Re: Progress on Sumpter balloon loop or the sumpter wye

Rick,

Thanks for the write-up. You and Art did great jobs and we really enjoyed your visit. Art and his family stayed on for a lot of photo ops on Saturday. It seems he was there with a big smile at every intersection on Saturday.

I have just a couple corrections. The Fireman was Jerry Huck, our OPS Mgr., except for a short period during your run to Sumpter with Art fired.

The estimated cost for the loop around the dredge is in the 7 figure range. Two bridges are required with each estimated to cost around $700k, plus the necessary cuts and fills, ballasting, track etc. Estimates run in the $1.5 ~ $2M range.

Another alternative we hope to persue is to rebuild S-Wye just below South Sumpter yards. It will require only one bridge across the Powder R. We own the S-Wye area, and recently discovered we also own about 4,000 feet of tail ROW on the South side of the Powder R.

S-Wye will enable us to wye, then push to the Depot and depart with the locomotive facing McEwen. Since we already have a wye at McEwen, we would do the same manuever there. This would eliminate all the switching and coupling we now do.

Thanks again for the 'free' advertising, and we hope you can do it again soon.

dan