Lake Shore Live Steamers.com

Located at

Penitentiary Glen
8668 Kirtland-Chardon Rd
Kirtland, Ohio 44094

When I arrived at the park today I found the park personnel busy working on laying out the beams for the display they are planning. They had excavated the area down and set a line so that the beams would be level with gravel in between them and they had almost one row in.(63 feet)

Here they work to level a beam and shim it up to place with gravel. This is a picture they provided us along the lines of what they're thinking to put up which is made up of recycled plastic bottles and a little over 50 feet in length.

Work continues and Lew Fowler turns and comes back towards the station after checking out the work being done. Ron Malinowski and Steve Zaken take a breather as they watch Dave Cryor bring a branch back up towards the fire ring by the station.

A view of the station in the background giving you an idea of where their display will be located that the kids can play on while waiting in line for our runs and otherwise. A view of our steaming bays with the venerable three light track signal acquired from the railroad.

The crew doing yard maintenance was sweeping and carrying, anyway to get the leaves on top of the tarp so they could wrap them up and drag the tarp into the woods without having to lift them. The leaves were somewhat wet so it didn't make the job easy.

At the Stanek Car Barn, Frank Smoley and Ted Nyland work on trying to get one of the running lights on the locomotive to work, checking to see if it's the socket or the bulb. They found out it was the bulb, but was an odd number, that we don't have on hand so it's an item that will have to be purchased.

Wayne and Frank in a discussion about the problem on the engine after they checked out the wiring to the light for voltage. The crew filled up the ballast car and Dick gets ready to run the engine out on the mainline.

Ken Brooks and John Koontz shovel our limestone ballast into the ballast car in preparation of taking out the next load. On our third load, Ron Malinowski was helping to load the ballast car with John.

Bob Pakeltis, Ken Brooks and Dick Clark discussed the debris alongside the rail for our concrete encased track for the grade crossing and agreed it needed be cleaned out to see what condition the ties are in. The one board on one side of the crossing has been missing for a while.

With closer inspections it looks like several of the ties are starting to deteriorate badly. Bob took to sweeping out the gap between the rail and the center board and the exposed area closer to him. A problem that will have to be addressed in the future.

Since I was driving the ballast train I didn't get any pictures of us dumping the ballast but here is the track work leading to Short with the ballast alongside the rail. This is the mainline from the whistle stop to the Park Access Road where Bob was working.