buy Aurogra June 24th-26th 2022 is the event that we call LaPlata RR Days. This is the 4th year of this fine event. It just gets more fun each time. This year the railfans and visitors started coming in at the first of the week. They wanted time to explore the area and go railfan other spots before all their friends arrived. This just helped the excitement build. The first part of the week for us was of course finalizing the grounds and getting it ready. That meant lots of mowing and work on the park property. Also clearing out the the work area from the Amtrak car move. We are forever thankful of our early arrivals helping us with many little projects to get the event going. Amy dislocated her shoulder earlier in the month as we were working with the Amtrak car move and was not able to be as involved as she wanted to be. She is healing well and will be good to go soon.
A few weeks before the event Dave Siteman called us with an idea. He siad that a dunk tank came up in casual conversation during Ashland RR days and thought it would be fun to try. I said OK and he made the arrangments for the rental of it. Amy and I drove to Columbia to get it on the Thursday before the event. More on that later.
By Thursday evening things were looking good and we were ready to get this event rolling. Friday it rained so we sat under the tents and watched the trains roll by while visiting with everyone that was sitting with us. Fresh Amish bakery donuts were on the table and we all had good time just relaxing and catching up. The rain finally quit and it was time to explore the grounds and look at the exhibits, go hang at the lookout and see who else showed up. The dunk tank was also filled up and ready for some fun on Saturday. Thankful to the LaPlata Volunteer Fire Department for helping us with that. There was donations given for them and said donations have been deliverd to the Fire Chief.
Another display that was shown to the public for the first time was the G-12 trainset. We brought the cars over for everyone to enjoy. They sure looked nice sitting at the “Gibbs” station. This train is done in a rainbow era motif. The lead engine (not done yet) and the observation match in official APRHF colors while the coaches each sport a common scheme seen during Amtrak’s “Rainbow Era” of the 1970’s. We are excited to get some track laid once some other things have been cleared up that pertain to the park. More information about this G-12 train can been seen in other articles on the aprhf.org site.
Saturday brought a beautiful day. There were some early birds over at the park grounds and they helped us couple and set the Amtrak cars where they were supposed to be on the display track. Its not to often that you get to push an Amtrak car and any railroad car around without being yelled at. LOL.
Saturday was a free day. We had guests railfaning and visiting at the Lookout Point, Train Station for Amtrak and at Santa Fe lake. That afternoon was the dunk tank event. Virtual Railfan helped us out by setting up a live fundraiser for the APRHF. People tuned in from all over to see this. They got to sponsor at different levels to “Dunk a Mod” and some of the folks that were at the event even sponsored to dunk their son etc. Below are some of my grabs of this fun time. You basically just had to be there to get the full effect. We even had an insta dunk option for those on the live. Kathy (COTU) and I tied for the most insta-dunks (6 each). This fundraiser brought in right at $2000.00. The APRHF and the board thank all of you for your support and to help us cool off during the hot afternoon.
While some of us changed clothes and dried off, the rest of the guests enjoyed the good food from the Hot Dog Lady and her food truck she had on site while others went up to D’abolengos and enjoyed some cool air and good mexican food before the Fully Loaded band played that evening.
The band started setting up about 5:30 and by 6:30 everyone was gathered around setting up their chairs and coolers for the evening. At 7pm we were about to be entertained by this very good local band.
During one of the breaks we had a moment of silence for Matt Berg who passed away earlier in the year. He was a LaPlata fan and came to this event in the years prior. He is missed by many. R.I.P. Matt. Also thanks go/went out to Robert Mecham for his help in sponsoring the band.
This is a list of some of the places that people said they were from: Connecticut, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, Texas, Colorado, California, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas and Arkansas. We have just over a 100 guests. It was a fun event and we thank everyone for their help and support. Next years dates are. 23rd – 25th.
