Exciting progress made on several projects during our Saturday, March 23, 2024, workday.
Another Friday evening rain leads to great weather on Saturday as more work was done on the “Grandma Line”, water line extension, and the new retaining wall. The crew took a divide and conquer approach to projects starting with Wes and Scott finishing the new retaining wall then moving to the water line extension project with Robby and John.
Wes also jumped in and help build a temporary crossing so Rick and “Bob Jr” could start bringing in dirt for the “Grandma Line”. Rick spent most of the morning bringing in load after load into the area to fill in many of the low spots we have in the area. The first layer of dirt will settle the next few weeks with more dirt to be brought in later which will also require time for the dirt to settle and compact. Overall, the great news is the “Grandma Line” has made a great deal of progress the past couple of weeks and if all goes well this year, we could get this line completed by fall. If you are looking to get involved, we need track panels and a switch built.
The crew also worked on ballasting both ends of the water line extension and spent time realigning the existing water line track and adding additional ballast. During our next workday the water line track will begin to operate as a mainline for traffic traveling east on the railroad. This will also allow west bound traffic to move over to the track next to the water line and begin traveling across the “LaVay Bridge”. More details on the changes to the railroad operations in the coming weeks.
As the day was wrapping up John and Wes took time to make additional changes to the railroad tie wall near the east end of what will become the “Grandma Line”. They swapped out a couple of bad ties with newer ones and will begin the process of bringing in dirt and other material to secure the wall and prepare the ground for future roadbed through that area.
