Port of Catoosa Railroad

Hi Joe, John and Mr Chops,

Joe, you have the history down pretty pat. I got my interest in the Frisco from Joe, Tom Holley and some other fine folks. Here in Tulsa I’d say there is a good following of Frisco Railroad.

I do quite a bit of weathering because I like my locomotives and rolling stock to look like they work for a living. At the tail end of the Frisco Railroad time, things were pretty dirty, I feel the weathering adds life to the model.

If you look at the POCR layout, it is set in the modern era, the railroads today don’t seem to care how pretty things are as long as they run and make money. Graffiti is a big part of what you see on cars these days and I know I’ll get in trouble with some folks but some of it is quite good. But it seems as it’s here to stay, so it goes on the cars. Same as the reflective stripes. They are mandated so as I weather a car, it gets stripes.

The real life Port of Catoosa is just a quarter mile away from my home which is situated on a bluff overlooking the port. I can get inspiration all day long if I like. The Industries modeled are actually located at the port and are rail served by the port railroad. So I have the best of all worlds. We operate the layout using car cards and way bills during operations sessions and have a great time. Normally it takes about 3 to three and a half hours to switch everything in and out of the port during a session.

Have a good evening guys, and thank you very much for the compliments and interest in the Port of Catoosa Railroad!
Dale

 

And Frisco Bob is a member as well. But Bob seems to be AWOL a lot! Hear that Bob? Pipe up!!!!!!!

 

This is a POCR/What’s on your workbench/show us your new.....

I present the newest addition to our switcher stable at the POCR. The Rapido SW 1200. I’m not sure exactly how much bashing it will receive but it will be repainted into POCR #022.

I am very happy with how it runs out of the box, it will get a good break-in run Saturday at the club. Rapids suggests a 2 hour run-in period in forward and reverse. I should be able to get that in this weekend. After that I will run it some at home on the Port for some ops sessions. It almost seems a shame to cover that CP paint but it’s going to happen. I plan to have it done by April.

Thanks for looking in!
Dale

 

Very very nice Dale.

Shame to strip it.

But ya gotta do whatcha gotta do .

 

I haven’t load tested it yet, but I have a place to do it. The handrails I believe are a combination metal rail and plastic. I’ll have to look into it again. I got it in yesterday.

 

I am happy to report we now have cross dock rail to barge transloading of heavy objects. Tuloma Stevedoring has now opened on the west side of the navigation channel. The dock feature a 200 ton bridge crane capability. Tuloma has begun accepting shipments.

Built utilizing a Walthers Bridge Crane and wood and Plastruct steel shapes. Signage by MS Publisher.

Thanks for looking in!
Dale

 

Neat looking crane Dale

 

Well done my friend.

 

Thank you all! I am trying to get quite a bit done this spring. In May we will hosting 2 days of operating sessions for the ProRail Group. If you are not familiar with ProRail it is a group of protypical rail road model operators from around the country.
Sean and I are among some pretty good local railroads. We will be hosting 2 approximately 4 hour session over a weekend. There are 15 layout from the Tulsa area in the meet. This group has some pretty well known layout gentlemen. What got us in was that we very closely model the day to day operations of the Port of Catoosa.

The nice thing is we are now being pushed to get things in a better presentation for our layout. We are working with several of the local participants to improve how we operate the POCR.

We are quite excited about it, panic has not started to set in! LOL yet......

I appreciate all of your positive comments and suggestions and advice!

Have a good evening everyone!
Dale

 

Sounds like a great weekend.

 

Hi Guys,

It’s been a long evening. I recently reported I was voted President of our local MRR club in Tulsa. Over the weekend we suffered a disaster. We rent space in a building that is being renovated by new owners. Beginning late last week, they began grinding the floors in the lobby and front offices. The contractor doing the work did not take any precautions regarding the dust that would be generated during the grinding process. As a result our club layout is now out of commission for the foreseeable future. We have a double level layout with well over 400 feet of Mainline, not to mention all the sidings we have for switching.

There is a massive amount of dust on the layout, the electronics that run it and all our furniture in the club area. We see this as a multi-month process to clean everything to be back up and running. It is distressing to say the least.

I am not asking for anything other than just to vent a bit and hope you guys send us all the good karma you can. This can be a club killer event if it goes further south on us. If any of you are in the Tulsa area, we may ask in the coming months for help in cleaning the layout itself. To trust it to an outside entity is a scared thought. Keep us in your thoughts, I know as things go, this is not that high on the crisis meter. If you have any experience with this sort of thing, any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Dale

 

Dale, that is not good news at all!



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Terrible news. I can't even imagine. As an insurance agent, I wonder if you have grounds for a claim for damages and clean - up costs. It is, however, a convoluted process; who's at fault, the contractor who did it, or the landlord who may or may not have done enough to notify you of the risk or taken their own precautions to mitigate it. Or both. It might be worth it to call an emergency clean up company like ServPro to get an estimate. At least you'd know what you're up against. They also follow direction well to ensure your items are well cared for. Maybe you have them clean the furniture and the basic layout, while your guys do the Locos, rolling stock and structures Just my $.02.

 

Thank you guys! I appreciate the positive thoughts! I will be drawing inspiration through your modeling posts.

Take care All!
Dale