May 20, 2005
Tom Bowdler had his portable steam track set up at Ridge Road Station again for the semi-annual train races. The weather was not exactly great, but we still managed to boil some water. it appeared to me that the live steam trains were drawing more attention this year, which is good, but Im not sure if it was because the crowds thought our little engines were interesting or if they were just trying to warm themselves up a little with the heat coming off the boilers!!!! Tom Bowdler drew the biggest crowd with his coal fired shay, it smelled so good! There were four rubys running as well as one of the new plastic aristocraft live steam mikados, plus others that were run before I arrived.
I had just modified my ruby to look like a Maine two foot forney and today was my first test run. The engine ran ok but I was not impressed with the looks of my work, so I will start over again for the third time. If it looks like the back of my engine raises up - it does, I dropped the cab/tender section of the engine on the floor the night before while I was rushing to paint it.
On the plus side though, I bought a whole bunch of track for my future layout, so I have plenty of projects to keep me busy!
