Lake Shore Live Steamers.com

Located at

Penitentiary Glen
8668 Kirtland-Chardon Rd
Kirtland, Ohio 44094

Today is a work session but it's also pumpkin carving time and here we see Wayne Boron using a blower to clear the leaves off the grass behind the station. Steve Zaken was busy raking the leaves on to a tarp to carry off into the woods.

The Park delivered three containers of pumpkins which should be about 130 pumpkins approximately. Wayne Boron, Anna Zorko and Judy Oscker dig into the task at hand by starting to cut the tops out and clean out the innards of the pumpkins, one by one.

Wally Pausch finishes with the screwing down of the boards in the new grade crossing across the Park Access Drive. By the steaming bays, Rick Nagy was blowning leaves off the track as John Koontz heads towards the station to help cook our lunch.

Bonnie Zaken and John as they wait for the grill to heat up. Judy, George Metts, Paul Zorko, Anna and Wayne busy at work cleaning out the pumpkins.

John Koontz helping to carry the pumpkins from the bins to the tables in front of the station for the carvers. With lunch over, Bonnie holds the pumpkins as John uses a sawsall to cut out the tops making quick work of it.

Pam Znidar and Lew Fowler have joined in with the carving of the pumpkins as Judy and Anna continue their work. Little by little the crew grew in size, as we have Ted Nyland and Mike Harkleroad now working on the pumpkins.

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere and with all the ones we have yet to carve it looks like we're going to be doing this long into the evening. Anna with her family, Judy and Lew take timeout for a break from carving because the insides of the pumpkins are cold on your hands as you scoop them out in this weather.

Bill Deptowicz, the club photographer, poses with some of the carved pumpkins as he takes a break. Josh Frank works with his grampa Skip Frank on this big pumpkin as they plan out their design.

Behind Josh and Skip, Mike Uhrich, Danny Greene, Kim Greene, Beverly Elliott and almost hidden, is Emily Kutscher(seated)as they continue with the cleaning and carving. The kids really get into the pumpkin carving and it turns out to be a family affair.

On the table behind the station Artist Kate Uhrich, with Naomi Guttmann, a friend of Roberta and Roberta Uhrich with granddaughter Nora work on crafting their pumpkins. Edith Hacker standing in front of the tables has joined in with the workers and is busy cleaning out pumpkins.

Kitty Shriver works on her pumpkin inside the station with crafting beads after having cut out the face. Rex Shriver just relaxing and taking it all in and watching all the carving going on for the creativity in cutting out the faces.

Logan Tapolyai is a study of concentration as he continues to carve the face on the pumpkin he is working on. As evening nears and it gets later, we have more people showing up after they get off from work and with darkness starting to settle in it's time to turn on the lights.

You can see in the background there are a lot of pumpkins still to be carved and the finished ones are put into the gondolas to be taken off to the storage shed till Friday. Some of the pumpkins that are already carved and are waiting to be loaded into the train and taken off to the storage area.

It's been a long day and the original crew that started carving is getting tired and here Edith and Josh load the finished pumpkins onto the train. Mike Uhrich resorting to a saber saw to cut out the tops of the pumpkins that will be ready for someone to clean out the innards.

John Deptowicz having traced out the pattern of his idea with a felt tip pen is starting to cut out the image he created on the punkin. John's wife Amy works on her creation of design and finds that some of these pumpkins due to their skin thickness are hard to cut through.

Judson Elliott deep in thought as he cuts the design on his pumpkin which is which is which is propped up on his lap. Logan and Amy watches John as he helps her out cutting through the thickness of the pumpkin skin with Austin Tapolyai in the background leaning against a tree.

These two pumpkins almost look like Bert and Ernie and come Friday night they will have candles put inside for our evening run that's planned. Another train gets loaded and the pumpkins will be taken on their journey back to the storage shed till they are set out into the woods along the track.

Kitty's creation with the crafting beads is finally finished and this is what the pumpkin looks like. Skip talks with Emily about the pumpkin as Beverly seems distracted by what's going on with the loading of the trains with the pumpkins.

John holds up his pumpkin and shows us what he has made for the LSLS Lake Shore Live Steamers with ayou engine silhouette carved into it. I think Mike has hit his limit, I think he's tired but not so much as he can't give us a smile.

We didn't get all the pumpkins carved tonight so some will be left for Friday before the run but Josh is keeping up with it loading the trains. I think Josh is going to be tired tonight from lifting all these pumpkins. Thanks Josh!