Silver Lake Railroad

Silver Lake Railroad

The Railroad Report

May 2013

Let me begin by noting that the formatting for this “email blast” always gets messed up. I apologize for that, however there is apparently no way to fix it, so unfortunately, it is what it is.           

It is hard to believe that our opening weekend is only a few days away with trains running on Memorial Day Weekend- Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at 12, 1, and 2 PM. To contend with anticipated crowds we took the 3PM run off the schedule. This will hopefully better fill the trains that we do run. We will also be operating a limited schedule for Laconia Bike Weekends. In the past a lot of bikers have stopped in as they are cruising around with curiosity, so we may as well run trains! Bike Weekend Train Rides are Saturday, and Sunday on both weekends (June 8th 9th 15th 16th) with departures at 12, 1, and 2 PM.

The full summer schedule begins June 21st where we will be running trains on Fridays at 5:30, 6:30, and 7:30 PM (sunset run) as well as runs on Saturdays and Sundays at 11AM, 12, 1, 2, and 3 PM. This upgraded schedule is to accommodate the increased ridership we have had in the past two years.

Before we begin the season I would like to thank our particularly dedicated volunteers for their dedication and interest in Silver Lake Railroad. It seems that our volunteers never take back hours, but offer more hours form past seasons and that is really pleasing from my perspective. We have a great, knowledgeable and trustworthy group that keep this place running. In addition to our current volunteers we have picked up a handful of new volunteers who are interested in helping out. Not only is this an extraordinary assistance to us, but the new volunteers are genuinely a fantastic group of people that we are really looking forward to adding to the team, so THANK YOU to such a great group!

Now onto news and special events. First off in the next coming weeks we will be painting our excursion train A6 in Maine Central Green with yellow stripes. It will be numbered MEC 564, and as far as we can tell, that was the first GP-7 to hold that scheme. On Thursday July 4th we will be running trains at 11AM, 12, 1, 2, and 3PM. Sunday July 7th will be the railroads 7th birthday where we will be offering free cake to all guests. Saturday July 27th will be “Heritage Day,” a celebration of history in all shapes and forms. More info on this will come later on, however if you are interested in volunteering for a day like this please let me know! To pull this off we will need a boatload of “one-day” volunteers! We will have a “Madison Residents Appreciation Day” during old home week, which will consist of a potluck hors d’oeuvres in the diner, followed by a sunset train ride. Circus and Trains Day will be August 17th, a live circus performance followed by a train ride! Railfans Day will be on September 28th and we close out the season with trains Rides on Columbus Day Monday with departures at 11AM, 12, 1, 2, and 3 PM.

We are looking forward to an exciting, fun, and busy season! Don’t forget about our friends up at Conway Scenic Railroad, if you make the trip up for Silver Lake, you should take a run up to Conway and enjoy an additional ride on the big stuff! The Notch train is really spectacular, a ride everyone must take at least once in their lives!

If you are a group organizer and are interested in a midweek or weekend group charter, please send me an email at silverlakerr@yahoo.com and we can work something out!

Thanks for your interest in our wonderful little railroad and hopefully we will see you soon!

Will Scopa

Silver Lake RR

General Manager

The Railroad Report

Silver Lake Railroad

Years Final Newsletter 

            THANK YOU to every one of our supporters for a fantastic 2012 season. I am VERY pleased to have 272 railroad fans that receive this newsletter now! 2012 was certainly one, of if not our busiest year, and without a doubt our best year in Donations. That is all thanks to the generosity of our riders. As I mention when you visit there are lots of great tourist attractions, especially in the MWV area, but to me what makes ours such a special little operation is the fact that we offer family fun for only the cost of a donation, and that is rare. It is nice to offer this great experience to everyone who pulls into our parking lot, and it is genuinely something we all want to see last many years down the road. It is because of you guys that we are able to do that! So again THANK YOU!

            Because of your generosity, we were able to have some funds left over after meeting operational costs and we look forward to these few things next year. As we are starting to really get busy and need the third coach for an upgrade of sixty people per departure, our first goal is to finally complete our third coach. To do this we plan to purchase the florta glass for the roof of the coach. This will help preserve the seats, woodwork, and paint in the coach and offer shelter so this coach will be accessible on busy rainy days. Most importantly we will be purchasing an additional 10 seat cushions like the ones on our excursion train. Passengers were VERY appreciating of that particular upgrade last season.

            The exciting upgrade for me is the repaint of our excursion train’s A6 “locomotive.” It currently wears a yellow coat of paint, typical for speeders and MOW equipment, but with the success and popularity of our new “B&M 1555” heritage unit, we have decided to repaint the excursion train’s A6 in MEC green, basically the inverse B&M Minute Man Scheme the 55’ wears. The number for this A6 will be MEC 564. As far as we can tell Main Central 564 was the first GP7 to wear that Green MEC scheme. I realize we are on a Boston and Maine line, however this scheme is VERY local to the region and will look splendid between our primarily green coaches!

            The last upgrade is that we will be able to purchase some graphics for our Green Display Train that we repainted last season. It will either say Stewartstown Railroad NO.6 Little Mo, or Wolfeboro Railroad NO. 9, both are in the heritage of the engine. There are certainly more upgrades for next year, particularly in the horn department, however the improvements above are truly thanks to you guys!

            Lastly I want to thank the crucial Railroad Volunteers for their invaluable assistance with the Railroad’s Operation. It is because of this fantastic group of people that we are able to continue operations and give as many people the experience as possible! Owner Neil Underwood, Operations Manager Bruce Stuart, Engineers Marc Stowbridge, and Jim Nigzus, Conductor’s Jim Locke, and Ross Hall, Marketing Assistant Marty Perreault, Trainman James Nizgus and the other volunteers involved in our little operation. It was a wonderful season and assuming the world does not end Friday, I look forward to an even better one next year!

            Expect the 2013 Schedule and information shortly. Have a Merry and SAFE Christmas and a very Happy Holiday Season. Again we truly appreciate your support in our railroad and hopefully I will see many of you at everyone’s favorite annual railfan event, Steam In The Snow at the Conway Scenic Railroad.

Happy Holiday’s and enjoy the winter!

Will Scopa

SLRR Volunteer

Silver Lake Railroad

The Railroad Report

Early July 2012

Things are looking good for the 2012 season over at the Silver Lake Railroad. We are anticipating our best season as of yet. Due to the expected high ridership volume we have enacted a ticket syetem. A RR volunteer will give a ticket to anyone who shows up looking for a ride. Once our 40 seats are filled we start giving tickets to the next train. We tried this Memorial Day WKND and it worked very well. I really enjoyed giving out tickets!

There has been A LOT of publicity lately for the railroad. We have gone to many local camp grounds and handed out flyers as well as been included in The Laker newspaper for an article. Nevertheless the best publicity has been NH Chronicle's re-run of their episode on us. A special thanks for doing that.

We have worked tirelessly on a special suprise for the museaum. We have been constructing small a HO guage model railroad. It mneasures 4 ft x 6.5 ft and fits right into an unused corner of the museaum. The model railroad is run off of a push button running for 5 minutes at a time! Unfortunetly due to a lack of special Black Tempera paint we were unable to finish it for this weekend, although we came very close. It will make it's debuet for next weekend!

Work on our newest Fairmont A6 is progressing well. The brakes are nearly complete. One part is left to be welded on and then the A6 will be mechanically ready to go. For Railfans out there who don't already know, this A6 will be painted in the Boston and Maine Railroad's Minute Man scheme- in my opinion one of the the best paint schemes ever on a diesel locomotive. Our A6 will be numbered after the B&M 1555, the first B&M Geep 7 to wear the scheme and take ques from the original locomotive. It should come out VERY nicely. This will run any back-up trains and be the star of the show especially with the photo run-by's on Railfans Day 2012. Reserve your seat for that today! http://www.silverlakerailroad.com/railfansday.htm

Well thanks for tuning in and I hope you enjoyed The Railroad Report. Thats all for now and we hope to see you down for a train ride! 

Will Scopa

SLRR Volunteer

The Railroad Report

Spring Introduction

May 1st 2012

         Hello Silver Lake Railroad Fans! So who else is excited for this upcoming season? I sure am! This year is looking to be a great one! With the spike in gas prices we are expecting our busiest year yet. It is likely people will opt for our local and affordable attraction. Our PR volunteer Marty Perreault is assisting me in really pushing the BY DONATION aspect of our railroad! It is definitely a big part of what makes our little operation so special and attractive!

         I will start out with the good news. The Silver Lake RR will be open Memorial Day Weekend 2012. This is a first for our operation so we are hoping to have added another successful weekend to our already successful ten-summer weekend schedule! Bring your family down for a ride in May! More good news includes a new classic car for our garage: a recently restored 1955 Ford Thunderbird! We are also going to attempt to make our museum more interactive but I’ll write more on that in the following weeks!

         Now I am afraid that I have to present you with the bad news. Our very special 1941 Sterling Diner will not be open for business this year. It unfortunately lost money in operation last year and was quite a drag on our small staff of volunteers. Fortunately there is a good side! We now invite you to bring your picnic lunches and eat inside the diner. This will still offer the same retro atmosphere for visitors to the railroad. Self serve Richie's Italian Ice, ice cream, soda and some other treats will be available as well. I am certainly mourning the loss of that Giffords Ice Cream but it should all work out in the end!

         My last big piece of news is that we will be painting our newest Fairmont A6 in a great Heritage Scheme. I am really excited about this one! That’s about all I want to say on this at this time. More to come in the upcoming months!

         Lastly Railfans Day is July 28th. The day’s schedule is as follows- we have photo specials departing at 9AM, 11AM, and 12:50PM. There will be a number of photo runby’s and our Heritage A6 will pull the train. At 5PM we welcome folks to tailgate at the railroad and eat inside the diner, followed by a 6:30PM Sunset Special. We would be delighted to have a night photo shoot, but are unable to locate a volunteer who has the necessary equipment. If you are or know anybody in this unique position, please let me know!

NOTE: that Cruise Nights start in Early June and will be held on Friday evenings through the summer!

Feel free to email me with any questions, comments, or concerns!

I hope to see you all soon!

                                                      Will Scopa

                                                      SLRR Volunteer

silverlakerr@yahoo.com

The Railroad Report

Years Final Report

Silver Lake Railroad

December 18th 2011

Well, my procrastination to write up this report was rather high this late fall. The trains at Silver Lake were wrapped up and my attention turned to the the model railroad. We’ll a month late, here is the years Final Railroad Report.

As far as I’m concerned, 2011 was our best season yet! We’ve accomplished the most, and our ridership has been higher than ever! In fact we filled almost every Friday Night and Saturday Night 5:30PM and almost every single Saturday and Sunday 12,1 and 2 PM rides. The 12PM was over booked many times and we reverted to running a second train pulled by the A8. I can’t remember a time when our other train rides (6:30PM and 3PM on the various days) were under 50%! Donation wise, this was our best year as well! I would like to specially thank Marty Perault and Camp Calumet for helping us accomplish this! Your efforts have been greatly appreciated this season!

So whats the schedule look like for next year? We have some minor changes coming next year. We wish to avoid operating on Saturday nights. Day time operations Saturday is a six hour day for us volunteers and as much as we love running the railroad, we still have family and friends to see Saturday Evenings. Since Friday Night was such a success we will continue Friday operations. Cruise Night was Saturday the past two seasons, but next year we have to move it to escape Saturday Evenings. My idea was to make it a week day, but there have been concerns about volunteers on weekdays. I can’t run the place alone, so we believe Cruise Nights will move to Fridays next year. This is not engraved in stone, but is the tentative plan as of yet. One last thing of mention. We’ve been given the idea of a night train ride, and I’ve taken a liking to that idea. We often take the Orange A6 out for night runs and it works very well. I know if we hauled a coach behind then people would absolutely love it. It could very well turn into a great special occasion thing for next year! Food for thought!

What’s the marketing plan for next year? Well we operated at an average of 85% capacity this year. Now let me be clear on this, we don’t want to go crazy. The SLRR is a very special place and it is not there to be a business. It’s purpose built to be a fun place for volunteers and a place where people can go have a special time without spending a lot of money. We want as many people to enjoy it as possible while maintaining that it isn’t too busy, so people will enjoy it for the gem it is. Nevertheless we always want to have a marketing strategy. Next year we plan to contact local camps and have them mention us and hand out our flyer's. If you have an idea for a local camp, please contact me via silverlakerr@yahoo.com   Thanks!

   There are a few other things I want to mention. Unfortunetly the Halloween Train was cancelled this year. We're looking to build an arsenal of volunters for the halloween train to be "gouls ghosts and goblins." At this point I'm looking to collect a list of names of people showing interest in helping. At this point YOU DO NOT have to commit to anything, just contact me via silverlakerr@yahoo.com with your name and contact and we will get back to you in August and see if you are still interested. Any interest is greatly appreciated. We do not want to see this event disappear!

In the media department, Pocket Mountain Video released "Track Cars on Parade." Owner Joe Bradley did a fantastic Job showcasing the SLRR (and it had the best possible host out there :] ). It would make an awesome Christmas gift for railfans alike! You can purchase that great film via http://www.PocketMountainVideo.com/track_cars_on_parade.html. Also we have a great new promotional video by Mark Thompson. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCtsGosX5Ww&feature=player_embedded.

Other than routine maintenance, we have a few plans for next year. The coolest being a new cross-buck. Our milepost guy- Ross Hall will be painting a replica of an enormous RR cross-buck from the Conway Branch. The wood is six feed long for each part of the cross-buck. This should come out fantastic. It will hang on the top of a rail in the air- like the B&M put them up, up to and over 100 years ago. There are a few other minor projects, but i plan to mention them as they near completion next year!

Here's what we accomplished this year!

1. Repaint of the Blue A6

2.Repaint of the SLRR cross-buck’s in the yard

3. Prep of our Green Display Train for new paint

4. Preliminary New stones in the garden

5. Repaint of the trolley- 90% complete

6. Repaint of all three SLRR coaches

7. A successful first railfans day

8. Fixing the the shoulder washout at MP B128.5 2011 in a whole.

9. Final Exact Repaint of our three B&MRR Mile Markers (Thanks Ross!)

Well, that was 2011 in a whole. Those nine things may look small on paper, but believe me, they took a lot of work! 2011 was a great year for the SLRR. I just want to take a moment to give a thanks to all who rode the train and contributed via donations. It is donations that allows us to continue operating and I think we all want to see the SLRR last for many years to come! Enjoy your winter and we’ll see all you SLRR fans next Summer!

Again, Thanks for a fantastic season! We look forward to a strong 2012 season!

Next RR Report is in the spring!

Have an enjoyable and safe, Winter and Holiday Season everyone!

Will Scopa

SLRR Volunteer

NERFS Site Owner

Silver Lake Railroad

The Railroad Report

Early August

            The mid July report turned into a late July report, so there is not too much news for this report. To start off, Railfans Day was a huge success! Even though we were not able to ride the rare mileage, many of the railfan passengers have never rode our three miles of the Conway Branch. Essentially it was rare-mileage to them… Everybody seemed to have a great time! I was astonished over how busy we were. All of our paved lot, gravel lot and grass lot were filled. We had cars from the street to the freight house probably over one hundred cars! That’s a lot for our little railroad! This was an awesome “trial run” and we have a good idea of what to do next year!

            For their help on railfans day, I want to thank Bill Willis and Ross Hall for operating the semaphore signal at the depot, Neil for running the freight train, Bruce Stuart for operating the railfan extras, CVRTC for allowing us to use their two flat cars, Dave Brown for help setting and promoting our Railfans Day, Doug Scott for suggesting a cool photo run-by location and anyone who I forgot who took part in this event!

            In the paint department: Our three mileposts are officially complete and our blue engine has an awesome coat of paint on it. It’s a much better shade of blue than the previous shade!

New Hampshire Chronicle re-ran their episode about us on Thursday night and we’re expecting a busy weekend this weekend! This and next weekend are also Madison Old Homes Weekend, so it should be a super busy weekend! The A8 and third coach stand ready to depart form the depot!

That’s all for now SLRR fans! Thanks for reading the Railroad Report!

Will Scopa

SLRR Volunteer

Silver Lake Railroad

The Railroad Report

Extra Extra- Railfans Day Approaching fast!

            I apologize for filling your inbox again, but here’s an extra railroad report!

            Railfans Day is quickly approaching, and we haven’t filled all of our reservations yet! This is going to be an awesome day filled with photo opportunities. We will be using every piece of SLRR equipment with the exception of the dump car. We will also be borrowing CVRTC’s flat cars for our freight train.

            There are many rare occurrences for this day. Our excursion train provides most train rides. Saturday, railfan extra riders will be able to ride behind our A8, a rare occasion, and see a freight train out and about on our line: a very rare occasion!

Below are the seats left on each train

10:30AM- 0 seats

12PM- 2 Seats

1PM- 6 Seats

We would like to fill these, so please reserve your railfan extra seat AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. RSVP via emailing silverlakerr@yahoo.com, or by calling 1-978-470-2066

NOTE:

1)    The 10:30 is the best run for photo opportunities!

2)    We apologize for not being able to offer the rare mileage as we had previously hoped/planned. An insurance issue came up and we could not solve it in time!

3)    The excursion train will still be operating Saturday at 12, 1, 2, 3, 5:30, 6:30 with a maximum of 40 passengers per ride!

Will Scopa

SLRR Volunteer

Silver Lake Railroad

The Railroad Report

Early July

  The SLRR is now open and I’m excited! J Our little railroad just gets better and better every year and this year the area is looking fantastic! This year we’ve added Friday night trains! Friday night trains will depart the depot at 5:30 and 6:30PM. Our diner will be open Fridays from 4PM to 8PM. We hope the Friday night events will grow into a popular outing for the railroad. Time will tell!

Our complete schedule for the trains this year is Friday, 5:30, 6:30 PM, Saturday 12, 1, 2, 3, 5:30, 6:3 0PM and Sunday 12, 1, 2, 3 PM. Our diner hours are Friday 4PM to 8PM, Saturday 12PM to 8PM, and Sunday 12PM to 5PM. We will be refurbishing our diner page in the next few weeks. I keep prolonging this, but I’ll get to it.

We have been busy lately in the paint department. This past week we painted the maroon entranceways to the diner and north and south excursion train loading platforms. We are currently giving our blue A6 a much-needed fresh coat of paint. It will look fantastic when completed and our mileposts are almost complete. B127 and B128 are done and B129 is left. It’s cool to see this progress, and serves as more eye candy for excursion train passengers. One of the more time consuming projects was repainting our Silver Lake Railroad white X sign. This is up by the freight house. The paint was peeling and it was in disrepair. It now looks fantastic!

Professional photographer Kristin Woodman came up and took some fantastic photos for us over the 4th of July weekend! They are on facebook and here is the link http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.245771568771937.79420.165182730164155.

In recent news the local paper the Mountain Ear wrote a terrific little article about us. The article is on page eight. Take a look at it via http://www.newhampshirelakesandmountains.com/pdf/MTN.2011.07.07.pdf. We now anticipate a busy weekend this weekend! We want to thank Rachel Brown for that awesome article!

That’s all for now folks! We’re open so come pay us a visit and we hope to see you soon!

As always thanks for reading the Railroad Report and is there are any questions or comments please send me an email via silverlakerr@yahoo.com!

Will Scopa

SLRR Volunteer

PS. Thanks to Hunt and Caitriona for allowing us to publish this from your porch