Arizona and Pacific Railroad Construction Articles
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Lighting and Loading Platform
Arizona and Pacific Railroad Lighting and Loading Platform
In conjunction with the construction of the transfer table and trestle no. 5, we built a pedestrian bridge to get visitors/passengers from the level of the back yard up to the level of the main line. Originally, we didn’t have a loading platform of any kind. We quickly found that it is much easier for passengers to step up or down from a solid surface instead of loose ballast. In early 2008, we built a 33 inch wide and 15 foot long loading platform at the end of our pedestrian bridge. It was plenty long for loading and unloading a gon of passengers.
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When we expanded our waiting area north of the engine house, I added ten feet to the east end of the platform, but it quickly narrows as it follows the rail out of its curve. Once the waiting area was completed, we added an additional twenty five feet to the west end of the loading platform in April of 2010. This allows the S16 engineer and two gons of passengers to board or deboard and also allows the G16, B unit and a passenger coach to board and deboard with convenience. The entire loading platform is currently just over 50 feet in length
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I wanted lighting on the engine house, but I wanted it to have a period lighting look. My friend Malcolm Mackey had themed his Flagstaff and Middle Verde Railroad around being a 1880’s Colorado narrow gauge railroad operating in the 1930s. He had the green reflector gooseneck industrial lights on many of his railroad buildings and I really liked the look. I wanted to do something similar here especially with the engine house.
I found two large reflector gooseneck lights for over the three engine stall doors that I thought were sized well for that application. I had a tougher time finding the light fixture for the south wall near the entry door and the three fixtures to light the waiting area patio. They are all mounted under the eaves and I needed something that I could tuck up and out of the way so that people wouldn’t hit their head on them. I found a style that is a more modern version of an industrial looking light, but I think they work here and I went with the green color to carry that theme throughout the exterior.
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I also wanted some lighting around the rear mainline. I was inspired by a lamp post I saw at the Hillcrest and Wahtoke Railroad of Sean and Melissa Bautista. It was wood with metal conduit on the outside, bridge washers at the joints and an old style lamp hanging from the post arm. I loved the look. Wood doesn’t hold up well in our tough summers here in Arizona. I decided we would make our lamp posts out of steel and instead of conduit on the outside, hide all of our wiring on the inside. I started with a search for commercially produced lamps that I thought had a railroad or at least a period look and I eventually found a model that had the look I wanted. I designed the posts to be a little shorter that the one at the H & W RR and although they are dimensionally different, they clearly have the same look and feel.
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I also wanted to be able to have the ability to turn them on and off in segments so some could be on while not all of them needed to be on at the same time and I wanted a two outlet receptacles on each post so that track maintenance activities with power tools and extension cords was simplified. We cut the steel, assembled and welded the posts here. Two of the posts we constructed with double arms and they came out especially good. We boxed all of the open ends to give them a finished and professional appearance. We also added the bridge washers as I liked that effect. Yes, building the posts out of steel was time-consuming, but worth it.
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We also did all of the wiring here. The receptacles are all ground fault circuit interrupter style. Once we had the posts completed, we had to hand dig the trenches for the conduit. We already had a number of features in place like the pedestrian walkway, so getting the trenches dug was a challenge, but we stayed with it. We used some specialty 60 watt bulbs that we found that burn a yellowish light in the lamps and they set the ambiance of a bygone day.
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From the time I had the steel delivered until we had the five lamp posts and seven lamps in place and fully functional was three months or so and that was pretty much all Dave, Frankie and I worked on during that time frame. Finding the lamps, designing the posts and painting them afterward all added to that timeframe.
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I also wanted a way to light up our water tank during night time operation. We have two 12 volt Malibu spot lights that shine on the water tank from different directions and light it up just enough to again set the tone and ambiance. The mainline lighting project was completed in early 2010.
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