Trestle to the Sky Completed

On a cold, desolate and windy hillside on not the warmest day of Winter, a few hardy, brave or silly souls watched as Mike Thompson ran his little Shay up the High Line and over the newly completed trestle and back onto Terra Firma once again. A lot of people had a part in the construction from start to finish, being it a lot, or a little, it all paid off as once again we are in the dirt hauling business if we want to extend track. Here is a link to see it on You-tube-- http://youtu.be/UQr6XL1nOao

The weekend started pretty busy, Two GE 47 tonners, Stites and Ratliff, the Tolans brought out the D&RGW #50, and Art Barter hauled out his Shay..
Art showed up early Saturday and promptly set out to haul a load of dirt in buckets up the High Line. All day long he trekked them up the hill; when asked how many trips he had made, he replied he had lost count. But he always had a smile on his face, even ate lunch on the fly. Kevin and Jeff Tolan made it out Friday night and spent Saturday helping out, Rusty pulled Yeoman duty and hauled steel and whatever else was needed up to the work site all day.
Even pushed the Yankee Girl Dump car in the afternoon to bring big loads up the hill.

Gary and Margret have been building resin plugs to fill the ends on the steel tubing used for the trestles. They started on the Lower Ophirish trestle and had enough to just about finish the new trestle. They have almost one hundred more to make to fill all the holes on the trestles on the High Line, great work you two.

The dedicated crew worked till it got cold Saturday and we finished the rail and tie work Sunday morning. After the short but sweet ceremonial first engine photo shoot it was back to work to stay warm and two sections of track were ballasted beyond the trestle by the end of the day. Allan Ratliff hauled buckets up with his GE and the Thompson Shay pushed the Yankee Girl Dump car up the grade, the Shay sure sounded good with that load on it.

With the Standard Gauge Meet coming up in February it would be a great time to see the railroad and the surrounding desert, make plans to visit this next month, see you there. Brian