it also coincided with an atmospheric river that was bringing rain to much of northern California. Still working through it, a lot of progress was made.
The early morning was somewhat dry allowing crews to remove their rain gear and get to work. Alas by the late morning and through the afternoon, the tides had turned to the damp and sometimes very damp. Still the crew was able to get a great amount of work done in the new section of track already placed between the bridge at Verona Road and the Castlewood Bridge. From replacing, plugging and installing new spikes to tie replacement and ballasting, all was done by the various volunteers throughout the day.
Here are some photos taken during the earlier morning portion of the work session.
All photos by: Chris Hauf – Used with permission
Inserting a replacement tie.
Inserting a tie.
Railroad with a view…
The current end of track with a tee box from Castlewood Country Club off to the right.
Checking on tie spacing.
Getting the ties spaced.
Since these ties have already been used, wooden plugs are used to fill the old spike holes prior to either driving new spikes into the holes or simply filling them to prevent water infiltration. A spike with its taper end cut off is used to drive the plugs down into the tie.
Given this was panel track when laid down, some of the spikes need to be removed and replaced. Here a spike is removed from the tie.
Spiking on Castlewood Bridge.
A tie is slid down the rails before it is inserted just before the current end of track east of Castlewood Bridge.
Setting spikes.
Loading up ballast from the stockpile just west of Verona Road where this section of track has been completed and is cleared for service. And yes, we bring a rail-borne Porta-Potty with us.
Loading up under the careful watch of NCRy General Manager, Steve B.
Foreman, Mike S., works one of the ballast shoots on our MOW ballast car as it is moved slowly down the track dumping ballast in the this case to the outside of the rails.
Dumping ballast.
Museum General Manager, Steve B., works our Cat backhoe to pull the ballast stockpile back from the railroad and prepare it for loading into our ballast car.
Loading up with ballast.
Keeping a close eye… Possibly the luckiest guy on the crew was Steve K. who had the enviable task of running our MOW donkey, ‘Mongo” which was being used to handle the ballasting with our small ballast car. Here is the car is being loaded with new ballast just west of Verona Road.
Our Build East Team will be back again the first Saturday of March. We always welcome new hands so please visit our website to learn more how you can help volunteer with us to Build East!
