Today we had a six man crew cutting east of MP 10.1 and cut to MP 9.4, making 7/10ths of a mile. Many thanks to George Cook who brought is track car, Burr Hubbell, Chris Bigham, Steve Kijak, and our new volunteer, Matt Giardino.

Today we cut through the deep curved cut from MP 9.9 to 9.7, where many spectacular photos were taken in the past.

The track is now clear from MP 9.4 to MP 11.4, making 2 full miles clear in this section of the line. We have 3.4 miles to open before we get to the western end of our clearing in Kingston at MP 6.

Photos from today are posted here:

http://naphotos.nerail.org/show/?byrail ... ountain_RR


Ernie Hunt

Catskill Mtn. RR Brush Cutting Saturday, September 9th

On Saturday, September 9th, Steve Kijak, George Cook and I plan to lead a crew working to clear the line east and west of Beesmer Road. We plan to start about 9:00 am at the Beesmer Road overpass, MP 8.98.

Beesmer Road is about 4 miles west on Route 28 from Exit 19 (Kingston) of the NY Thruway. Just before you reach the Harley Davidson Dealership (west side of SR 28), turn left onto Beesmer Road and proceed west about 4/10th mile to where the railroad crosses the line on a concrete overpass. We will park on the east side of the overpass.

Weather is expected to be sunny with a high of 81 degrees Saturday with a light breeze.

We are tentatively planning our next session on Saturday, September 16th.

As always, any new volunteers are welcome!

Ernie Hunt

On Saturday, September 9th, we had a six-man crew cutting brush from the Beesmer Road overpass, MP 8.98, west to MP 9.4, where we stopped cutting last week. The crew consisted of George Cook, Steve Kijak, Chris Bigham, Dave Baker, Travis Rapp, who is also a volunteer for the Trolley Museum in Kingston, and myself.

We cut through heavy pine trees west of the Beesmer Road bridge, which lessened as we entered the cut on the tangent to West Hurley, though we had one more section of pine trees between MP 9.3 and MP 9.4. We also cut a little on the east side of the bridge, to MP 8.95. It was a warm day, and we were pretty tired by lunchtime. We now have a 2.5 mile stretch open on this segment of the line to MP 11.4.

After lunch the crew cut a few hundred feet west from the Route 28A crossing at Stony Hollow, MP 8.32, before breaking up early to attend the CMRR volunteer party in Phoenicia.

We plan to continue cutting on our next session to the Route 28A crossing at Stony Hollow, MP 8.32, about 6/10ths of a mile. Out next session is scheduled for Saturday, September 16th.

Pictures of our cutting today are found here:

http://naphotos.nerail.org/show/?byrail ... ountain_RR

EH

Catskill Mtn. RR Brush Cutting – Saturday, September 16th

On Saturday, September 16th, Chris Bigham, George Cook and I plan to lead a crew working to clear the line east of Beesmer Road starting at 9am at about MP 8.95. Our goal is to reach the Route 28A crossing at MP 8.32. George Cook has volunteered his track car and will make runs up to the Glenford Dike, MP 11, on breaks.

Beesmer Road is about 4 miles west on Route 28 from Exit 19 (Kingston) of the NY Thruway. Just before you reach the Harley Davidson Dealership (west side of SR 28), turn left onto Beesmer Road and proceed west about 4/10th mile to where the railroad crosses the line on a concrete overpass. We will park on the east side of the overpass.

Weather is expected to be sunny with a high of 79 degrees Saturday with a light breeze.

New volunteers are welcome as always.

Ernie Hunt

Today we had a good crew and a productive day. We started just east of the RR overpass over Beesmer Road, MP 8.95, went through the Route 28A crossing at Stony Hollow, and ended at MP 7.5. We only have 1.5 miles left to Hurley Mountain Road, MP 6, and the next 1/2 mile, to MP 7, is already very clear.

Our crew today consisted of George Cook, who brought his track car, Travis Rapp, Chris Bigham, Steve Kijak, Dave Baker, and myself. A few members of the Trolley Museum came by after lunch to see how we were doing.

Pictures from today can be found here:

http://naphotos.nerail.org/show/?byrail ... ountain_RR

Ernie Hunt

The track gang has returned the full extent of the operating section (to MP 22.7) back to operation this weekend with the completion of repairs to the washout at MP 23.3.

Also worth mentioning was the first movement of a train east of the current end-of-track last weekend, with the MOW train led by Engine #1 creeping approximately an additional 1/4 mile east of the current operating section to approximately MP 22.4, where a culvert washout made for unstable track conditions.

The track gang followed up on that venture this weekend with the hi-rail Gradall, beginning ditching/drainage work between MP 22.7 and MP 22.4.

Catskill Mtn. RR Brush Cutting – Saturday, September 23rd

On Saturday, September 23rd, Dave Baker and I plan to lead a crew working east of Pine Hill. We plan to start about 10:00 am at the Pine Hill depot site. We will be cutting east of MP 39.25 and plan to put safety fencing on the Giggle Hollow bridge at MP 38.9.

We will be digging out some fill on the tracks at MP 39.4, so bring a shovel if you have one. Otherwise we will be cutting saplings mostly, so chainsaws and big clippers will be most useful.

Pine Hill is 35 miles west on Route 28 from Exit 19 (Kingston) of the NY Thruway. Turn left at Elm Creek Street, which will take you to Main Street (old SR 28). Turn right (north) on Main. Up the hill, veer left onto Bonnieview, then left on Mill Street. Go up the hill under the RR bridge, and turn right onto Station Road. We will meet at the Station Road crossing, where the rails have been removed.

Weather is expected to be sunny with a high of 66 degrees Saturday with a light breeze.

New volunteers are welcome as always.

The Phoenicia-based track gang will also be working out of Phoenicia on September 23rd.

We are planning our next brush cutting session near Hurley Mountain Road (MP 6) on Saturday, September 30th.

Ernie Hunt

Yesterday we had our ninth and final session to clear the track from Highmount (MP 41.4) to Giggle Hollow (MP 38.9). We cleared the track in 9 sessions over the summer of 2006, reopening a section of track that had been closed for 30 years.

We had a five person crew working on the final .35 mile section yesterday: Steve Gollow, Dave Baker, Travis Rapp, Travis' friend Deniza, and myself.

We started by clearing out the fill at MP 39.4, and started cutting at MP 39.25. We made it to Milepost 39 by 2pm, and decided to continue to the bridge, MP 38.9, despite some large trees in the last few hundred feet.

At the bridge, we put safety fencing up to keep hikers and animals from using the bridge, which is 90 feet high.

As we were leaving, we saw a headlight coming down the tracks! Tom Healy, Dick Wilhelm, Ernie Gehrer and George Liucci, who had been working elsewhere on the line, came down the tracks in Tom's track car to see how we were doing. They hauled us back up with our equipment, and we ran the line down to the bridge to survey our work over the summer.

We cut 2.5 miles from Highmount to Giggle Hollow over the summer, and narrowed the distance between the Delaware & Ulster and the Catskill Mountain Railroad from 13.5 miles to 11. We plan to continue cutting east to the Lasher Road bridge, MP 36.9, early next year.

Pictures from yesterday can be found here:

http://naphotos.nerail.org/show/?byrail ... ountain_RR

Next Saturday, September 30th, we will return to cutting the remaining 6 miles of uncleared track on the Phoenicia to Kingston segment of the line. Details to follow.

Ernie Hunt

Saturday was a somewhat subdued effort for the Track Gang, as several of the members of the crew were nursing severe head colds. So we kept ourselves generally busy around Phoenicia Yard, relocating the yard access gate, smoothing out the access road, mowing the ever-present grass, cutting down and clearing several trees and catching up with maintenance on the Ballast Regulator.

End of the day we took the Regulator out for a tour of the line down to Milepost 21.9, with some limited surfacing of the north side of the in-service portion of the line from there back to Andrews Lane, at Milepost 24.88.


PS: Tom Healy seems to get around, doesn't he? It was Tom's turn to spot a headlight on the line as he met up with us after dark at Andrews Lane!

Mr. Hunt:
I would like to make a request.

I am one of the people who views this board in the "thread" format. And these Catskill Mountain threads get quite long and take up much of the first page.

The current thread starts back with a post on July 19th and lists 24 postings.

Mr. Hunt could you start a new posting thread each month, instead of adding onto the old thread?

I'll start a new thread for October.

EH