Phase 3
Dave & Becky's
B.A.D. Great Northern Railroad
New Switch .... New Bridge and ....New Track

8/12/06 .... AFTER 4 YEARS of TRACK WORK ! TODAY WAS THE DAY! ... FINISHED ALL THE ROAD BED AND TOOK OUR MAIDEN VOYAGE (TRIP) THROUGH OUR NEW SWITCH, OVER THE NEW BRIDGE AND ALL THE WAY AROUND OUR NEW LOOP AND THRU OUR SIERRA STYLE SNOW SHED! .... The trip on loop 3 alone takes about 6 minutes. Will have todays photos up shortly.
For the past 4 summers I spent every daylight hour, when not a the office, out working on this project. And dawn to dark Fridays thru Sundays. And Dave Moeller Spent most of the time out there with me .. without his help it would have been the end of next summer prolly before I could have finished it. Thank You Dave "CL" (Cheap Labor) Moeller ... Dave works for all the Folgers coffee he can drink ... And all the time in the steam engines he wants!!!


Dave Moeller Running "Lil Bubba" on Bubba's first day over our Phase 3 Loop







Here are some movies of parts of the trip around from the switch, over the bridge and into the Sierra Snow Shed. Be sure to turn the music off first at the top of this page and then turn your volume up to listen to the great steel on steel sound. We will have more movies of the steam engine this winter.
  1. 6/10/06 - 1st Crossing New Bridge Movie
  2. 7/13/06 - Crossing the Bridge & Beyond Movie
  3. 8/12/06 - More Phase 3 Movie
  4. 8/12/06 - More Phase 3 Movie
  5. 8/12/06 - More Phase 3 Movie
  6. 8/12/06 - More Phase 3 Movie
  7. 8/12/06 - More Phase 3 Movie
    We took these steam movies on this 100 degree summer day .... Next winter we will do it again when it's cold .... Just think of all the extra steam we will have then!
  8. 8/13/06 - Steam Movie #1
  9. 8/13/06 - Steam Movie #2
  10. 8/13/06 - Steam Movie #3
  11. 8/13/06 - Steam Movie #4
  12. 8/13/06 - Steam Movie #5





Doc Hemp Welding .... 7018 Rod ....One of thousands of similar Welds on the track and bridge. I did all the welding and love it!
Behind me is our electric engine & Yard Goat "Davey Boy" with our restored flat car attached in front.

The 15 1/8" green gauge bars are for the straight sections ... and the red gauge bars are for the 15 3/8" curve sections.

Car builder Wick Humble says .... "I love to weld because girls can't take it apart!"


Dave Moeller and I designed and started building this stub switch into our in place curve and straight in May 06. This is the beginning of our Phase #3 and our summer project running the track to our new railroad bridge which we had built last summer and I had placed last November with a 100 ton crane just before the winter deluge hit. See a link to our bridge and switch photo builds at the bottom of this page.

This photo is the first of a series taking you on a photo trip taken from our electric engine around the new loop culminating in the gold splice bar completing this new loop into our Sierra Snow shed tunnel. Following that are many more photos showing it as we built it.



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Becky, Dave & Pat Moeller .... It's still 8/12/06 ..... 11pm ... Becky added white linen to our passenger car and turned it into a dinner car ...still celebrating our completion of phase 3 with a long moon light ride ... several of times around the loop ... we have a good headlight on "Davey Boy" and interior and marker lights on the caboose. The weather was perfect and in the mid 70's. I mixed Dave & myself a little Knob Creek bourbon, Pat had some white wine .... and Beck had decafe. A wonderful evening with just us enjoying the fruits of our labor.



Now back to the older build photos ... shows how we did it


The old loop you still seeing going into our Sierra Style snow shed, pictured above and below this, will be moved over 8 feet and the train barn will be widened shortly to accomodate both phase 2 & 3 tracks through it. We will then have the extra room to store our new large Forney style articualted steam engine (kerosene fired) ... At the far end where we will rejoin the rails we are already having Dave Jungkeit draw up a three way stub switch for Dave Moeller and I to build before the winter rains set in we hope ...Dave Jungkeit is the one that showed Melvin Harris how to build his very first switch.
The 3rd part of the switch is for yet another rail to run 8 feet along side the loop 2 rail ... but it will be outside the train shed ... this is where we are placing our automotive hydrolic lift where visiting engines can be unloaded and stored off line.


I should mention my other work horse ... "Moby Dick" .... my daily driver ... A custom built 1983 Mercedes AMG .... I have over 275,000 miles on this car and have never rebuilt anything on it yet!
I carry and store all my power tools and welding equipment in the trunk all the time ... our electric hack saw, etc. So it is always in the area we are working. It is my old and trust worthy friend. (And faster than greased lightning!)... ( ; > )










I will use another 24 tons of 1" crushed decrative granite putting in the rail bed between here and the train barn. and another 8 - 10 tons of rock and dirt fill. In loop 3 we will have used 75+ tons of crushed rock and 25 tons of road base and 50 tons of fill and that is just in the rail bed and bridge abutments.










These splice bars from Harmer Steel are FANTASTIC!!! They are curved to fit and are beveled top and bottom and maintain their spring tension to align the rails perfectly while still allowing for expansion and contraction.

This gold one was our last one placed in the completion of our phase 3 track thru the switch and to and over the 70' x 8' Warren Truss railroad bridge and on around over our return land fill bridge and into our train barn.






  1. Return to our Flat Car & Other Phase 3 Photos Page
  2. See how we built our 70'X8' all steel Warren Truss Railroad Bridge
  3. See how Dave Moeller & I designed and built our Switch
  4. Return to our Main B.A.D. Private Railroad Live Steam Page..... Movies here also
  5. Return to our Dental Web site