Annual PV&A RR Meeting
President Bob Silverstein opened our annual Saturday election meeting at 12:33 pm.
We had 15 members present and 2 guests.
Treasurer’s report -- Kevin
Reports that we still have a strong balance in our bank account. Revenue for last year included our dues, sale of our old round table parts (which will fund our new roundtable materials), and some excess rolling stock.
Accounts receivable are $550 (unpaid dues), and Accounts Payable are $1,073.38 (outstanding checks). In addition to that, Bill Boller noted that we will be purchasing $7K for steel and labor for the new turntable and for future use, as Steel prices are rising. Plus we have committed $2,000 for full sized ties from Niles Canyon.
We have 65 members of whom 60 are current, which is very good for this time of year.
Kevin also passed out a profit and loss for 2023 showing all of our project expenses and incomes. If you wish to see details, please contact Kevin directly.
2023 in review - Bob
We now have all of our yards running and all areas of the RR are accessible; the Lumber Camp North Wye was graded and installed which can be both a spur and a reversing Wye; switch technology was perfected, and 60 sets manufactured, with many installed plus many to go; Kick switch indicators are being developed by Carl and Bill. The Lakeside siding and Lakeside Barn were completed for extra passenger cars, our Big Red engine and Gritty Gravel cars storage. A new footbridge was built connecting the Caboose yard and the Redwood Canyon yard. And most importantly, we completed the multi-year railroad Expansion Project.
Priorities for 2024 –
The Railroad Sustainability program - Bob, Bill, Kevin
Replacing 25+ year old wood ties with long lasting recycled plastic ties, and it is our highest priority. We have already installed about half of our total ROW with plastic ties during the Expansion Project leaving the old installed rail and ties as the remainder. We are developing work methods and tools in order to do that best from a cost and labor point of view. We will try to do most of the effort on work days between run days, but may create work weekends between run weekends or sacrifice a few Run weekends for work time or due to in-operability. We might run bi-directional, single track sometimes during reconstruction. This will be interesting, fun, and will require some extra care and perhaps train dispatchers.Bruce, Dee, Kevin, Sierra, Brooke, and Matt re-built a test span of 105 feet of track in Rabbit Flat all in the field (vs replacing with premade panels), and learned a lot.
Documentation
Improving PV&A RR documentation including our existing map, new track schematics and protocols. Then we will install signage and labels where needed. We have defined three major Divisions of the Railroad; the Lake Division, The Mountain Division and the Redwood Division. This will facilitate future Operations Meets which will be a new challenge for us employing the whole railroad including all of the spurs and sidings we have been building. Ed Sarber noted that no other RR club in California does this. It will interest a different group of RR enthusiasts and can actively engage many members who are not engine owners. It will also improve the overall maintenance processes for the RR. Bruno, Ed, Bob, BIll, Mike and Matt are working on this. As part of this we will number all the switches early this year to simplify switch maintenance. We currently have more than 70 switches. There are special forms for engineers to report any issues they encounter. These are in the station house near the radios.
Rabbit Flat
Kevin Hayashi has a working design for the Rabbit Flat yard and industrial sites. It will include a new turntable and roundhouse, approximately 25 more switches and spurs and finally utilize all the industry buildings and station house that are there waiting for their yard to be built. One siding is already in. This will be a multi-year effort and worked on as time permits.
Moving on the meeting agenda
Elections – President Bob presented the slate of officers for 2024, all existing members being willing to continue. They were elected by acclamation.
President - Bob Silverstein
Treasurer - Kevin Hayashi
Secretary - Mike Ward
Member at Large - Bruce Swanson
Family Representative - Bill Boller
Bob took a moment to remember and acknowledge the members we have lost and some who’s health prevents them from taking an active part in enjoying the RR.
Dick Osgood, Lance Ginner, and George Delucchi passed away in 2023, and will be greatly missed. Dick (besides painting every safety obstacle yellow) led much of our recruiting efforts, Lance was the leader in our robust signals system, and helpful to all who asked.
Gil was always ready to help and painted many bridges for us. He also piloted the Big Red engine for years, and sold it back to the RR as our newest club engine. (which is now being outfitted with air brakes).
In addition, we send our best wishes to those members who are not currently able to be as active as they would like to be; Ron Mason, John Dolph and Glenn McGee
Event planning –
March: we may try out our documentation and signage with a test ops exercise during the normal run days.
June: We will hold our annual Tri-Meet with Golden Gate Live Steamers and Sacramento Valley Live Steamers Railroad Museum June 22-23. This may be a bit smaller than usual as it conflicts with Train Mountain’s Ops Meet (6-22 to 6-26)
October: This will be our annual night run and meal - (Lunch or dinner TBD). We also hope to run a very small Ops Meet, which will run over the two days to make it worthwhile for our more distant members. We will need many volunteers to make it work to direct parking, help unload and load, do meals and overnight chaperones and serve on train crews. Note that you can’t mix scales of cars(1-½” & 2-½”) during an Ops meet. Ed will talk to his cohorts about how to best run a small ops meet.
To facilitate this, Bruce and Bill will request permission for overnight visitors to remain on the property as we have done in the past.
Questions & comments–
Matt noted we need more ballast near the end of the Silver Bridge retaining wall.
Bruce replied that we need lots of ballast in many places, however, during the wet weather, we can’t have the heavy dump trucks coming over our dirt roads to deliver more gravel. He also fixed the sticking gate on the gravel hopper.
Brandon suggested a new tool for tamping. He welded a lawn aerator multi spike head on to an air chisel to greatly speed up the process.
Carl brought up our commitment to order 200 full sized ties (at $10 per) from Niles canyon. Doug Lo is willing to haul them for us with his truck and maybe his trailer. It will take many trips due to the weight of the ties and the challenge of our roads up to our RR. Matt will coordinate the timing between Doug and the Niles Canyon RR. We will store the ties near building 4 until the roads dry out.
Ken noted that Lance Ginner donated his Jet Mill-Drill to the club, and will move it into building 4. Bill also noted that Ron Schmidt donated his standing air compressor to the RR, and it needs moving up here too. This will require a truck and some lifting power at Ron’s home.
Bob ended the meeting at 1:21 pm
Mike Ward
PV&ARR
Secretary