Live Steam by Father Finelli

Here is a new video with a tour of the track. Ride over the new trestle and see where a few expansion will go.

During the past few months, I demolished the old trestle and build a new one. The original trestle was build of local brought cut lumber (pine) in 2005. So I got a good 15 years out of it. However, the new trestle is build with pressure treated and should last a lot longer.

Now that the trestle is complete, I decided to do some much needed maintenance on the main line. The section I began working on was completed in July 2006. And my father’s illness and passing the maintenance has been a few years lacking.

I purchased 22 tons of ballast and went to work this afternoon. In the short time I was able to work, I removed and re-screwed several ties, re-ballasted, and leveled a 50′ span. I still have a few days of vacation remaining, so I hope to get a lot finished.

I used a smaller ballast. After all these years, I’ve discovered that the areas with a smaller ballast have remained in place a lot longer and had a much less need of realignment. The smaller ballast packed in nice and tight, especially after a few good rain storms.

The track that has no ballast is my future expansion. I began a few years ago but put it on hold due to my father’s illness. I think we might go to town on that next spring.

As of today, the trestle is complete. I’ll add a railing and stain the whole thing in the spring. I also began installing the rail today. Tomorrow I’ll finish and fire up a locomotive. Two pics below. One shows the whole trestle 92′ long. The second is at the far end of the trestle. I want to keep ballast away from the end bases to prevent rot. I’ll share some final pictures either tomorrow or Monday.

I made good use of today’s rain out by installing an Eccentric Engineer Injector on my OS Mogul. I’ll get back outside tomorrow and finish up the trestle rebuild. Can’t wait to run, try out the new injector and run across the new trestle. More pics of the trestle tomorrow.

Progress continues. Between yesterday and today I managed to get the stringers up on 7 sections. Only three more to go. Once that is finished, it’s on to laying ties. I still have to add sway beams, peny bents, and reinforcing lattice for the center span, along with a railing and a few cosmetic enhancements.