It was a clear, crisp morning in Chama and I was excited to FINALLY be attending my first Friends Work Session. 488 simmered softly as the safety briefing got underway.

Please let me know if you find mistakes - RioGrandeDude  @ SmittysHouse.net

Gathering for the

Safety Briefing

Board Member Bob Ross

C&T GM Ken Matzick

Team Lead John Engs

Camera Report

Written for the Winter 2012 Edition of The Dispatch

After the safety briefing I met up with my Team Leader, John Engs, and team member Joe Kanocz. At that point, all I knew was that we were installing web-cams. The specifics hadn't been discussed with me and I was in for a surprise. On the walk over to the "lab"... er... I mean, the Log Bunkhouse, John gave me a brief overview of the hardware and software that we'd be using. In the Bunkhouse we found a large pile of boxes and quickly got to work unpacking and sorting. A brief review of the limited documentation included with the hardware yielded more questions than answers. Realizing that the learning curve would be STEEP on this project and that time was limited, I called Tech Support to help me with what I needed to know to build this system. Andy Schryer with Firetide was instrumental in getting me through the learning curve. I simply couldn't have done it without his help.

It really felt like we were just spinning our wheels that first day. I had my hands full trying to wrap my head around the new software, but poor Joe was pretty bored. So, he mounted the first node on the Bunkhouse. It wasn't attached to anything, wasn't configured, and didn't even have power. But, at least it LOOKED like we accomplished something that day.

Joe mounted the first of three

nodes for the new network

484 brings Train 215 into the yard at the end of the day

A few parting shots at the end of Day 1