Charley, Steve, Mary & I met Rick at the storage unit and waited for Lester to show up with the trailer. While we were waiting the UP was starting to do some switching in the yards so we headed over there to watch. Just as it was getting interesting Lester showed up and we had to go to work. We loaded and headed to eat then down the road in intermittent snow to just out of Las Animas. Unfortunately we did not see any trains along the way until we were east of La Junta. There we saw track crews working on the rails. We arrived in good time to setup and then go check in at our hotels and grab a bite to eat. The show went well for a while then things started happening. First we couldn't get the TV to work so had to take down it down. Then the gremlins visited on and off the rest of the show, a few minor derailments and one spectacular derailment. As Sunday was a little slow Mike decided to try and break his old record of 125 cars. He ran a 90 car train most of the day and as he was getting ready to 30 more cars, Yep! You guessed it the gremlins hit. Traction tires on Loco 3 & 4 came off and as he was repairing those the front coupler on loco number 4 fell off. With the lost of the coupler this ended the attempt at record breaking. Well there is always next year!! We had a good time and met new people and answered many questions received many, many raves about the layout.

This will be in the May issue of the Railhead so that I can get this issue out in a timely manner.

Switching in the CS yards	Charley & Rick giving me the LOOK & Steve working on a car
Mary supervising Charley	what's going on with the driver in the pick up?

We're waiting to hear from the Georgetown folks on their show in May. The Pueblo TECO show fell through, Western Museum of Mining and Industry June show will not happen, Rock Island Days has been cancelled. The TECO committee is still working on a location for the September show. The lack of shows to attend may be a good thing as the MTL needs lots of repairs and upgrades performed on it. Some of the bracing under the modules need to be replaced. We're going to see if that will be feasible by working on one module to see if the idea will work.

As usual we had several trips to pick from and the top three were #1 The Royal Gorge Route, #2 Georgetown Loop, and #3 The Cripple Creek Railroad. Times and dates will be determined later. If you are interested in any of these trips and missed the business meeting come to the April Business meeting and vote for your desired trip.

We had several ideas for field trips this year and the #1 trip is to the Pueblo Train & Air Museums. #2 is a trip to Golden to the Colorado Railroad Museum. Two others tied for #3 driving the Denver & New Orleans before it totally disappears and a camping trip to Camp Hale and can include a trip to the Busk Ivanhoe Tunnel and Hagerman tunnel and loop as they are not far from Camp Hale.

We finally have the quantities to get the discounts when we order these items. Mike will be turning in these orders on April 1^st. If you have not ordered an item and would like to, contact Mike as soon as possible so he can get your order.

The club has Anderson Power-Pole connectors for sale; they run a $1 a set. A set consists of 1 black and 1 red plus pins. If you build a module you will need 8 sets. If you include the white power cord then you will need 10 sets. So for ten dollars you can install the connectors compared to $60 for the Jones connectors if you can find them.

The 2009 club calendars are available for $5. We do have a selection of scenery materials available. We have club patches, kerchiefs and some club shirts.

If you do not have a module and would like to purchase one there are four for sale so check in with a board member.

The Green line is finished and needs to have the wiring completed and then the track painted and ballasted. Scenery is going up on a few of the modules. The blue line yard throats are being expanded and the green line up line is being extended to accommodate the blue line throats.