Dale, I can help you guys out. What is the schedule for the clean up? Also congratulations on your new position of El Presidenta. Hope things go well. I was President of the Tulsa Kart Club in 1979 and we had a flood cover the track with a thick layer of mud. It took us, about twenty people, a full day to clean up. Not too long after that I had to find a contractor to repave the track. 1979 was a busy year for me, overall a great year. I won my first Championship that year also. Joe
Hi Joe! The current plan is to try getting the room cleaned prior to starting on the layout. This includes the ceilings, joists, tops to fixtures table tops, furniture and floors. The layout will be covered during this process. After the room is cleaned, we will begin working on the layout itself. Cement dust is toxic because of the silica content. So we will have to take precautions during all parts of the cleaning. Once we start on the layout, we will need to get the proper gear to wear for dust removal. We are probably going to issue a plea for help from the local Tulsa MRR community. We cannot field enough members who’s health would not be negatively impacted to do it on our own in any realistic timeframe. We intend to come back, just not sure how quick yet. I appreciate the offer for sure. I will talk to you about it when the time comes. On top of this I am trying to get the POCR ready for ProRail in early May. There is quite a bit to do there but it will not be as far along as I want but GCMRA has priority at this point. We will also be part of ProRail as well. Well, never a dull moment in this hobby. You learn carpentry, electronics, artsie painting, model building and in my case, hazardous materials handling! I have faith we will endeavor to persevere as my friend Tom Holley pointed out! You can tell, I’m in a better mood now. Take care my friend!
I'll be on standby for the clean up, just let me know when you are ready. Retired life is good for these types of emergencies, I'm very flexible with time. Joe
The POCR is about to go on active duty. We received word this week that on top of the dust storm our rent is going to triple. We do not have the available funds to be able to remain in our present location. This morning was spent packing up dusty rolling stock and locomotives as well as buildings, vehicles and people. We have just about turned the GCMRA into a ghost layout. They’ve had an almost 15 year run in this location. Pretty sad to see..... I have been making progress on the POCR by way of going through another wall to add Terra Nitrogen (CF Industries) switching and have also installed a view-block between the west channel Gavilon tracks and the west branch holding Hughes Lumber and the team track. We have also extended the track on the west branch to aid switching. The view-block will have building flats to make it look like the branch track is going behind large buildings. It definitely makes the room more cozy. It will be interesting to see how the crews work together in Monday nights ops session. I have also procured 3 Smail switch machines to install at key switches on the north track. I have found the first real drawback with HCD layouts. Installing under table machines. I need to figure out how to come up through the door and foam top to get to the track. Not giving up yet. But I’m definitely thinking about it. I bet we can figure a way. These machines are key to smooth operations. Thanks for stopping by. I’ll be posting up some pictures soon! Dale
Dale, Sad to hear about the rent tripling on you folks, that's too bad for sure. A lot of years of MRRing there. I feel for you all. The POCR is gonna get a boom in business it looks like. The hardest part of putting in switch machines is the getting started part. Looking FWD to seeing some pictures.
Dale that really bites about the club layout. OTOH though your P. O.C. seems to be generating new business.
This was hanging on the wall at the club. They didn’t know what to do with it. I know what to do with it! Hehe Sand Springs Railway is a short line that runs from Tulsa west to Sand Springs. Their tracks go right by the club building we are vacating now. The sign is plywood. We also have a SS Railway Metal sign that will be going on eBay auction with pick-up in Tulsa. It is actually in 2 pieces about 2 feet tall and each piece is about 6 to 8 feet long. Proceeds all go to the club.
Some progress on the west side. We had a winter storm move thru last night and it made for an inside day today. I was able to get some work on the backdrop for Hwy 167 and the BNSF interchange. We got the ballast in on the tracks. I painted trees on the backdrop and added ground cover to hide the edge and the bare texturing between the road and the backdrop. Next to work on the highway crossing over Bird Creek and finish everything to the wall. Maybe I just need some more bad weather to be motivated! Thanks for looking in! Dale
Great looking background trees Dale! I have tried but I am not very good at it. I ended up cutting some sponges up to look like trees and plastering on the backdrop, looks like I did exactly that. For some reason we, west of the Rockies are not part of the deep freeze out east. Is that a freight liner with a livestock trailer? I have one of those too, but never got around to weathering it, need to duplicate all the runny poop down the sides LOL. BTW I have the QA&P hopper ready to head to Tulsa. How are you doing with the Club dismantling? You guys have had some hard luck out that way with that. Any ideas about where the club can rebuild?
Hi Tom, I’ll post up a video on the trees if anyone is interested. I’ll take some pictures and send them to you. They are pretty easy and quick to do. Normally I’d be happy to export the cold wether but I think you get your fair share! So I’ll be nice and send it on east! Club: Next weekend is the planned big move-out unless the weather shuts us down. We are salvaging wat all we can and putting it into storage. We are looking at a couple of options right now. Buying a house ina depressed part of town, not the best option because of long-term space limitations. We have also located a church building not far from where we are now for sale. It’s big enough and the price is reachable. So we are looking in that direction. We have also found out another club in the area is getting close to shutting down because of a lack of members which means budget troubles as well. They have a sweet long term lease deal. We have members and a decent bank account so there is going to be talks to see if we can find some common ground. It’s farther away than we want but it would be a fit if we can work things out. I’m pulling for that if possible, but I’m open to abuilding purchase if needed. Besides all this, I’m getting ready for the ProRail meet in May. That is definitely driving my motivation on the layout. Nothing like a meet to get you off your butt! Ok, so what’s the trade on the cars? Do you want something with Graffiti to represent Oklahoma? I can come up with something that would fit your era or does that matter a lot? Talk to you soon buddy! Dale
Dale, how are you doing with the train club move and your layout? We haven't heard from you in awhile, hope everything is going well. Joe
Well guys, I’m still amongst ya! There is nothing like a 3 Alarm layout visit/operate/open house to get you motivated! Next month on May 4 and 5 I will be hosting 2 operations sessions for ProRail, a group of model Railroaders who meet every year in a different city and operate a model railroad. This year Tulsa is hosting and I was asked to be one of 15 railroads in the meet. The goal is to operate your model railroad in a protypical manner. Since I model a small industrial railroad, I seem to fit right in. I will only host 4 people over the 2 days but I plan to have plenty of work to keep them busy for 4 hours per day. Check out www.prorail.org. The club is in storage for the time being. We received a nice check from our insurance because of the dust storm. But we had to move out because of the huge rent increase. The bottom lone is we do have funds to look at purchasing property to actually own our home instead of spending all our money renting. We have also received commitments from several members to make cash donations to the club to ensure we do not have a mortgage when we buy. There is a gentleman here in the Tulsa area that has a large privately owned model railroad called the KCS 3rd Subdivision. Steve has been our guest at our ops sessions many times and has taken us under his wing in the interim to keep us running. If you can, google the KCS 3rd Subdivision and look at what he has built. We will be Meeting there and running trains while we look for our new home. I must say, Steve is a very good friend to the club and I do not know where we would be without him. If you are ever at a meet and run across him, say hi. You will be glad you did. Personally, I have had to take several detours with family matters in the whole month of March, from remodeling rooms to moving kids around, but things have calmed down a bit and I am back working on the layout. I do have a coworker for scenery and he is quite good. A gent named Kevin M, Kevin is the gent who painted my SD 40-2s in SKOL and is doing buildings with me and he pours a mean balllast! We have made quite a bit of headway in several weekends. The layout is really starting to take shape and I could not be nearly as far along without his work! I will post up more pictures soon and we have revised the track plan some to give more industry’s to switch. We now have CF Industries for liquid nitrogen fertilizer to bring out of the port. I have deleted one industry to add a passing siding on the east side of the port. So, all in all I am quite pleased with the track plan now. By having the track pinned down so I could operate it and look for improvements prior to ballasting I have been able to adjust things as we go. The ops sessions I have been hosting have given me lots to think about and improvements to make. I’m glad I did that way. I’m going to wind this up, it’s starting to sound like one of those Christmas letter....... I’ll see you all again soon! Take care, and I’ll see ya on the railroad! Dale
Dale, I took a look at prorail and they have a very impressive list of layouts. Are they all in the Tulsa area? I have seen three, David Soliman, Jim Senese and yours. Is it possible to see the other layouts during the event for someone like me, not a member of prorail? Joe
Hi Joe, The meet is by point invitation only. I got asked to participate because I have a rr that does operate in a realistic manner. However, if you google the KCS 3rd Subdivision, Steve has monthly ops session on open call. You might drop by to check it out on an operations date. Visitors are welcome. You will be glad you did. I operated there on Sunday and ran the Heavener Drill job. I had quite a bit of fun and work!!!! Take care buddy! Dale
Thank you for responding Dale, just thought I'd ask. I will look into your suggestion for Steve's layout. Joe
I have had the privilege to operated on Steve's KCS 3rd Sub (a line I used to railfan when I lived in Ft. Smith in the nearly 1980s), as well as Jim Senese's Kansas City Terminal and the Claremore & Southern RR. The Tulsa area is blessed with several great model railroads, and I would heartily recommend them to anybody else in the country. Last time I ran on the KCS, I was operating the Super Dog long-distance local, and I was dog-tired (pun intended) when done.
