I have to report on how the members of the Cuyahoga Valley S Gaugers spent
this last Father's Day. The local Metroparks (Cuyahoga County Parks
System) Museum has what it calls "Train Days" every year on Fathers Day
weekend.
Although the museum is mainly devoted to the history of the Ohio Canal
system of the 1825 to 1913 era, on this day they go all out to promote trains.
They bring in several sizes and types of model train layouts,
including our 14 by 32 foot hi rail code .148 layout, they have Bluegrass live
music, and movies and live lecturers on train history in the Ohio area.
Several
of us volunteered as lecturers on railroad and canal history and as a
lecturers on toy trains and the modeling hobby. There were eleven train
layouts
from "Z" to live steam there and even a big train pulled by a Jeep
disguised as a Santa Fe F3 for the kids to enjoy.
There were naturalists who led groups of hikers to the high trestle
over the Cuyahoga Valley Gorge on the southern bypass the NS uses to bypass
downtown Cleveland. It is always busy so hikers got a good sight of real
trains during the day.
Our layout was mobbed all day long, with kids and parents stacked up
sometimes three and four deep to see the layout running. We had to keep two
of our guys inside to take care if the running operation, while three more
had to keep outside the layout to keep the little hands from touching and
derailing the trains off the track. Attendance was over 5500 people for the
day so it was definitely a good crowd.
Our members loved it and loved working with all the next generation of
modelers. We all did our bit for S gauge this weekend! Lee McCarty-
Pres. CVSGA
In a message dated 6/18/2012 7:59:55 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
I hope all you gentlemen had as good a Father's Day weekend as I had! I
did nothing but what I wanted to do. I finally got the layout fully cleaned
of chicken dust. Having never brought chicks indoors before, I was
horrified to see how thoroughly it permeated everything. Fortunately, I had
the
foresight to remove locomotives from the room, and I'm thankful I have no
scenery. Still, it took two full days with vacuum and brush. It's probably
the cleanest it's ever been, and I threw out a good deal of clutter.
I discovered a dead section of track one locomotive length long that was
never there before. Turns out I got carried away cutting expansion gaps
recently and isolated this section between feeders. 15 minutes and I was up
and running.
I was also having some mysterious derailments at turnouts. I've purchased
several older used cars lately and tried them out for the first time. I
never checked the wheel gauge apparently, because they were all too narrow.
I assume the "new" standards widened the gauge? I also have a cobbled
Centerline track cleaner with Ace trucks. The wheels were so frozen on the
axles that I almost gave up trying to twist them free. Persistence prevailed
and it too is breezing through the turnouts.
Ed Kozlowsky
Sanford, Maine
