Inside the OC&E. The Bears are Here! Welcome to Inside the OC&E. Station Museum th Street Greeley, CO

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1 May 2011 Volume 2 Issue 5 Director's Report Inside the Published by The Greeley Freight OC&E Station Museum th Street Greeley, CO The Bears are Here! News from the Museum: Have you noticed a few new (and younger) faces at the admissions table over the past few months? As part of our new partnership with the University of Northern Colorado's Monfort College of Business, we have been fortunate to have volunteers from the college's student groups. These groups include the Honor Societies, the Accounting, Management and Marketing Clubs, and the Student Service Groups. We also have the upper level website development class competing for Best Design of a new website for GFSM. It has been wonderful to see the creative ideas that these outstanding young people have come up with for the museum. Not only are the students excited about our partnership, but the Dean and the faculty enjoyed their end of the year reception at GFSM. The UNC Bears have been a great support to the museum in just this short time imagine what the future holds! -Michelle Kempema s 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. Dutch Cook is home and recovering from some major surgery; Carol tells us that the patient is impatient, but doing well under the circumstances. We had a visit last week from two executives from a New York City PR firm, and they suggested we put together a story on Amtrak running through our railroad including photos. They think Amtrak would be interested in running something like that in their onboard magazine with a suggestion that passengers take an extra day to come up and visit the museum and our railroad. This might be an excellent idea, so we're out looking for a couple of P42s and a current Amtrak California Zephyr consist to photograph on the OC&E. This could be fun and rewarding at the same time. We could set up a Silly Saturday in June and photograph passenger trains beginning at a specific time and see what we get. As you know, we can set up at least six at a time and have three already in place. I've heard of at least one Great Northern and one Northern Pacific train might be available, or soon to be so. This would be fun. Resistor wheelsets, of course... Contact Dave T if you are interested. Front end volunteers are needed for this summer season, both in the gift shop and at admissions. If you know someone who's a real people person and would like to help us out, give Michelle a call at (970) Prototype News: Several Years ago, the old Southern Pacific line into Coos Bay was embargoed after the former operator, Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad, discovered several tunnels needed immediate and expensive work. The Port of Coos Bay has purchased the line and has acquired $24 million in federal money to repair the damage. The operating contract was recently awarded to ARG Trans and they could restart operations between Danebo (Eugene) and Reedsport as early as June, with full service to Coquille by September. s 1

2 GFSM Hosts RockyOp Session On Friday evening, April 29, the museum hosted an operating session for RockyOp. What is RockyOp? It's a weekend of multiple operating sessions in which over 50 visiting model railroaders came to Northern Colorado to run trains on several layouts. The guests came from all over the country, including Washington (state), Georgia, and Louisiana. Besides the museum layout, there were nine other layouts on the schedule over the course of the three days. For the Friday night session, 22 of these operators were assisted by several GFSM regulars. All trains were run with locals working the yards and industries being switched. RockyOp is one of the regional events promoted by the Operations Special Interest Group of the NMRA. The Colorado events alternate between Northern Colorado (Denver, Longmont, and Greeley) with Southern Colorado (Colorado Springs and Pueblo) every other year. s Photos by Chase Kepner A bit of the intensity of the GFSM operating session can be seen in the faces of these visiting operators. Left: A log train is being switched at Sycan. Left bottom: Randy Worwag watches intently as his train passes through Klamath Falls. Above: Karl Luce uses the caboose for its original intended purpose: As a place for the train crew to carefully observe their train. While Karl is watching his train at Sprague Lake, another operator is all smiles watching the trains pass by the west end of Klamath Falls. Below: Boras Rosser switches at the East end of Klamath Falls. If you would like more information on the Operations Special Interest Group, visit their web site at 2

3 Sycan Branch Recently a volunteer asked the editor for the name of a location on the Sycan Branch. The editor didn't have a clue, and he suspects many other volunteers could use a refresher course also. While the diagrams below are available to crews from the OC&E Dispatcher, perhaps publishing them in the newsletter will allow everyone to become more familiar with this area. Credit Bill Botkin for producing the original power-point documents. s 3

4 One of the most fun locomotives on the OC&E layout to run is Medco 4, currently lettered OC&E #14. The locomotive is assigned to Sycan and at the crew's discretion, can be used on the Camp 500 and Silver King jobs. A crew usually won't use this a second time unless they really like to run the Willamette, as it's top speed of 8 (scale)mph makes for a long day. Why is #4 a Willamette, not a Shay? After the original patents expired that Lima Locomotive Works had held on key features of the geared locomotives, Willamette Iron and Steel Works of Portland, Oregon enhanced the original design and over several years built 33 of these locomotives. Significant improvements over the original Shay design included superheaters, Walschaerts valve gear, and better arrangement of the cylinders. Only six Willamettes exist, and just one, at Rainier Scenic Railroad, operates at this time. The real #4 was built in 1925 and spent its entire career in the forests of the Cascade Mountains between Klamath Falls and Medford, Oregon. The Medford Corporation retired #4 in 1959, and it was donated to the city of Medford. Eventually the Southern Oregon Chapter of the NRHS became the custodian and owner of the locomotive and moved it to the Medford Railroad Park in In 1998, a grant was obtained with the intent of restoring it to operating condition, and by 2011 the NRHS Chapter had invested over $75,000 and 5,200 volunteer hours in the project. Medco #4 / OC&E #14 Article and photos by Bill Kepner The Chapter now needs to raise the money necessary to complete the boiler work before much else can be restored. They have initiated a fund raising campaign and hope to achieve the goal of having the boiler work finished by the end of For more information on this project, see the web page of the Southern Oregon Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society at Once this restoration has been completed, this locomotive will be the only prototype besides SP 4449 on the GFSM layout that is in operating condition. s Top: The model of the #4 is a sweet running locomotive and here it is hauling a set of loaded log cars to Sycan. Above: The boiler of #4 sits outside of the restoration building at Railroad Park in Medford, Oregon Left below: The frame and tender s restoration are progressing inside the restoration shop. Right below: This is where the power of steam is converted to motion. The Willamette s cylinders are being stored on this stand which allows visitors to the park to admire the technology of the Willamette locomotives from 85 years ago. 4

5 The Southern Oregon Chapter of the NRHS also owns the former OC&E caboose #2001. The real significance of this piece of equipment however, is that it was the first Southern Pacific steel caboose, constructed in 1937 as SP #1000. r Operational Update from the GFSM Crew Caller, Bill Botkin Locomotive Operations: Over the past months, we have had several incidents of locomotives in consists being dragged around the layout without the wheels turning. Obviously this is a serious issue resulting in flat spots on the wheels and necessitating replacing the wheel sets. In order to minimize this, all the locomotives, with the exception of steam locomotives, now have a white mark painted on at least one wheel edge on each side. Each time you start your train from staging and any siding after being stopped, you must check each locomotive to insure that all wheels are turning. If you notice a locomotive that is being dragged, stop your train and depress 66, which does a reset. If this still doesn't solve the problem, notify the dispatcher to locate the Road Foreman of Engines, Dave Cimbura. If Dave is not available, remove that locomotive from your consist and have the Crew Caller retrieve it from your train. Signal Indications: While we have been using a flashing red indication for some months, there still seems to be some confusion about its meaning. A flashing red at the entrance to any mainline siding (Sprague, Quartz, Bly or Dog Lake) means there is another train occupying the siding and you may stop and proceed at Restricted Speed into the siding, stopping clear of the rear end of the train in the siding without calling the Dispatcher. (Note that this requires extra-special care on sidings which have hidden track, e.g. Sprague River and Bly) At any other location (Klamath, Lakeview or leaving a siding), the flashing red indicates that there is an unlocked switch in the block and you must have specific permission from the Dispatcher for your train to proceed beyond the flashing red indication. If there is a Yardmaster on duty at Lakeview and/or Klamath Falls, authority for a train to pass a flashing red signal to enter that yard is given by the Yardmaster. If there is no Yardmaster on duty, authority must be granted by the Dispatcher. Authority to pass a flashing red signal to enter a CTC controlled main track or siding from a yard is only given by the Dispatcher. s 5

6 This past March, I had a free airline ticket and a desire to visit some old friends in California and Oregon. I wanted to do some railfanning near Dunsmuir, California, and visit the railroad attractions in Medford, Oregon. I also had a full day I could spend around Klamath Falls, and I hoped to be able to visit some of the places from the GFSM layout like Dairy, Quartz Mountain, and Sprague Lake. I expected to get many photographs for future newsletters and other projects. I rolled into town at dusk and was able to drive around to see some of the railroad sites such as the SP yard and the former location of the OC&E shops. During the evening it started to rain, but I hoped that it would let up by morning. Visit to Klamath Falls Article and photos by Bill Kepner Morning came, and it was still raining. After living in Colorado for 25 years, I had forgotten what a real rainstorm was like; people in Oregon deal with it like we can deal with the snow. I drove around town again and realized by 9AM it was still not light enough for any kind of photography. Listening to the weather radio, I discovered it would continue to rain all day and possibly snow towards the east. It just didn't seem like it would be a good day for sight-seeing. If I left now and headed to Sacramento, maybe I could visit the railroad museum with it's inside exhibits. Reluctantly, I then headed south. Above: The SP line between K-Falls and Chiloquin runs along the Upper Klamath Lake. On May 5, 1984, Southern Pacific 4449 is leading the 1984 Worlds Fair to New Orleans on its first day out of Portland. This would be the big Northern s longest outing since its role with the American Freedom Train in I'll have to plan another trip there someday, but it won't be in March! I guess I'll show some photos from the area I took in s Right: SP 4449 is pulling up to the Klamath Falls Amtrak station where it will load passengers for the final day trip into Portland. Below left: In 1984, the SP turntable and roundhouse still stood just north of the Main Street bridge. Below right: The lumber industry in Southern Oregon was still suffering from the recession and many boxcars were stored, waiting for lumber which will never leave the forest. 6

7 Sycan Branch Crew Fired by Bill Kepner Engineman W.C. Kepner and Fireman K.W. Orndorff were fired late last week after it was found the fuel in Willamette #14 was contaminated with water. Initially the crew claimed there was a water leak in the oil bunker on #14, but later an anonymous photographer sent the Klamath Falls main office the photo below. The evidence clearly shows Orndorff lowering the water spout to the oil bunker. It is unknown exactly how this lapse of judgement occurred. To make things worse, Kepner can be seen sitting on the edge of the tender of #14 apparently oblivious to what his fireman is doing. The railroad wishes to reward the photographer, but the only clue they have is that the photograph was initialed DT. The only comment by the crew was Damned Railfans. s HELP! I need material for future newsletters! I don't expect completely polished articles (although when that happens I am extremely happy!). If you have any tidbits of information or photographs about the museum or related topics that might be of interest to the museum volunteers, you can certainly send them to me. I would like to use them in a future issue. -The Editor Right: Logs headed for the mill on the Sycan Branch. Photo by Bill Kepner 7

8 N Scale Junk Meet The Moffat Modeler are hosting an N scale Junk Meet on May 14, 2011 at the Forney Museum in Denver. Admission to the meet and layout is apparently one N Scale junk item. For those possibly interested, send the editor an at drgw0579@ comcast.net and he will send you the flyer with the full information. Left: The Eastbound Glow Worm is about to enter a short tunnel on the way up the hill to Quartz Mountain. Photo by Bill Kepner Inside the OC&E June issue PUBLICATION DEADLINE: Sunday, May 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 M A Y C A L E N D A R Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Open 6-9PM 5 6 Open 10 am to 4 pm Open 10 am to 4 pm Open 10 am to 4 pm Open 10 am to 4 pm