Lake Shore Live Steamers.com

Located at

Penitentiary Glen
8668 Kirtland-Chardon Rd
Kirtland, Ohio 44094

This morning it looks like it's going to rain, but we intend to work on the yard at the end of the Stanek Car Barn and you can see how much gravel has been put in on the first two tracks. I guess the sun is going to pop out anyway, in spite of the storm clouds.

John Koontz and Frank Foti take to the task of loading up the buckets with ballast which will be loaded into the work train. John is shoveling in the coarser stone which is grade 57 as we mix it with the fines which are on a pile to the right.

After several more trainloads of ballast, the track has been raised between six and ten inches for these two. Frank continues in the distance to screw the rails down to the ties as Dick Clark oversees and Rick Nagy breaks for lunch.

Dave Foster brought his plasma cutting equipment to make a heat sheild between the motor and the gas tank on the Park engine. No he's not beating the rail with another rail -- he just had to scratch his back.

Frank is picking out bolts for the rail joiners to fasten the short section of rail in the gap between the other two rails. Rick taking a break from sweeping as Wayne Boron continues with tamping of the ballast between the ties with Joe Banzer and Ted Nyland in the background working on the Park engine.

John and Wally Pauch are tamping the stone at the beginning of the yard ladder where we had to raise that track too. Work progresses on the two yard siding tracks with sweeping and tamping of the ballast.

Wayne adding the ties to the rails on the fourth yard ladder siding, keeping ahead of Frank as he continues to screw down the rails to the ties. The weather held out for us today and we got a lot accomplished.

The first two track sidings are all leveled and ballasted, but with that much ballast they're bound to settle over time. Dave and Joe Banzer are fitting the heat sheild in place between the engine and the hydraulic pump hoses as Ted Nyland looks on.

The mounting of the sheild requires careful cutting for clearance around the existing hoses and pipe for the hydraulics. The heat sheild is mounted to the angle frame that you can see underneath the ventilation grill in this view.

The guys decided to put ballast also around the picnic tables to keep us out of the mud since it always seems to be raining this year. Wally, Rick and Dick are looking over the area where we spread the stone to see if its level enough to place the picnic table in that area.

Table moved back in place and the crew relaxing and enjoying the fruits of their labor. Frank looks like he will be able to finish fastening the rail to the ties that Wayne put in place out to the end of the track.