New beginnings


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History Archive of all previous posts from the beginning of time! 

Reality

I try to include family and friends in the life of Cuspidor and you’ll find references to them below.  I endeavour to fit them tongue-in-cheek into the most suitable positions, such as our dear friends Malcolm and Cathy who once treated us to a disastrous grand weekend tour in Derbyshire.  In the spirit of never letting a good turn go unpunished I conceived of them running the world’s worst bus tour company.  I enjoy creating little vignettes that bring the viewer into my strange little world.  Building Cuspidor is a long term retirement project and I will try to keep adding to the story. 

My World

The little known Rocky Mountain town of Cuspidor lies at an elevation of 8,639 feet somewhere between the Uncomphagre and San Juan ranges. It sits in the Rio Bozo valley amidst hard granite  cliffs.  It’s pretty hard to find nowadays as the valuable metals ran out in the fifties and people mostly just drifted away leaving what was a once prosperous town to just fade into obscurity. Diehard exploring types have been known to stumble across it when following the old abandoned narrow gauge railroad line through the brush or hiking along the Rio Bozo up to the fabled Plughole Falls.

Here we view it in 1932 at the end of the glory days but while the railroad still ran serving the almost played out gold, silver and lead mines.

The upper town of Cuspidor sits on a series of steep, narrow switchback roads reminiscent of Jerome AZ.  A fairly recent addition is the magnificent stone City Hall and Courthouse built in 1918, at great public expense, by over ambitious and short sighted city fathers.

Notable buildings include the Golden Cuspidor saloon and hotel up on the bluff, the aforementioned City Hall, Miss Anna’s Pleasure Palace, the Miner’s and Cattlemen’s Association Hall and a magnificent F W Woolworth store.  Dan Webb’s auto repairs does a good trade thanks to the awful roads and Miss Sarah’s little car is seen there rather frequently causing tongues to wag.  The Lady’s Temperance Group, if not protesting about miner’s and stockhands carousing and frequenting the saloon and Miss Anna’s on a Saturday night, often speculate that it’s about time young Dan did the right thing and popped the question.  There are still some tiny miner’s shacks in and around the town along with a few old shops that struggle to compete with a Woolworth’s that won’t stay long once they check the turnover at head office.  Below the town you can just see a corner of Wiggin Field where Captain JJ Wiggin valiantly tries to keep his old biplane flying with air circus shows and crop dusting duties.

Overlooking the picturesque Plughole Falls is Desport’s tiny diner where the occasional, intrepid tourist takes ham and eggs along with miners from the Rio Bozo Mine.  The poor chaps up at the Devil’s Drop goldmine don’t get down there too often.   Now and then you can see the Pritchard’s Intrepid Scenic Tours (PIST) charabanc approaching the view point, usually with their last passenger hurling herself out of the open window in a desperate attempt to escape.


The Cuspidor and Southern Railroad depot and yard bake in the summer sun and freeze in the winter along with everyone else (work in progress).  many mines and related mining industries keep the old line rattling on. Enjoy.

 My Musical Adventures

 My other hobby - only for the brave: https://barrykingsbeer.bandcamp.com/releases

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Tuesday, 9 December 2025

Building Works Progress


I've been working on installing lighting in my buildings, where possible and am making good progress. Here is one I really like. I had a cast metal hurricane lamp that I was able to drill with a 1mm bit and put in a fibre optic line to a 3 volt bulb. Pretty good result, I think.

Rita's Little Shack gets a front porch hurricane lamp

An LED added to an internal wall which will end up back in the stucture!

Lighting and new roof for the engineering shed
 
Abandoned mine tramway reinstated

The abandoned charcoal burning kiln goes back home

Some views of the new building layout for Cuspidor Yard

I think this is a pretty reasonable arrangement of the structures I have to hand and an improvement over the previous one. Lots more to do.





















 

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Friday, 5 December 2025

 First Official Video (mercifully short!)








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Wednesday, 3 December 2025

Some cheeky "under the covers shots!!!!


My woodworking skills on show to the world.

Here are a couple of rare views of the nether regions of Cuspidor.  Note the inspired carpentry that props up mountains! Gasp at the intricate engineering that supports the turntable. Marvel at the network of electrical connections. Some things just ain't made to be seen, but here we are - Cuspidor, warts and all for your delight!

The turntable, yes it works!

Points and turntable switch panel - the candid view...

More superb joinery and inspired wiring.




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Trains run again in Cuspidor

Movement on the railroad at last

Trains are actually running on the Cuspidor and Southern under power from my new fangled digital control unit. I shall upload video content now that I've got to grips with a better way to upload video files. Watch this space.

Anyhow the railroad finally works and the DCC control is much better than I expected. Even better, no track wiring or re-wiring was required, thank goodness. (There's a lot to be said for a simple system!)  Money well spent and a perfect Christmas present from me to me (not forgetting from the boss to me either)! Now if only she wanted another Blackstone loco for her main pressie...... No, that would be pushing the old envelope too far even for me. I may be forced to buy her something non-railroad related just to keep her on side!

I've got the newer, bigger points switch panel installed (see below) and rewired after much cussing and happy time spent on the floor under the layout and it's working properly, although one of the brand new switch machines decided to pack up after half a dozen goes. Luckily I had a spare on hand. Can't beat good old electronics made in the glorious people's prison of China.......

The massive control panel is needed to accommodate all four switch machines and the turntable direction changeover switch. The panel to the right fronts the power source for the switches, it has a stupidly tiny led to indicate when it is charged and ready to be used so I fabricated this panel with a little green see-through slot which amplifies the light amazingly well.

Turn, Turn, Turn!

The big news concerns the Cuspidor yard turntable. It is now wired to the track via a DPDT switch and is working nicely, so trains can turn around and run in both directions, as and when required.  I fitted two Campbell's water barrels to the deck which cunningly double as fire safety and handles for rotating the TT. It will be an armstrong TT for the conceivable future. 

I was going to install a couple of pushing handles for my HO staff to use when I get too tired. Then I thought "What if I find some suitably arcane materials in my engineering treasures drawer? I may even be able to fabricate a loco-steam drive to save their tiny aching backs". If ever there was a benign railroad magnate, I reckon I qualify. Well, needless to say, I managed to cobble up what looks to me like an astonishingly convincing piece of apparatus, complete with connecting hose so that some pressure from somewhere on the loco can be used to power it and rotate the turntable. Job done!

The ingenious use of fire barrels to act as turning handles and the new "Barrymatic" steam powered turntable er, turner....

Upgraded Loco Maintainance Shop

In between times, I have installed lighting and a new roof on the loco repair shed and that will soon put in an appearance on the turntable lead. Head of Engineering Clyde McTwitter still cusses the day the turntable was installed on the shed siding so turning locos have to run through his engineering works just to turn around but sadly it uses the only space that was available to the company and he just has to lump it!


Note the new roof being clamped while it is being glued in position. I may patent this genius construction method. If Colorado was in the hurricane zone I might be tempted to leave it as it is!

Testing the new lighting

Hmm there may be some light leaks to attend to

Future Operation issues

Now that we are up and running better than ever before and I have a couple of potential operators in AJ and Bella, I need to work out where auto uncoupling would be helpful. I just ordered some Neodymium magnets to make my own Kadee type uncouplers and will no doubt spend much happy time sorting that all out. The prospect of excavating several bits of track fills me with dread but it will be a necessary evil. I have some off-layout testing to do first though, just to make sure they work.






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