Leadville Open House

[Keith Hayes]

The neighbors have noticed that I seem to spend an unusual amount of time in the basement. In order to dispel notions that something fishy was happening there, Ms. Alyson suggested we have an open house.

All the kiddos and their parents enjoyed the layout. Maybe a couple of these kiddos will be future PBL customers?

[South Park]

  That, right there, is the captured image of irreversible brain damage being done
to tender, innocent minds.  Not sure if we should be ashamed or proud of doing
such things to young childred.  As a brain damaged child myself, I look back on
60 years of lusting for the smell of creosote, coal smoke, weathered wood, rusty
metal, and other delights of the demented mind and wonder how it might other-
wise have been ....

  Yeah, ...  the courts may someday rule otherwise, but I'm sticking with being proud.

[Mike Trent]

Man, Keith, that Dad is all in. Bet he'd be willing to hold the end of a board now and then. Great idea, and great for all involved.

[Chris Walker]

You've got to let the Kids play with the trains next time Keith!  

Did you teach them to know the difference in the couplings required?   Just don't let them climb on the equipment.

[GRUMPY]

Chris  is that one Lou

[Chris Walker]

That would indeed be her Highness, Gumpy

A more middle aged "look" about her now, on my new Steel Underframe Flatcar during construction.

[South Park]

  Chris,  where do you source those "S"-spoke wheels ?

[Fritz 52]

Chris: Are those dairy goats? I had a herd of 22 dairy goats. Lol
Remember:
'GOAT LIVES MATTER'
Fred Cotterell

[Chris Walker]

Sth'Park
From a coal mine Pukemiro Collieries that had ceased rail haulage underground way back in '87

I also got a new set cast at the last days of the A&G Price Foundry in Thames NZ, founded over 100 years ago, built everything even Locos for the NZR both steam and later diesel.




And Fritz, they're Fibre producers but they do have some Saanen blood in them.

I guess Keith will be getting mad about this hijack by now ...

[South Park]

  Well, walking this back to being on-topic, I am betting every last one of us
has multiple stories of how a childhood exposure to trains or other old junk
messed us up for the rest of our lives.

  I will never understand what caught the attention of a little South Park, but
I was 3-4 years old when those sparkly colored glass things on the telephone
poles sent me down a rabbit hole of what some *might* call "obsession".  

  This interest led rapidly to old weathered wood things and stuff made of rusty
metal, which in turn led to abandoned places where once there had been much
activity, and all that comes with that.  But my lifetime is a Pandora's Box of  
memories of high (and low) adventure chasing the stuff and trying to save it
from a world where most people trash it.  Why just last Friday I was able to
bring this home:



  Who doesn't remember being fascinated by these "little houses" tacked up
on telephone poles when they were just wee nippers ?  See what happens when
you let children be exposed to this kind of thing and thinking ?  
I *could have* been a responsible adult who lived for sports statistics and had
a job in a cubicle and drove a late model car !

[Mike Trent]

Very cool. Good stuff, SP

[Paul R.]

Nice Photos all round. What else do you have on that wall SP. Paul R.

[South Park]

    First of all, let any appearance of hijacking of Keith's thread circle back around to I was
once one of those little kids, marveling at "the coolness".  But look where it led me !  

  What else is on that wall ?  Well, it's not just that wall ....  it's all the walls, inside and out.
All the exterior lighting is 1910 era streetlight type fixtures.  All the wiring is done with 1880-
-1900 hardware and looks the part.  If I can make the old junk work as part of the shop/house/
property, I do it.  All the windows (about 40) are salvaged Victorian stained glass, and everything
in between is stuff like the old call box.  And, of course, there are the old cars ...











 

[Jeff Young]

Great man-cave, SP!

[South Park]

  Thanks, Jeff .... but please don't use the term "man cave".  It has become the
epitome of trite and contrived amongst the drone crowd of vinyl siding acolytes.
No made-last-month-in-China Coca-Cola "memorabilia", no "Chevy/Ford/Harley
Parking Only" signs here.  

  The brain damage set in motion for old stuff as a young child also put the wheels
in motion for the abhorance of trendy and those who worship in the Church of Fashion.

[Keith Hayes]

I was working with a different kind of kid, Chris.