Inside the OC&E. We Get Mail. Summer Hours Start June 1st. Welcome to Inside the OC&E

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1 June 2011 Volume 2 Issue 6 Inside the Published by The Greeley Freight OC&E Station Museum th Street Greeley, CO We Get Mail Sent: Sunday, May 15, :48 AM Subject: Visit to Greeley Model Railroad Museum Dear David We got back from our trip (via Seattle WA) last weekend but I've been a bit busy catching-up so please forgive me for not ing you sooner to thank you and Michelle for hosting what was a wonderful experience for both Lindsay and myself. We greatly enjoyed going behind the scenes and having your control system explained. Rest assured, that will not be the last visit we make, I'm sure; and we shall certainly be recommending other members of the NMRA (British Region) to visit Greeley whenever they pass through Denver. Once again, thank you both for allowing us to visit with you. Sincerely, Tom Watson and Lindsay Beare Sent: Thursday, May 05, :58 AM Subject: [FWD: Rocky Ops thank you...] Summer Hours Start June 1st Wednesday - Saturday Sunday First Friday night of each month Tracks Ahead Visit 10am-4pm 1pm-4pm 6pm-9pm Any volunteer wanting to show up when the museum is open is welcome. They can help or even learn the docent operations. Or they can always perform switching duties in Lakeview or Klamath Falls while the docent trains are running. That gives our visitors a bonus attraction of seeing how skilled operators work the yards. We are looking forward to a visit from the Tracks Ahead crew. They will arrive Sunday, June 12 and expect to be complete by Tuesday, June 14th. Tracks Ahead is a television series about railroading, produced by Milwaukee Public Television for PBS starting in I attended Rocky Ops this past weekend with 5 other friends from Wisconsin and just wanted to say thank you very much for letting us operate your wonderful museum layout. To see 5 diesel units pulling a 50, 60, or 80 car train with no derailments or mishaps whatsoever was unbelievable. I will never be a scenery artist or an electrical expert, but seeing your trains run so well at the museum will make me set the standards for what I can do on my own layout much higher. Special thanks to Don and Duane on Saturday night for their patience and friendly help. I'm sure they wanted to close up shop earlier, but it was tough dragging us away. Best wishes and thanks again. Thomas Heilman Onalaska, Wisconsin 1 The series examines all aspects of railroading, both in the United States and in the rest of the world. Content covers a wide range of railroad-related materials. This includes scenic rail journeys, short-line railroads, layouts (in various gauges of model, tinplate, scale, garden), artists, photographers, and other railroad related material. Welcome to Inside the OC&E Inside the OC&E is the official Greeley Freight Station Museum newsletter. It s purpose is to communicate news and information to museum volunteers and others interested in the museum.

2 Operation Lifesaver to Greeley Operation Lifesaver and Union Pacific Railroad will be operating a OLS Safety Train on Monday June 13 from the Greeley Depot across from the museum. Tickets were available to the public (however at press time it appears they were all taken). Trains will leave at 9am, 10am, 1pm, and 3pm; destination unknown! For more information see: Volunteer Recognitions It's been several months since we reported on volunteers who have been recognized for their donated time to the museum. John Vonk reports he is waiting on an order from a new supplier, so next month their should be something to report! Motor Cars in Oregon The real OC&E didn't have enough local passenger business to justify motor car service, but the neighboring Southern Pacific did employ McKeen cars between Ashland and Grants Pass, starting service on March 28, So Darrel, if you can find a model of a McKeen, you have your prototype! Below: Another safety violation! If the Trainmaster catches this crew violating the safety rules next time, they ll never work for the OC&E again! Photo by Bill Kepner Visitor Counts March Week Week Week Week Totals Average April Week Week Week Week Totals Average May Regular+Tours* Week Week Week Week Week Totals Average *Starting May 2011 regular attendance and tours will be broken out. 2

3 The Crew Caller By William E. Botkin Crew Callers also assist in the solution of problems that might be reported by an engineer. If necessary they make an in-person call to any of the key GFSM volunteers with special skills to help resolve problems. Typical problems that our Crew Callers are asked to handle include assistance from Dave Cimbura in case of motive power failures, help in cases of derailed trains or break-in-twos, and notifying the Motor Pool Supervisor in cases of road accidents. This is a critical function during public hours to insure that operations continue smoothly for our paying visitors. Train crews report many of the problems that arise by radio to the Dispatcher who relays the information to the Crew Caller to resolve. Crew Callers on Duty. Photo by Richard Steinheimer Crew Callers have served a key function in the real world of railroading for decades and continue to play a critical role today. According to the Encyclopedia of North American Railroads by Middleton, Smerk & Diehl, a Crew Caller is described as: OC&E Crew Callers are assigned one of three shifts on a typical Saturday 1st shift is 10:00 am until 12 noon, 2nd shift is 12 noon until 2:00 pm and the 3rd shift is 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The first shift is initially busy assigning trains to all volunteers, but is relatively quiet until the first trains complete their runs after about an hour or so. An important time for the Crew Caller is over the lunch hour, when it is often difficult to maintain enough crews on the railroad to entertain our visitors. Finally, it is always a delicate balancing act to know when to assign the last trains of the day, but in general, no freights should depart Clerk, crew dispatching: A transportation department employee who calls on duty and assigns to jobs engine, train, and yard crews in accordance with their bids, bumps, seniority ranking, and contract provisions. He or she also maintains lists of assigned personnel and their jobs and those furloughed, on vacation and on leave of absence. Today most calls are by telephone. Years ago, call boys of the crew dispatcher's office would also call in person those living or rooming in a stipulated proximity to the on-duty point. At some away-from-home terminals, those rooming in company-designated facilities still receive in-person calls from a crew caller. pg.767 While the Crew Caller position on the OC&E isn't quite as encompassing and complicated as the above description, it too serves a critical function to the smooth and efficient daily railroad operation at the Museum. Our Crew Callers are expected to assign engineers to trains, distribute throttles and radios, and ensure there are enough trains in motion and action in the yards for our visitors to enjoy throughout the day. They also ensure that engineers are qualified and radios and throttles are in good working order. Once crews complete their runs, crews turn in their throttles and radios to the Crew Caller. As the day progresses, it is important that the Crew Caller works closely with the Dispatcher to keep trains rolling on the railroad for the visitors. 3 OC&E Crew Caller Ed Hozian on duty. Photo by William E. Botkin

4 staging after 2:45 to 3:00 pm and passenger or piggyback trains (they are authorized to operate at 30 smph) should not depart after about 3:15 to 3:30 pm to insure that all trains are back to staging at 4 pm. Each week, when the notice is sent out requesting crews, the request is also made for Crew Callers. Most Saturdays, we get enough volunteers for all shifts. If we are short, we assign Crew Callers on a somewhat random basis, hopefully spreading the assignment around to all our volunteers. So next time there is a request for crews, please consider stepping forward and volunteering to be a Crew Caller. s Personal Equipment Guidelines By William E. Botkin If you have at least 100 logged volunteer hours, on the second Saturdays on each month, you will have the opportunity to bring your own personal equipment to operate on the OC&E. This is the infamous Silly Saturday session. The requirements are: Equipment must be DCC decoder equipped with unit and/or consist addresses that do not interfere with GFSM locomotive addresses nor consist numbers. Please arrive early to check with Dave Cimbura if you aren't sure. Dave can re-set your locomotive or consist address temporarily for the day, if necessary. Rolling stock must be equipped with resistor wheelsets or track powered lighted passenger cars. Dave Cimbura will inspect your equipment to verify that it meets GFSM standards. Your equipment must be equipped with Kadee No.5 couplers (or the equivalent metal couplers) with the uncoupling trip levers removed or adjusted to the proper height using a Kadee height gauge. Plastic Kadee clones are not approved for operation at the GFSM. Only you may operate your own equipment on the layout. Personal freight or passenger trains are to be limited to a maximum of 22 actual feet to fit the available staging tracks. If you are bringing only a locomotive(s), you may use designated GFSM qualified freight equipment. Please see Dave Cimbura if you are not familiar with the location of this equipment. The use of personal locomotives on regular GFSM staged trains is not permitted. ONE TRAIN IS ALLOWED PER PERSON, AS WE HAVE LIMITED TRACK SPACE AVAILABLE IN STAGING. When you are planning on operating your own equipment, let us know in advance what you are bringing so we can schedule your run(s) into the regular operations. s Visit to North Carolina Museum by John Erdkamp I recently visited the Wilmington North Carolina Railroad museum. They just got into the Guiness Book of World Records for the longest model (HO) train on April 23, The train had 1563 standard off the shelf cars, and 31 locomotives more or less equally spaced throughout. The mega train was feet long and ran for 750 feet without derailment and was stopped by the operators in one piece. The layout used was a temporary track laid in a week in a convention center. The previous record was held by Miniature Wunderland GmbH was 892 ft 3 in and made up of 8 locomotives and 2,212 cars It had been set in Hamburg, Germany, on July 25, Also, the North Carolina museum has a list of other HO layouts in the nation, and they are printing a book of such. They were more than happy to add GFSM to their list, and our address will be in their next book. ( Publish date TBD. )s - 4

5 Editor's Note: Larry recently sent me the following in an . I conferred with Dave Trussell, and he suggested I publish this in the newsletter to see what ideas we could come up with. I know there are at least three GFSM volunteers who have restored wooden freight cars. The biggest problem would be getting the car here and finding a location to work on it. But this organization is the most resourceful that I've ever been associated with and maybe somebody will surprise us. OC&E Ballast Car Article and photos by Larry Tuttle On the way to the annual Safety/Training weekend at Sumpter Valley Railroad, Jerry Hellinga and I dropped by the Prineville (City of Prineville Railway) to have lunch with Toby VanAltvorst, the COP's GM, and take a look at some passenger equipment which our NRHS Chapter is interested in. There was one other piece of rolling stock that caught my interest -- an OC&E wood ballast car. It's in pretty rough shape, with a lot of the wooden members having rotten and failed. But, otherwise, it's all there. Apparently, it was found out in the woods along the OC&E and was moved to Prineville for a railfan group to restore. Their interest in it was short lived, and it just sat for the past ten years. Toby said he just wants it gone to a good home. He offered it to our group, but I thought it might be a more appropriate project for the GFSM group. If you're interested, I can send you some more pictures. There are couple of formalities to address, but basically it would be free plus transportation. The COP can probably assist in loading the car as well. I don't know anything at all about this car. Perhaps inquire on Trainorders? Or maybe the Eastern Oregon Shortlines group It does beg to be scratch built. A nice model would be in contention for a convention ribbon, especially if there was some documentation and photos of it (the editor has more detail photos for anyone who is interested). s 5

6 GFSM Day One - May 30, 2009 by Chuck Deese, photos by Richard Rineer What are all these rumblings I'm hearing from the model train underground about a new HO layout someone is building in the old Greeley depot? Sounds like a good use for an old depot nobody is using anyway, if you ask me. I have driven by there before, and it didn't look like a very big building. Maybe the layout will go from one room to another. Maybe it will go into the attic or the basement. I would like to get a sneak peak' while they are working on it, but how would I get in? Besides, I'm not much of a landscape artist myself. Sure, I built my own layout in my basement, but once it was operational, I just ran trains. I never did any landscaping. I'll just wait until someone invites me in. November 2008 The December 2008 issue of Model Railroader just came out. A set of Rio Grande F-units running by a river on the front cover. Cool! Visit the ultimate mountain layout in bold letters. A small caption reads, Colorado Zephyr on the Greeley Freight Station Museum layout. What? Has it opened already, and I missed it? I had better sit down and read this right now! It's Show Time So it's not in the depot. It's in a big green building across the street. We walk in the front door, pay our admission to get in, pick up a map of the museum and turn to look at the room. My jaw dropped open. WOW! This is gonna be fun! After I picked my teeth up off the floor and put them back in my mouth, we followed the arrow up the stairs to the mezzanine. There is a band playing in the crew lounge. The museum is packed with people but we expected that. I heard that over 600 people went through the museum that day. We make our way to the main level and start admiring the craftsmanship of everything. Look at this! Look at that! We had some questions, and we bumped into a volunteer named John Vonk. He was nice to us and answered our questions and talked for awhile. He noticed Rich and I were wearing our Rio Grande gear. John had to go somewhere else so we looked around some more. Memorial Day Weekend Oh good, I didn't miss it. The museum's grand opening will be Memorial Day weekend Well, it looks like they got it built without my help, good for them. My buddy Rich Rineer and I make plans to go to the train show at the Island Grove Exhibition Center first thing Saturday morning. We walk around the train show for about an hour, buy a few things and talk to a vendor about how DCC works. Enough of that, let's head over to the museum. The crowds should have died down by now. The Good Ol e Days We bump into John again later in the day and ask him, what does it take to be an engineer? John said something like, well, it depends on who you know. I think he saw the gleam in our eyes. He said, wait here a minute. A lot of people had left and things were starting to wind down. I think they needed someone to run a train. John comes back with a throttle and a radio and asks, you guys want to run a train? I yelled out first, heck yeah, I do! We go back to the staging area, and John fires up a train and pulls it up to the red light. After a quick throttle lesson, John makes this part very clear; if you see a green light you can go. If you see a red light, you had better stop. Yessir, gotcha, I said. He hands me the throttle 6

7 and gives Rich the radio. (Can't do that anymore) Got a yellow light, and here we go. John follows us around like a mother hen for awhile and then gives us a little breathing room. Rich and I are like kids in a candy shop, we can't believe this is happening. About halfway around, I give Rich the throttle and I take the radio. We make it all the way around the layout with no problems. John shuts down the train, and we give him high fives and hearty handshakes. (I wanted to give him a hug; but I thought, maybe not) We tell him; we WILL be back. What a great DAY ONE! s Inside the OC&E July issue PUBLICATION DEADLINE: Wednesday, June 29 at 8:00 AM. Submissions always accepted early (Photos in JPG format are fine). Send to drgw0579@comcast.net Bill Kepner, Editor Wally Hubert, Ed Hurtubis, Associate Editors Trains Continue to Entertain Article On Saturday, May 28, The Greeley Tribune commemorated the museum's second anniversary with both a print and online article. The online version has more pictures of our esteemed volunteers at article/ /news/ /1002&parentprof ile=1001 s Left: The Dispatcher keeps an eye on the trains during an early operating session in May Photo by Bill Kepner J u n e C A L E N D A R Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 1 Open 10-4pm and 6-9pm