December
6, 2004: Winter
is a great time to sell your unwanted equipment or start looking for
that new project you want to have on the rails next Spring.
Submit your list for the
For Sale
page today. Although there are no official
business meetings during the winter months, Ron Mitchell has
opened the Corner Meeting House in Belmont, NH for informal
get-togethers. Please check the event page once-in-a-while to see
if there might be one coming up. Did you go on a memorable motorcar
ride in 2004? Other members
and enthusiasts would love to hear about it. I would like to post
the stories if you have one.
News
November 10, 2004: Jon Miner
has a great web site of his motorcar activities. See
the
photo page.
The Bedford, NH Boomer Train Show
was a lot of fun. The weather
was warmer than usual and we gave many rides on the 1/8 scale railroad,
set up in the parking lot. I pasted CVRTC literature all over the
motorcar on the front lawn encouraging people without equipment to give
us a try. We always can use some extra hands.
Membership News
October
25, 2004: Membership
renewal time will be here
soon. I will be working with Roy Friendberg to check the current
membership roster with some old rosters so that we can boost
membership. If you have let your membership expire you have
missed many new events that Chris Sylvester coordinated this
year. You will also be removed from the CVRTC news groups and
mailings. With completion of my Briarcliff Short Line 1 1/2"
scale track, I will be adding more events to choose from in 2005.
Claremont & Concord Work Ride
October
18, 2004: Claremont
& Concord work ride on October 26th and 30th. See the event
page. Are you a Cotton Valley member? Do you have a railroad or
motorcar web
page? I would like to link your site to the member photo page.
MEC Fun Run
October
11, 2004: CVRTC
member Arthur Hawkes has planned a Fun Run on the former Maine Central
Mountain Division between East Hiram, Maine
and Fryburg. The event is open to CVRTC insured members.
Set on is at 7 AM. See the event page and contact Art for more
details.
Painting Party
September
26, 2004: A painting "party" will be held at
the October meeting. Members are requested to bring any light
colored LATEX paint you might want to donate. Long handled
rollers are also requested. Wear painting clothing! The
target of the painting is the inside of the engine house.
Upcoming Events
September
7, 2004: Chris Sylvester has been working
hard to set up more events all year
long. See his latest events on the EVENT
Page. Chris is also working with more railroads at the
present time.
Raffle, Mowing and Yard Sale
August
30, 2004: Winners of
the raffle drawing will
be posted as soon as I get a
confirmed list of winners. Thanks to Franklin McDonald and the
volunteers who helped move and
identify obstacles, the Cotton Valley Trail has been mowed between RT
109 and RT 16. Thank you to those members who brought items to the yard
sale. A
tidy sum was raised due to your efforts.
Get Your Raffle Tickets
July
25, 2004: Raffle tickets are available
now. Contact a CVRTC member to purchase raffle tickets
for your chance to ride the rails. Tickets are only one dollar
each. The winners do not need to be present at the drawing.
Drawing to be held following the monthly meeting on August 8th 2004 at
the Fernald Station on Rt 109, just East of Wolfeboro, NH.
Prizes:
The Cotton Valley Rail Trail Club thanks each railroad
for thier
generosity in donating the tickets to help raise funds for the club's
right-of-way equipment. Click on the links to visit the web sites
of each supporting railroad.
Meeting Notes
June
15, 2004: Ideal
weather for monthly meeting. Approximately 26 members and guests showed
up for last Sunday's monthly
meeting at Fernald Station. The weather could not have been
better. Here are some items discussed at the meeting. Past
members encouraged to renew their membership. The club is
working hard to expand the number of CVRTC host railroads in southern
New England. Members who have been reluctant to travel to
northern NH for motorcar events will have more local activities. Mowing
of the Cotton Valley rail trail is about to begin.
Volunteers will be needed to mark obstructions and to clear the track
ahead of the mower. Annual yard sale is set for the July 11th
meeting. Also on the
11th will be motorcar rides given to the public and replacement of
switch stand timbers. Raffle tickets are being printed. The
tickets will sell for one
dollar each and will include a chance to win train rides from around
New England. Conway Scenic work-ride Saturday June 19th. Call
Wayne G. at
603-332-1422 for details. Motorcar insurance should be purchased by all
CVRTC members who operate
a motorcar. On annual basis the fee is less than the fuel bill to
attend one or two events.
South Shore Model Railroad Club
May
25, 2004: South Shore
Model Railroad Club visits
CVRTC and the Cotton Valley Trail. In observance of Mothers Day, the
monthly meeting was held on May 16th
instead of May 9th. Following a well attended meeting, CVRTC
members treated the model railroaders from the South Shore Model
Railroad Club to a motor car tour along the Cotton Valley trail.
The motor cars departed Fernald Station in two groups, one headed West
and another headed East.
Trail Report
April
8, 2004: Roy
Frendberg has another trail report on the trail
news page. Do you have equipment for sale? I will post
motorcars that are
for sale from any legitimate owner. I will post wanted ads and
accessory ads from CVRTC members only.
Changes
April 3, 2004: The
dates for the April and May membership meetings
have been changed as follows: Meeting scheduled for April 11th has been
moved to April 18th. Meeting scheduled for May 9th has been moved to
May 16th. Long time CVRTC member, Roy Frendberg, has been elected to
serve as
CVRTC Membership Secretary. Roy has been a steady supporter of
our motorcar organization for ten years. Bill Lee, CVRTC's
youngest member, resigned as Membership Secretary at the end of the
2003 term to allow time for his career persuits. Priorities
first! Thank you Bill for your service and good luck with your
career. Additional changes have been made to CVRTC membership.
The
membership form page has been updated to reflect the new mailing
address. The
first dues increase also takes effect for 2004 memberships.
Annual
dues are now $25.00 per year.
Trail Report
March 31,
2004: Roy Frendberg has set out a trail
report for the
Cotton Valley and Ossipee rails. His report is located on the
trail news page.
Ossipee Revitalization Project
March 5,
2004: Received from
Paul Hatch...
I would personally like to thank
all of the Cotton
Valley Rail Trail Club members who attended tonight's meeting in
Ossipee regarding the revitalization project of the Conway Branch. We
had at more than a dozen members present out of a total of 70-75
citizens in attendance. Looking at the sign-in roster, we were very
clearly the largest single contingent that was represented (more than
any of the other "special interest" groups).
There was overwhelming support in favor of restoring the line from all
of the speakers at tonight's meeting. The final report by the N.H.
Department of Transportation won't be finished for presentation to the
state legislature until June, so there is still time to voice your
comments or questions to either Kit Morgan at NHDOT:
Rail &Transit Room G25, JOM Building
7 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03302 Kit Morgan
(603) 271-2468
or to Senator Joe Kenney of Wakefield (who chairs the Transportation
Committee). majjkenney@prodigy.net
Again, thanks to everyone who gave up their evening time to attend this
meeting.
I look forward to seeing everyone at the CVRTC Annual Meeting on
Sunday, March 14th at 10:00 AM in Belmont!
Regards,
Paul Hatch
CVRTC Recording Secretary |
Annual Meeting
February
20, 2004:
Ballots and changes to the club's by-laws have been mailed out with the
annual renewal notices. Please return them promptly or bring them
to the Annual Meeting on March 14, 2004. The meeting will be held
at the Corner Meeting House in Belmont, NH and will start at 10AM. (Directions: I-93 north
to exit 20 go
straight onto route 140, 4 miles to Main Street. Stop sign
take right, Go 200 feet, and take left onto Fuller Street at Town
Hall. Go to end of street and hall is on the right. Parking
is in front of police station. Directions from 106.
Take left at lights
onto 140. Go to stop sign and take a left
onto Main Street. Take a left onto Fuller Street.)
With the mailing Bill Lee has submitted his resignation. Bill
has
been the club's membership secretary for over two years. Bill,
Thank You, for your service to the club.
A Day on the New England Southern
February 13, 2004:
Bill sent me a story to post. Enjoy.
1/6/2004
Last Friday Peter asked if Ron and me could give him a hand going up to
Quinn-t and drop off a couple of tank cars and pick up one empty. We
volunteered and as usual we brought our chainsaw and his beautiful 16'
extendable chainsaw (which takes two guys to operate it for any time)
that he has bought to cut the limbs so that they don't hit any cars or
his engine. The bulk of his line has been cut with Ron, Paul Hatch and
any
one else that Ron has been able to find. It is a back breaker and I
tried
to get the engineer to run it over busting Peters behind as usual. We
have
pretty much cut the entire line from Concord to Sargent Street and it
looks
great. The tracks were snowcovered with up to 8" of snow and we got
stuck
up at Sanduggetty Pond. Well we had to back up and get a run as we were
going 5' at a time and then cutting the brush. Peter has to make sure
that
we don't miss one tree! It took us about two hours to finish the last
of
the cutting and by this time I was getting tired so I was happy to hear
when Peter said we should proceed to Tilton as it was getting late.
South
of Sargent Street they had left two of his hoppers on the track to stop
the
snowmobiliers from going any further South. We pushed them onto the
siding
North of Sargent Street. We then dropped the two tankcars in the
caboose
village ( there's 22 now) and hooked onto two cabooses and a New York
Pullman.
We pulled them out of the siding and reconnected the two tank cars to
the
rear of the train. We then went North to the Lochmere Siding where the
Engine
ran around us and hooked up to the two tank cars in our procession and
used
them to pull out the empty tank car and connect it to our caboose train
and
push the two full tank cars into Quinn-t. "That should hold them for
the
winter" Peter said and he pulled us back to the Caboose Village. Ron
and
I got to ride in the Pullman. It was quite enjoyable after the cutting
with
that 16' extendable chainsaw. It was a fun day! Peter thanked us for
all
of the CVRTC's help this year.
Bill M.
©2004
Cotton Valley Rail Trail Club