February 2011 Trip Report From TCD

[lklasing 16]

Great update! Love the double rails.

I remembered because I was going to try to figure out a way to get you to invite me to come over an watch the MK fireworks from the roof.

But, I have already been there and done that!

Any chance you're going to be back in the World around Memorial Day? I know you've already "been there" and "done that", but I'd love to buy you a drink at the TOTWL if you want another shot at the view (or a free beer...). :cheers:

[LONE-STAR 370]

:popcorn:

[Momoffive aka Loretta 34]

Cliffhanger and loving it! I started the TR this evening, between patient calls, and I have read all 8 pages!! My DH would have been right there with you. He was away for 36 hours with the boys this weekend to Charleston SC and took 325 photos! Looking forward to the next set.

[Doggmeat-aka Todd 3]

Welcome back TCD. missed your tr's.

[Santa ... Shannon 160]

Add one more to the reader count. Mighty good to see you back and posting, Andrew. I've been pretty absent, too, but will certainly be checking in more now that the legend is back on board! That is, of course, assuming you made it out alive... but, if not, how did this all get posted... oops, didn't mean to post a spoiler!

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

Not only do i remember pop tops, I stepped on one at the beach once. Owww!! :argh:

Thanks for the Sunday (early Monday) update. It made a great start to my Monday morning. :popcorn:

[dblr....Rennie 224]

Thanks for the great pictures of the old railroad, I wish I could have seen it in it's prime, I like trains and did the Behind the Steam Tour and learned alot about all of the trains invoved with Disney. I would recommend this tour as it tells all and even Walt's railroad at his home.

I to remember pop tops and also having to open cans with an opener, we used to call them church keys( I don't know why) and even told my son to hand me the church key on the side of the fridge( magnectic) and he just gave me the deer in the headlight look , anyway, as Bob Hope would sing, thanks for the memories.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Great update :banana: And sadly I too remember when you had to use a can opener in order to drink your beverage of choice. :-\ The one good thing about having to pay a bottle deposit in Michigan is you never see cans or bottles laying around anywhere.

Well, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only Old Fort on these boards!

Weekend installments of a TCD trip report - now that IS a treat!

Will TCD make it out alive???

I'm on the edge of my seat....

Thanks, Monique.

i can't promise weekend updates all the time.

But, I am very behind on my trip reporting, so. like Lonestar says, you never know.

:bravo:

Way cool!!!

Thanks, VCL!

Country Time Lemonade!

The pictures of the double track are very cool indeed.

Great report!

Can you still get Country Time Lemonade in a can?

I'm not sure with all the sports drinks and stuff that now fill convenience store shelves.

I'm glad that you appreciate the double rails. It was a cool thing to see in person.

Great update! Love the double rails.

Any chance you're going to be back in the World around Memorial Day? I know you've already "been there" and "done that", but I'd love to buy you a drink at the TOTWL if you want another shot at the view (or a free beer...). :cheers:

Thanks, Leslie.

As hard as it is for me to turn down a free beer, I will not be around WDW on Memorial Day weekend.

I may be there the weekend before, or perhaps the weekend after.

I do want to try to make it for a Star Wars Weekend.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Cliffhanger and loving it! I started the TR this evening, between patient calls, and I have read all 8 pages!! My DH would have been right there with you. He was away for 36 hours with the boys this weekend to Charleston SC and took 325 photos! Looking forward to the next set.

Thanks.

And what is this about reading in between patient calls?

Do you know about that thing called the hold button?

Get your priorities straight!

You could get your Fiend card revoked for that kind of mental slip.

Welcome back TCD. missed your tr's.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

A new member!

Actually, I remember you from another place and time.

Glad to see you here!

If I am thinking of the right person, I believe you and the Fort go way, way, back.

I think you once told me about a deer kept in a fenced in area by the Meadow Trading Post.

That was you, right?

Add one more to the reader count. Mighty good to see you back and posting, Andrew. I've been pretty absent, too, but will certainly be checking in more now that the legend is back on board! That is, of course, assuming you made it out alive... but, if not, how did this all get posted... oops, didn't mean to post a spoiler!

Wow!

So glad to "see" another familiar face here!

I'm glad to hear that you are doing well, and I love your avatar photo!

But, you did spoil the outcome of my little adventure, didn't you?

The next time you need to post "Spoiler Alert!"

Not only do i remember pop tops, I stepped on one at the beach once. Owww!! :argh:

Thanks for the Sunday (early Monday) update. It made a gerat start to my Monday morning. :popcorn:

Did you cut your heel and have to limp on back home?

Were you looking for your lost shaker of salt?

Was there booze in the blender?

We used to make chains out of those pop tops.

And rings.

Ah, the good old days!

Thanks for the great pictures of the old railroad, I wish I could have seen it in it's prime, I like trains and did the Behind the Steam Tour and learned alot about all of the trains invoved with Disney. I would recommend this tour as it tells all and even Walt's railroad at his home.

I to remember pop tops and also having to open cans with an opener, we used to call them church keys( I don't know why) and even told my son to hand me the church key on the side of the fridge( magnectic) and he just gave me the deer in the headlight look , anyway, as Bob Hope would sing, thanks for the memories.

Yep, I remember calling those kind of can openers church keys, too.

I wonder why?

TCD

[Roller ... aka Ed 351]

Church Keys were used to open beer. So the name was a backhanded snarky comment on morals ...

Meanwhile, I still have a church key - how else to make a Beer Can Chicken?

[disneylitch......Debbie 61]

I agree, the set of rails is really cool!!! I too remember pop tops and opening a soda can with a can opener. Great trip report as usual and I can't wait to read more. This makes me even more anxious for my trip in September. Keep up the good work.

[Avatab.... Steve 124]

How about that can-top they tried for a little while that had 2 circles you had to press down on. One to drink from and the other smaller one to let air in....

IIRC the metal circles would sometimes break off and drop into the soda which wasn't good if you drank them!

It didn't last very long, maybe a year or two before they all went to the kind we have now.

:) :) :) :) :)

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

I still have a church key on a magnet on my fridge. My children even call it that! LOL

[Gabbys-mom aka Kim 1]

YEAH! TCD trip reports will help me make it until our trip next year!!!

THANK YOU!

Kim aka Gabby's Mom

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I agree, the set of rails is really cool!!! I too remember pop tops and opening a soda can with a can opener. Great trip report as usual and I can't wait to read more. This makes me even more anxious for my trip in September. Keep up the good work.

Thanks. You won't have to wait much longer to read more.

How about that can-top they tried for a little while that had 2 circles you had to press down on. One to drink from and the other smaller one to let air in....

IIRC the metal circles would sometimes break off and drop into the soda which wasn't good if you drank them!

It didn't last very long, maybe a year or two before they all went to the kind we have now.

:) :) :) :) :)

I don't remember those at all.

Sounds like a bad plan.

But, thank goodness someone invented pull tops.

I sure would hate to have to carry a church key around everywhere.

I still have a church key on a magnet on my fridge. My children even call it that! LOL

I think we have one in our house somewhere, too.

But, I doubt if any of my kids would have a clue on how to use it.

YEAH! TCD trip reports will help me make it until our trip next year!!!

THANK YOU!

Kim aka Gabby's Mom

Thanks for posting.

I see you are new around here, too.

Were you a member of another Fort Wilderness Discussion Board, or are you a new newbie?

TCD

[SCTigerCock 171]

Just caught up on the TR. Great to see you over here.

If I remember correctly, you had some "excitement" at your house shortly before the flush. :siren: :siren: Hope all turned out well.

Now back to the normal scheduled programming.

:popcorn:

[NLPRacing 4]

Great report as usual, keep up the good work!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Have you all had enough photos of weeds and rails?

Well, I sure have.

But, that won't stop me from posting a few more.

As some of you have figured out, I did make it out of there alive.

Sorry to spoil the surprise for those of you who were still wondering.

So, let's wrap up the story of this little adventure, so we can move on to something different, and perhaps, a little more interesting.

But, first, we are still here in the weeds, following these rails:

It doesn't look so bad when you are looking down at it, but this is what it looked like from eye-level:

(You can just barely make out a piece of rail on the ground at the bottom left of the photo above)

I can't walk along the tracks here because of all the obstructions, but I am able to walk off to the side, and weave my way through all the brush and vines. I really like this photo:

Here are more weeds and brush:

Here, we can see some type of brace/separator attached to the tracks. I heard somewhere how the rails used to constantly get out of line, and that they required a lot of adjustments. I imagine this is how those adjustments used to be made. It must have been a real pain:

Here is another wall of brush. You can barely see a bit of track at the bottom of the photo:

There just is no walking through that.

This is a photo of the railway, you can barely see a bit of the rail in the small opening in the vines toward the right bottom of this photo:

You can't see any rail here, but you can see the ballast on the ground:

This is what I had to try to walk through here:

It was at this point where I seriously considered turning back.

The brush kept getting thicker and thicker.

But, I knew that I had to be somewhere near the place where the tracks would curve back toward the main part of camp and run along the canal adjacent to the 1500 loop. And, I had pushed through so much brush to get here, I really didn't look forward to having to try to pick my way back through all the vines and tangled mess. So, I kept on going.

I walked to the side of the rails where I had to:

I knew that I was getting close to a tent camping loop when I saw this Old Milwaukee Light can:

I picked it up, too.

And, I found some more litter, too.

I kept on finding pointy pieces of rusty metal.

Like big nails.

I put those in my pockets.

I would hate for someone to step on one of those.

But, they were heavy, and my pockets were getting full.

So, I couldn't pick them all up.

Look at how the rails are up off of the ground here. I guess the ground must have subsided here. You can see the canal in the background of this photo. I think that means we are getting near the turn:

There is still a lot of rough going here:

There is a bit of a clearing here, which allowed for this pretty cool photo showing how the rails curved here to allow the train to turn away from the big canal and back toward the main part of the campground:

Those last two photos are kind of sad.

Look how nature has reclaimed this land from the railroad.

As I already mentioned, it is amazing to think that this area used to be cleared and viewed by all who traveled the rails. Now, it is isolated and decaying. At some point, even what we see here will be gone or at least so overgrown that no one would even be able to tell that trains actually used to run through here.

From where I took the last two photos, I can look across the canal ,and I see the 1500 loop. The sites are all empty here because a group will be checking in here later today:

It sure must have been neat for campers in the 1500 loop when the train used to come by here.

From this same spot, I took this photo, looking down the canal toward the Meadow area. You cannot see it, but one of the main camp roads is just past all of this brush:

There are still rails along this stretch:

You can't see rails here, but you can see the ballast from the old tracks:

You can see some ballast, and the canal to the left in this photo:

The rails come to a stop before I reach the main road. There is a small hill here. It is from here that the tracks curved off to the left, and crossed the canal via another trestle. This photo is taken from this small hill. The trestle would have gone to the opposite side of the canal, and the tracks then ran near the entrance to the 1500 loop, and crossed the main road just beyond:

I emerged from the woods here.

Here I am looking back to where I had just exited:

There is absolutely nothing you can see from the road to suggest that there are train tracks back there.

I have some good news for you.

That was my last photo of weeds or train tracks.

For this trip report at least.

From here, I went to the nearest recycling bin and deposited my cans.

I also had all of those big nails in my pockets.

I could tell that they weren't aluminum, so I knew I would have to recycle them somewhere else.

I walked back to my cart, which I left at where I had entered the woods, and then did a bit of looping.

On the 1700 loop, I noticed a familiar golf cart.

it was white, with a big Musket Mickey on it.

I would know that cart anywhere.

It was Stacktester's cart.

The Mayor of Fort Wilderness.

I stopped to see if he was around.

I saw him sitting in a motorhome.

He waved me in.

I walked on in.

And, found Stacktester talking to the Otter Spotter!

So, I enjoyed a little visit with Deb and Donnie.

They both told me that I needed to join the new FortFiends Board.

I told them I would.

When I was ready.

That was February 12.

I joined May 5.

I guess it took me a while to get ready.

Anyway, while I was talking to Donnie and Deb, I showed Donnie one of the big nails I picked up along the tracks.

His eyes bugged out.

He asked where I got it.

I told him.

He liked it so much, I told him he could keep it.

I gave one to Deb, too.

After all, my pockets were full of them.

She really liked hers, too.

Weird.

But, I guess this was a good way to recycle this litter.

When I got back to my site, I emptied my pockets, and lined up the big nails.

I had ten left.

Here they are:

Look at this rusty junk.

Why would the Mayor want one of these?

TCD

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

Very cool. I'm glad you made it out alive. I was starting to get worried there for a second :rofl2: I wish I had been there too. I understand the wanting rusty junk thing :banana:

Keep it coming, if you hadn't noticed, I am here all day. I don't watch soaps, I do FF :dance:

[MLM5.. aka Judy 97]

and I'm always lurking FF is my happy place when I get close to a melt down at work.. whooo saaaaaaaaaa...

[Judy in Texas 150]

Aren't those railway spikes? Cool!

[Total Joker ... TJ 203]

Aren't those railway spikes? Cool!

Why yes, Yes they are!

[anolefan 8]

Here we are looking across the creek again. You can see the dog park fence to the left in this photo:

TCD

Ok, I know I'm very late in asking this question, but I am seeing the footbridge in this photo that is on the map right?

If so, did you walk over and check it out? It looks like it is in pretty good condition. And I'm wondering how I have never noticed this before as I have fished that area multiple times.

Sorry to interrupt the flow, but it has been bugging me since I saw the photos early on.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Rails!!! That is way cool. Cooler than RC, cooler than finding old signs and stuff. Actual rails from the FWRR!!! :banana:

You've made my evening. I've never been to the Fort during late winter when weeds have died back. Maybe never will. So thank you for posting this. Also it is VERY cool that you found those spikes...I mean "nails". I happen to do a bit of steel recycling now and then, if you are still looking to unload any of them around Thanksgiving time. :rofl2:

[Avatab.... Steve 124]

Ok, I know I'm very late in asking this question, but I am seeing the footbridge in this photo that is on the map right?

If so, did you walk over and check it out? It looks like it is in pretty good condition. And I'm wondering how I have never noticed this before as I have fished that area multiple times.

Sorry to interrupt the flow, but it has been bugging me since I saw the photos early on.

I had the same question. It looks from the map that there should be another one near the back of the 1500 loop too?