Train Mountain 2009

June 19th to 27th

MoPac unit passenger train, Thaine Morris & Pete Fowler

BNSF mixed freight, Miles Kristman

Train Mountain (http://www.trainmountain.org/) has15 miles of yards and other service track and 15 miles of main line with several miles more under construction. By the wish of the founder there is no main line track map nor are there route posts - because he felt engineers should learn the track. That's OK for club members but is hard on visitors who spend a lot of time lost. It's exciting in the dark.

At their multi-bay loading dock

Unlatching the trains

One piece at a time

The MoPac assembled and pointing in the right direction. The turntable is enormous.

The yards are vast - MoPac & BNSF on the horizon.

This is the 'kick switch' used in the yards, much simpler and cheaper than conventional switches but not completely reliable for main line use - they've been know to switch back by themselves. The green block is their system for reporting track defects - when your train gets on the ground the crew puts it back themselves if possible and throws a green block beside the track to show the right-of-way crew where work is needed. There were some quite high piles of green blocks by the end of the meet. No other report, no requirement to call an emergency crew - but if you derail something like a Challenger five miles out you'll be there quite a while.

Leaving the yard on Saturday - the only cold day.

Lunch

Passing the loading bays from behind.

PART of their collection of snow plows

ONE of the campgrounds

One of the tunnels

If it weren't for the air brakes we'd never have any work to do on the train.

Looking down from a bridge on two other track levels.

Grade crossing - with two levels of track below us. There are places with miles of continuous grades near 3%.

Click HERE   for the next page.