New England Railfans

Attention Railfans-

On Tuesday April 17th there will be a public viewing of Track Cars on Parade a professional film about the Silver Lake Railroad. Operations manager Bruce Stuart and I narrate the film, and I will be at the showing giving a quick speech about the railroad. This will be shown at the Old Ossipee Courthouse now the home of the Ossipee Historical Society. The film is awesome and the event is free! We highly suggest stopping by!

For more information check this link...

http://www.silverlakerailroad.com/2012%20Stuff/TCOP%20April%2017th%20flyer.pdf

Silver Lake will be having their annual Railfan Day on July 28th starting at 9AM.

I will have Precious Escapes there on the platform! Come by and say HI!

Will,

I understand you folks have the former Crotch Island (Stonnington, ME.) Granite quarry locomotive. If your interested I have a few photos of it in operation.

ok, post them!

By Scruffy- "Here is a question to through out there... What is the condition of the former Crotch Island 0-4-0 at Sliver Lake? I have not had a chance to look at it up close. A locomotive that size (if restorable) would be easily truckable."

it's in Rough Shape. It was purchased with the intent of being a display train, so the water tank which was in REALLY BAD shape (I am told) was not taken with the engine. There is a lot of rotting throughout the engine and I doubt it would ever be worth salvaging, not to say that it couldn't be salvaged with a lot of time and money...

Is the rot in the boiler or......

First off I know nothing about steam engines-

The rot came in from the smoke stack and water corroded whatever that may be. It has also corroded other places that were exposed to let water in over the years. Come take a look at it if you are that interested, I'm not sure what exactly it needs...

It's in pretty rough shape the last I looked at it.

There were a couple of weak spots in the boiler and such.

Nice static display though.

By week spots in the boiler are we talking patches, or actuale wastage in the barrel that would necesitate a whole new boiler?  Just curious.  I've never seen the locomotive, but I've heard she would be a peach of an engine for an operation like SLRR

Might have to take a trip over and have a looksee!

A peach if your replacing the ties and not us... When do you start?

Wastage...........my opinion is that it would need a boiler, but I am far from an expert and unlike some site owners, I will not pretend to know the be all and end all of...

SLRR1 at September 20, 2012 at 7:05 PM

A peach if your replacing the ties and not us... When do you start?

Really Will?  You want to start with this again? 

  So what your saying is that you guys don't have enough integrity in your track stucture to be running light power?  Ties are not a hard thing to do.  I've replaced more ties in a summer than you have in a lifetime.  You buy them, I'll put them in. 

Thanks Bill, I think that I may try to get over and take a look at her.  Best way to get a real good idea of what she would need it to lay eyes on her.

The last tie job was done in the 50's. While the guage is "no defect" the ties would just be crushed. Three miles of line, you do the calculations on how many ties need to be done. By hand you'd probably be there your entire life. Remember this is not laid on nice modern day stone balast, it's on top of cynders and the roots and whatever else have made it more solid through the years. It took us 4 hours to replace two ties that roots had pushed up. That's a long time for 3 miles of line!

I don't want to start anything, just pointing out what is there now is what it is going to be and as the guy who runs the operation, I wouldn't change a thing, it's as near as makes no difference the perfect operation in my mind...