Saturday, 22 October 2016

Fall Track Maintenance on the WRD


While waiting for permission to cross the diamond at Bellows Crossing, the tamper operator spends a few minutes getting caught up with the local track crew.
Commentary by Peter Mumby, with
Photos by George Dutka

This past Monday I visited George for the inaugural session of our 2016/2017 modelling season.  The layout was totally devoid of rolling stock; all the summertime "modern era" equipment had retreated to storage shelves, while the more numerous 1950s cars had yet to put in an appearance.  Before this could happen, the track foreman would have to do a thorough track cleaning job.  As well, given the high heat and humidity of this recent summer, the layout had experienced a bit of pitching and yawing, so a complete inspection of both trackwork and benchwork would be required.  With a few track spikes here and a touch of the soldering iron there, George will soon have things ship-shape, and once again the railway equipment of the 1950s will be populating this small corner of New England in a London basement.

This is the type of MOW model I can really appreciate.  Since it says "tamper" on the side, I can actually understand what it is supposed to represent!  This particular model was liberated from my friend Luc's collection at the recent Woodstock Model Train Show.

4 comments:

  1. Very cool, George! Nice to see the 1/87 track crew hard at work, doing some things the old way while the shiny tamper does things the new way.

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  2. I agree with steve, it's a very nice scene :)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Marisa I think it turned out well...new and old...George

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