Last Saturday Before the New Year

     Saturday 11/29/14 was the last day that the Bucksgahuda and Western Railroad would have worked on the railroad until the new year.  This is because most of the crew members hunt meaning the next two Saturdays are hunting days and then it is Christmas time which is allotted for spending time with their family. 

Dump car with coal

     The crew had plans to continue work on the trestle on Saturday but it snowed the previous night which would make walking on the trestle dangerous.  Instead, when the crew first arrived at the railroad, they proceeded to fill a dump car with coal.  The coal will be used in a pot belly stove to heat the building during the coming cold days at the railroad.  There is no gas or electric heat in the building plus the walls are metal with no form of insulation which can make for a cold place to work in.  The stove can heat the building up about twenty degrees that provides workable conditions. 

The railbus

     After that task was finished, the B&W crew moved on to work on the railbus.  A railbus is a type of passenger transportation that has a body that resembles a bus but runs on tracks instead of on the roads.  The Bucksgahuda and Western Railroad is building their own railbus based off the idea of one of the previous crew members named Christopher.  Christopher was a younger member of the crew who wanted to make his own miniature engine that could run around on the tracks at the B&W.  He began to roughly build his dream of a railbus but did not get very far before he was diagnosed with brain cancer.  Because of this the crew began to work really hard to make a well constructed railbus to make his dream come true.  Unfortunately, Christopher passed away before the railbus could be completed.  When the crew knew that they were not going to finish in time, they showed him what they completed so far and that it would have a saying on the side of it to show it was made in memorial of him.  Work on the railbus began several years ago and the crew is excited that it is finally in its final stages of development.  If all goes according to plan, they will be painting the railbus in spring 2015.  If Christopher were alive today, the crew believes he would be very pleased that his dream of building a railbus has finally been achieved. 


Front of the railbus

 Above pictures taken by Scott Bauer