Tuscarora Railroad

The Tuscarora Railroad is a 1:20.3 garden railroad located in suburban Denver, Colorado. The railroad is based on the East Broad Top RR which still operates today as a tourist line in Orbisonia, PA (south-central PA). Be sure to check out Garden Railway Basics , Kevin's book on building and maintaining garden railroads for information on how the TRR was built.

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Location: Denver, CO

Monday, September 21, 2009

Fall on the Tuscarora

While the Tuscarora Railroad is set in south-central Pennsylvania, it has the benefit/curse of being located in suburban Denver, Colorado. Benefit, in that we have an average of 300 days of sunshine.





Curse in that today wasn't one of them.

Fall arrived in true Colorado fashion, which means it didn't arrive at all, rather Winter showed up for a day. We don't have "Fall" and "Spring" here, rather Summer and Winter alternate days in a battle for supremacy.

Unfortunately, the arrival of Fall coincided with a visit by dignitaries from the Dulles & Reston Garden Weeds RR (the "other" D&RGW) out to visit the Tuscarora RR. Our planned presidential excursion behind EBT #1 was shelved due to the inclement weather.

 


Instead, the TRR's all-weather motive power, a Bachmann "Davenport" with a simple 6v battery pack hard-wired to the motor quietly trundled along in the snow and rain pulling a lone hopper car. While not exactly keeping with the 1910s period of the TRR, it has the distinct advantage of being impervious to the weather--something that cannot be said for the weathering and detailing of the TRR's steam motive power. To its defense, the Davenport does have counterweights, siderods, and a tall exhaust stack, making it a quasi-honorary steam loco.

The first snowfall of the season meant that it was also time to begin the annual fall harvest. In years past, the zucchini farmers along the TRR could feed half of China with their yield.





This year for some reason the yield was considerably smaller. Since the TRR's superintendent isn't terribly fond of zucchinis (unless baked into a zucchini bread), this wasn't quite the negative it might sound to be. The other advantage was that this year's harvest could easily fit within one car. (We did make two trips.) Don't be fooled--the Davenport was trundling around at around 7 mph. We just like long exposures to make it look fast--kind of like the chihuahua who thinks he's a great dane.





Unlike the zucchinis, this year's crop of carrots has proven far more plentiful. TRR crews expect to need a few extra cars for this year's haul. The size of this year's average carrot is just right. Long enough to be substantial, but short enough to eat a whole carrot before realizing I really don't like carrots all that much.

With any luck, Winter's visit will have been short, and we can run the presidential excursion tomorrow. We need new photos of the passenger equipment on the line for an upcoming magazine article.

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