Mid Winter at Joshua Tree usually is a great time to be in the High Desert. This last weekend was one of those, a great time to be out. Shelli and I made it out late Friday night as usual. Greg and Becky were out already. The folks kept it close to home. Our plan to get up the hill and move as much dirt off of the grade so John Griffin could focus on rock breaking was our goal. The Plymouth came out but we ended up using the Alco for yeomen duty of running the loaded buckets from end of track to our growing dirt pile at the far end of the switchback siding area. Till we get to a better place to stockpile rocks and such that is the better of dragging it all the way down the hill to below Tedder. We have plenty of room for pile of big rocks, little rocks, sifted roadbed and plain old fill dirt.
Saturday dawned a nice morning and soon it was off with the sweaters. A batch of buckets and up the hill we went. Terry Watson said a donor might be up to drop off a few things and low and behold he showed up. Terry took care of the visitors and Greg and I started into earthmoving. A good old pick axe was getting better results and soon we were taking 8 bucket train loads down the hill. Memories of the days when we were excavating for the lower trestle. After we retired a tired old bucket because the bail failed we soon had a ten bucket train. I attempted to take note of trips and loads including a picture of progress every trip. That plan worked great and as you can see from the below pictures we advanced a good ten feet or so up the hill. We are in fact far enough to go back to a single track width for roadbed as the siding distance is long enough for our requirements: if you can turn your train on the wye you will fit in the sidings.
Saturday afternoon before heading down the hill Greg and I with the help of Shelli ran 50 full buckets off of the hill. Saturday Night Steaks were delicious and we attempted to find the Lovejoy Comet to no avail. Sunday was another beautiful morning with a high overcast to keep the Sun from bearing down too much. We added another 40 buckets to the total and even did a little scouting of the future grade up the hill to ease some nagging doubts that were popping up.
We had a visitor from the Inyokern area that is interested in building his own railroad around his property and had questions on building on a hill such as ours. He probably left with more questions than he came with, but that what happens when you start out around here. He'll be back. We did run trains for pleasure too and it was a very fulfilling weekend. Looking forward to the Standard Gauge Meet February, 13-15. Time to bring out the skinny wheeled ones to play on the hill. With the Alco and the 4-4-0 I have been addressing the wide spots as they widen out. Of course there is a link to photos below, but more important, an invite to get out here and see the place again. We had a visitor that hadn't been out in 15 plus years. That is too long a span to see the place. See you next month. Brian
https://picasaweb.google.com/Ratsgarage/MidWinterRunJanuary17182015?authuser=0&feat=directlink
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