Sn3 RGS First District: Construction Update #50 - The track gang arrives at Lizard Head, Operations at the summit & The Mill Spur at Bilk

The Track Gang

August 18,2025

The original transition between old and new was on a curve. A smooth transition, at that point, proved difficult so the transition was moved about 15" to the north (left). The track was removed and the cork roadbed was scraped and sanded smooth.

Here is the transition with the new track temporarily sitting in place. I made a test run with one of my K-27's, a couple of freight cars and a caboose to make sure there was a smooth transition. I won't go into a lot of detail on how I create the roadbed, glue the track in place with clear Polyseamseal or wire the power bus. I have done this in previous posts.

Operations at Summit

August 19, 2025

After a 8 hour day of wiring, trouble shooting a short, and a bit of fine tuning, the first freight arrived at Lizard Head under it's own power. A C-19 is good for about 5 cars and a caboose on the 1st District. Here #40 and #42 have 7 cars and a caboose. #42 is the road engine, #40 the helper. The #40 will cut off, turn on the wye, and head back to Ridgway.

Helper locomotive #40 cutting off at Lizard Head. On the prototype, most of this area was covered by snow sheds. I'm not so sure covering the wye with snow sheds is a great idea for "my" 1st District.

Backing through the south leg of the wye.

#40 on the tail of the wye. The stock pens will eventually be located in the right foreground.

Having turned on the wye, the #40 approaches the mainline while Extra #42 departs for Rico. A Digitrax AR-1 is used to control the polarity on the tail of the wye.

Helper #42 departs northward back towards Ridgway

Extra #42 passing the Lizard Head section house and bunk house.

#42 headed south towards Rico (Staging).

The Saw Mill Spur at Bilk

While working on the new Rico staging tracks, I got to thinking about the turn back curve at the end of the aisle between Vanadium and Vance Junction. The bench work here is averages about 30" deep. The plan was to have the mainline, on the left, pass through a cut, disappear under the staging and leave about 20" between the staging yard shelf and the aisle.

At one time, according to the RGS Story, Volume 1, page 323, there was a sawmill at Bilk (Milepost 36.4). While there were still stock pens on the Bilk spur during the 1940's, it appears the sawmill itself was long gone. Other than the one reference in the RGS Story, a internet search didn't turn up any additional information about the mill. After due consideration, about a minute or so, I decided a small sawmill was perfect for the available space.

I think something like the small mill shown below would be perfect. It was a 3-man mill in Humboldt County, CA capable of producing about 5,000 board feet of lumber a day. The picture shows three 4-inch cants being fed through a single circular headsaw to create 2x4s.