Can You Say Wind Chill?

I am back from a weekend trip to Pennsylvania to attend the Columbia Railroad Day. My itinerary took me to Gettysburg, PA on Friday and to Columbia, PA on Saturday.

View of the Round Tops from the jump off position of Longstreet's Corps

The weather was warm and sunny when I left Virginia. When I arrived in Gettysburg, the skys were clear, but the wind was steady with gusts up to 60 mph and the temperature in  the 50s. My plan was to ride my bike around the part of the battlefield that saw action on the second day of the battle.  So I parked on  the saddle between the Round Tops. From there I rode my bike to the top of Little Round Top, then down the hill and west to the Peach Orchid and back. I was clever enough to plan my route so that my return climb to Little Round Top had a tail wind, but the otherwise the wind was brutal. Unfortunately, I did not pack clothes that were warm enough, so I was thoroughly chilled, despite the climb. I then jumped in my car and decided to tour the rest of the battlefield by auto.  

I wanted to stop at the Gettysburg Train station, but those plans were literally  short circuited.  I was driving north on Stratton Street near the railroad tracks, when I heard a strange humming noise. I thought something was wrong with my car. I looked up and noticed that there was a large orange-blue flame above my car. I drove forward another 100 yards and I saw it again in my rear view mirror. So I stopped and got out and it happened a third time. A pedestrian said to me that a tree was swaying into a power line. Apparently the last time the tree swayed  it caused the power line to snap, or a breaker to trigger, so the flames stopped. I did not get closer to investigate. Instead, I decided to head to the north side of the battlefield to check out the scenes of the first day of combat.   

View from Oak Hill to the east where XI Corps was
pushed back by Ewell's attack on the first day

 The wind was actually getting stronger as I toured the northern sectors and clouds were gathering. I managed to complete most of the auto tour and decided to call it a day. I heard later that the wind caused a tree to fall on a car and a porta-potty at the battlefield. A man was trapped in the potty had to be rescued by the local fire department. 

I arrived in Columbia, PA and met some of the hosts for the model railroad weekend. 

The next morning, the weather was again sunny, but with temperatures in the 40s and wind gusting to 30-50MPH. The meet was held at the Columbia Pavilion, which is an outdoor covered deck.  The cold weather resulted in light attendance at the meet. Nonetheless, Thom Radice from the ACWRRHS was there as well as several of my friends from Facebook that lived in the local area. It was fun to meet with them. 

Despite the small crowd, there were several vendors and exhibitors present as well as a reenactment unit. 

A female re-eanctor was making samples of 1860 cuisine including some hard tack she had prepared in advance. I got to taste some and it was pretty good and not that difficult to chew. She said the cracker would get harder after a few days of drying out. So I brought some home to test out. She also made some tasty corn meal mushies and some kind of stew that I did not get to sample.

The 45th PA Infantry reenactment unit was on hand with an encampment and display of civil war era weapons. Some of the weapons were originals. They even let spectators handle them.  I got to handle an original Sharpe's rifle and a smoothbore musket.

Scott Mingus lead off the presentations with an interesting discussion of the Gettysburg RR.  I also purchased his latest book on the Cumberland Valley RR in the civil war. 

Larry Hoover shows a local police
officer a civil war era weapon

Then Joel Moore showed photos of his highly detailed HO layout and described how he used his railroad as a setting for some novels he wrote.

I presented two talks. The first was an Introduction to Civil War Railroads, a talk I have done many times before. Alas, I was so cold during the talk that I was shivering as I spoke.  That made for an unpleasant experience for me and many of the folks watching expressed concern afterwards. I should have worn my civil war uniform as it would have been perfect for the weather instead the light cotton clothes I had with me. 

Luckily, the weather warmed up a bit and the wind died down for my second talk on my Aquia Line Model Railroad. That talk went off quite well.

The last talk was by Chris Vera on how the people of Columbia were involved in the underground railroad.

 

In between the talks, my host Barry Schmit, took me to see the Columbia Model Railroad Club layouts.  They have large HO and O scale layouts in a former church which is now the Columbia Historical Society building.

I returned home safely Saturday night. It was a fun weekend, despite the cold and windy weather.