The Val Ease Central Railroad ©

Taking Z Scale to the Public Around the World
(Text and photos © Copyright Jeffrey MacHan)

At precisely 15:20 on January 4th, the first train ran over the newly spiked rails of "Val Ease Summit". Appropriately enough the gathered dignitaries had been transported to the historic event aboard the legendary "Rocket".

The official opening of "Summit Pass" took place at 15:45 when Miles O'Track, CEO of the VECRR assisted by Hizzoner, mayor of Val Ease East and Chair of the Val Ease County Tourist and Convention Bureau, took a whack at a gold plated track spike. On the seventh blow, the spike had been smitten and Hizzoner was whisked away to receive first aid.

Val Ease Summit takes its place next to Centre Val Ease. The "Summit" had been finally conquered.

The sprint to the "Spike"

I had started to gather my tools the evening before the big day, the day that VES would join CVE at Exporail in St-Constant, Québec. At 11:30 am of the 4th of January, 2005 my wife and I were in the car along with tables, chairs, tool box, snacks, tripod, camera and of course, Val Ease Summit. Thirty minutes later we were unloading the car at Exporail. The process took more time than expected since the parking lot was completely covered by a layer of very slippery ice which had been deposited over the last two days. It took another 20 minutes to find a spot in an exhibit hall where there was enough room to set up two four-foot folding tables and spread my tools around for the task ahead. Sixty minutes later I had Centre Val Ease and Val Ease Summit sitting open, side-by-side, waiting for me to begin the delicate job of slipping Micro-Trains Line rail joiners over the bare ends of four rails that, when connected, would mark another milestone in the history of the VECRR.

To my astonishment, the track measurements I had taken last Spring when I positioned the lower and upper mainlines on VES were practically right on the money. The lower mainline joint was perfect. All it needed was a rail joiner to complete the connection. The upper mainline joint was off by a quarter inch. Just enough to make my life miserable for about 30 minutes while I replaced the section of flex track with a longer section that I cut, filed and soldered in place. In my haste to finish I made the silly mistake of soldering the "final" rail joiner on the wrong rail! Off it came and on it went on the correct rail. And since my soldering iron was plugged in and hot, I replaced a faulty joiner on the CVE switch towards VEE.

A young "passenger" enjoys the view from the "Summit".

The next step was to unpack and install the backdrops for CVE and VES. NO, I don't have any plans to paint a new backdrop for VES although with the VECRR anything is possible. Since VES was designed as a drop-in replacement for VEW, I used the VEW backdrop. As I unwrapped each backdrop painting, I took the opportunity to identify, sign and date them in ink on the back. I had often thought of signing these paintings since they are originals but had always forgotten in the rush of setting and packing up at a train show. There was no need for haste today. There were no crowds around to ask questions or to nudge me away from the work at hand. That isn't to say that we didn't have visitors. I was happy to show Jonathan, the first official "passenger", a little boy of 5 some of the finer points of Z model trains. He came back several times during the afternoon and expressed his preference for the tiny trains. He certainly had lots of trains to compare them with. He was surrounded by the real things and a large display of holiday trains dating from the early 1950's to the present.

The backdrops were inserted behind both suitcases and leveled using MTL rerailers (I knew they would come in handy some day). Then the two VECRR divisions were populated with every freight car that I had on hand (about 30). The "Rocket" was parked at VES with the dignitaries for the "Golden Spike" ceremony while a mixed freight was stopped for a meet just shy of the VES west switch. The lights were switched on and the cameras began to roll, and yes, there was more than one camera on hand.

Final thoughts

And thus endeth the VES Construction saga. The idea of a fourth division is at least as old as CVE. It took a long time to make a decision to actually build VES and it took more than a year, off and on, to complete the work. Seeing VES with CVE along side was very fullfilling. As pleasant as it was to enjoy the sight of the new division taking its place in the VECRR, I came to realize that VES will be the last addition to the VECRR empire. Although there is still detail work to be done on the layout, the VECRR will NOT continue to expand. It has another task ahead and that is to continue to entertain "passengers" at Exporail for many years to come.

The VES construction saga has come to a successful end. Soon the snows will make crossing the summit more hazardous. Fortunately, the VECRR will shortly move their trusty Russell snow plow to Upper Centre Val Ease to be ready to take on the drifts at a moment's notice.