Christmas 2010

Well Christmas 2010 is forever past. However it was a memorable one in two ways for me.

First and foremost:

The whole family was together for Christmas eve. It was a short time together as they had to share themselves with other parts of their families. But it was the best gift of all >>> Great while it lasted.

The second event:

VIA came to the KIP:

"Happy New Year"



Another day of breakfast, hobby shop then work on the layout with friends Gord and Colin. Life is good!!

More scenery and lighting added. Unfortunately you have to be here to see the lighting in the dark. However, at least now services in the church don't have to be during the day. Gord got the church wired up for lights. Colin continued to apply his masterful scenery techniques to the Scott Junction area.

Lots of progress and lQQkin good ***

Meanwhile over at the abandoned mine the hobos had a roaring fire going.

Since I am confined to the house with Bronchitis, I had a choice of doing Christmas decorating or workin' on the railroad. Not to difficult to know which I picked. I decided that it was time to finish the North end of the mountain so I created the 'White Cliffs', the will be painted when all are in place.

Quebec Gatineau GP 39, on lease to KIP coming down the mountain having just delivered a load of empties to the Moose Rock Timber logging site.



A closer look at the 'White Cliffs'.

OK back to the decorating!





Last Saturday ground cover in the area of the North tunnel entrance was added. Today a friend returned to me a diesel that he had converted the decals from Huron Central to Quebec Gatineau.

If I can figure out how to do it, I will add a short video of the engine pulling out a tank car from the local fuel distributor .

Shoring up the line

The curve at the bottom of the Moose Rock Grade developed a negative superelevation, (Not sure there is such a thing ) but what was happening was the train leaned outwards instead of inwards when going around the curve. The outside rail had to be elevated to provide a superelevation. To do this a structure of logs, ties, gravel and dirt was constructed to hold up the rail thrugh the curve.



Construction on the KIP continues

Today the crew continued work on the KIP.

Gordon worked on providing electricty to the village of Kipawa.

Umm! I see the lights are on in Kipawa thanks to Gord, but I see someone driving without head lights. Have to fix that :-)).

Last week Colin and his crew (Himself) installed stone retaining walls. This week the ballast was added and the vegetation trimmed (Installed).

Meanwhile business goes on:





Soggy underpinings

The KIP line passes through some fairly wet areasCalls to shore up those areas is fairly common. Today the maintenance gang installed a great deal of rock work to shore up the elevated track just outside of the village.

In addition all the water running from the end of Moose Rock, caused the track on the curve to sink creating a negative super elevation, i.e. elevation towards the outside of the curve vice inside. The solution .... elevate the outside rail and build a retaining wall to maintain the roadbead in a proper super-elevation. Here we see the track being elevated and the beginings of the retaining wall, more to come....

The waterfall part 2

Well the rush of water has been contained and things seem to be under control. - (Read the enviro tex and waterfall itself have dired and some highlights of white added to the falls).

There is still a bit of work around the outer edges of the water below the trestles. Once that is done the highlight corner of the layout will be complete. Meanwhile work must continue on the building of the Diesel House. More to follow.

Diesel servicing facility

All railways need somewhere to maintain their engines. To handle this, the KIP decided it needed to upgrade it's facilities and started excavation for a new shop.

The waterfall

On my model railroad there is a deep gorge, crossed by two trestles, that had creek slowly running down the rock face into the bottom of the gorge. Today, the dam up river broke and a new waterfall was created, (By my friend Colin Churcher: http://www.railways.incanada.net/ .) Now it is no longer a gorge with a creek in the bottom.

Man that profile picture is ugly

I uploaded the first post to see how things work and being a person who likes instant gratification I wanted to see what it looked like. Well if you can get by that ugly profile mug here goes some more not so ugly. I don't have a lot of interests but what I am doing to keep sane and what will comprise most of the content in here, is, doing things with my wife, grandsons, trains, garden  and my dawg Ruffus.

Carole

My wife Carole on the dinner train last night

Trains

http://ratportageandmattawarailway.blogspot.com/

http://ovgrs.editme.com/

Garden

Grandsons

Cory

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=fl_423285028254#!/album.php?aid=71800&id=735141612

Scott

Ruffus

He got a hair cut a few days after this picture but I think this is how a Golden Doodle should look

OK here I go

I am a 70 year old married, 46 years, my wife says that is the longest she has gone steady with one boy. We have two sons and two grandsons, one 18 and the other 18 months.

I am a recently retired, well not quite, officially I retire this coming Thursday, September 17, after 50 years and one day of service to the people of Canada. 32 years in the Military then 18 as a civil servant. I met a lot of people all over the world, travelled a great deal and I am satisfied with my accomplishments and have enjoyed my career immensely.

They say you should keep busy when you retire so I am trying hard to do that. This blog will be a record of my keeping busy, happenings with the family and probably the occasional comment about what is going on around me. (Good thing this has a spell check, I have made three mistakes already that it caught. I wish everyone would proof read and spell check), see I told you I would add comments.