The Gandy Dancer The Official Publication of the Alameda County Central Railroad Society

May, 2005

Next Public Operation Session:

The ALAMEDA COUNTY FAIR!

Upcoming Events:

May

The Monthly Business Meeting will occur on May 6th, 2005

And, of course, the Bar-B-Que will be operating, so bring something to grill.

June

The Monthly Business Meeting will occur on June 3rd, 2005

July

The Monthly Business Meeting will not occur due to Fairtime.

August

The Monthly Business Meeting will occur on August 5th, 2005
Stay tuned for the 'We survived the Fair' celebration details.

Fair warning:

2005 Alameda County Fair
June 24th to July 10th, 2005

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HO Scale News:

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From the HO Trainmaster:

Before you know it, it will be Fair time. We have a few things to complete in the next couple of weeks. Garrett is working on the city with his team. If he asks for your help, please give it. The city has been dragging on for a while now. It will be nice to get it done. Paul and his team are working on the interurban bypass. The support and track work should be done in the next couple of weeks then we have electrical and scenery. Dean and his team have started working on Mesa. There is a lot to get done and time is growing short. So if he asks for your help please pitch in. I am working on the swamp coolers. The worst of our two is in pieces. It looks like it can be repaired. I intended to remove all the rust, repaint and replace any broken parts (belts).

If you are wondering what you can do before the fair, look over the layout. Look for and repair any problems with scenery, clean up the dust and spider webs. If you find an electrical problem other then street lighting bring it to Wayne. If it's street lighting show it to Bob J. Remember it will be Fair time before you know it.

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O Scale News:

From the O Scale Trainmaster:

Hey gang-

Saturday, May 14th is the last of the days I have proposed for working on the layout. I hope to see a few of you who have had schedule conflicts the last couple of work days.

Last workday was attended by Henry and David, Jeff Brown, Ted Tully, Dick Stark and myself. We have acomplished an encouraging amount over the last two work days. Be sure and admire the 'Chandler Wall' and through-truss bridge, and Brown Junction in the northern gorge. Curley and Ted each undertook more subtle appearance improvements on the 16th, by weathering many items and standing up figures around the layout, respectively. Dick Stark has begun freshening up the backdrop; it's a big job, and I'm glad I'm not doing it. Dave Chandler has been doing lots of car service, too, which seems to be another thankless, never-ending task. Any time you make up a long drag of club-owned cars, be sure and thank Dave for keeping up the fleet.

Standing up the city skyline was more time-intensive than I had planned on, but I believe doing so has made that portion of the layout look more cohesive. Someone who has a few minutes to spare and is looking to get involved could help me put on a few windowshades here and there. Henry and I managed to get a more-or-less presentable slab down for the MiJack to run on-- it'll need a bit of airbrush work to weather in the slab, and the MiJack itself could use a little abuse, too. Anyone care to volunteer? I can supply an airbrush, if that helps . . . .

The objectives remaining are:(and I know some of them are being worked on)

• Fix the Narrow Gauge roundhouse roof
• Getting some sort of lockable storage built back by the set-up track
• Put up a removable view-block across the incomplete portion of the Main Line scenery in the south end of the layout
• Getting all our lighting ready for the Fair
• Tune up and test-run the O-scale swamp coolers
• Finish troubleshooting a couple of turnouts
• Clean and dust
• Test everything on the layout

On June 4th, I'd like to dust, sweep, vacuum, de-web, de-bug, primp, preen and otherwise spruce-up the layout for the Fair. This process should include exercising with a train every piece of track and every switch machine on the Yard and Main Dispatch panels, particularly the reverse sections and the setup track. Doing so will accomplish several things: refresh or teach, in several cases, the skills needed to operate the layout, and hunt down any last-minute gremlins.

George Cumming has proposed purchasing a set of Daylight passenger cars for club use. He reports that K-line offers a couple of sets of well detailed 3-rail cars that can have scale trucks installed and could be prototypically used behind a set of F-units, or by substituting a couple of cars, behind a GS-4. Even if we didn't change the consist, few fairgoers will either notice or care about the anacronism; but many will recognise the paint scheme. Bring your thoughts and feelings on the matter; I'll try to have the catalog on-hand so interested parties can view the ad copy and photos for themselves. If we act fast, we might have them for opening day.

See you on the right-of-way,
-Dan
O Scale Trainmaster

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General Hobby and Prototype News

Who's the Fool here?

Last month, your editor put in a story about live steam in N scale as an April Fools prank. Well, folks, the joke appears to be on me: there's a guy in England who has done even better than that. Check out his page; he's an absolute NUT for micro-model railroading. Thanks go to Russ Wood for pointing out my folly.

Western Pacific Railroad Historical Society 2005 Convention

On April 15th and 16th the WPRRHS had their annual convention in Tracy, California. Lee Buckner and myself attended this year's event. I attended the April 16th day of the convention. This was held at the Holiday Inn just off Intestate 205. Scheduled for the day was a slide presentation of laser cutting models in which a replica of the Salt Lake WP/D&RGW Depot was on display. There were also slide presentations of the last 4 WP F units, the Alameda and San Juaquin, and WP depots and stations along the WP route. Also shown was a vintage 16mm film that covered WP freight action on the Eastern end of the WP around the late 1960's.

Later in the evening, we had a dinner banquet that included a tri-tip dinner. Sorry to say, everyone seemed to think we should have brought our hack saws. Carlo should have been there to give them a few tips on how to cook tri-tips. After the the dinner we had a guest speaker who was an attorney for the Union Pacific Railroad. He gave a presentation on the outlook and goals of the UP. UP will be concentrating most of their business in the El Paso to Long Beach area. Seems they have a lot more business there than they can handle at this time. There was also a question and answer period that covered some various topics. In conclusion, I believe many of the WP enthusiasts found the convention covered some interesting subjects.

Next year's event will be held at the Holiday Inn in Chico, CA.

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The Gandy Dancer, a monthly publication of the Alameda County Central Railroad Society.
Last updated May 03, 2005.

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Copyright © 2004 - 2009 Alameda County Central Railroad Society. All Rights Reserved.
For more information, email Dan Espinosa at:
steelnomad2002 at yahoo dot com.