Part Thirteen

"Brush with Greatness"

The above title comes from the CBS late night program The Late Show with David Letterman. Dave had a segment where he would go into the audience and asked if anyone had met someone famous. An audience member who was picked would tell Dave what had happened. Then Dave would ask if there was more and there was. The audience member would read a funny anecdote from a card Dave had given him or her with the super "writers blandishments" flashing below. How that relates to today is coming up shortly.

I departed from my ham radio friend Nate's house just after 8am.

It was about 55 degrees with little wind and few scattered clouds. After rolling out of the dirt roads from Nate's neighborhood and then circumventing the east side of Denver, I was U.S. Route 85, my preferred route to travel between Denver and Cheyenne and it follows Union Pacific’s main line. As I approach the town of Brighton, I noticed a small railroad yard with many 8-axle flatcars and these very large gray with blue trim modules on some of the cars. 

In the building's storage yard are many modules and parts that I do not recognize. Turns out this a manufacturing plant of wind blades and nacelles for Vertas, a company based in Denmark and a worldwide maker of wind-powered generators. The nacelles are the containment module for the generator way up on top of the windmill's mast and the circular parts are what mounts the wind blades to the main rotor. You can find out more about this company and their products at www.vertas.com/

I made it to the town of Greeley, Colorado at about 10:30am and stopped at KUNC 91.5 FM to visit with KUNC Music morning personality Wendy Wham. 

She is originally from New Jersey and has lived in Colorado for over 30 years. Her music program from 9am to 12 noon features a very eclectic playlist of music. Ad if there is a song that you enjoyed listening to, you can find out what it is under the music links at their website. We talked for about 15 minutes and got caught up on things in broadcasting. After saying ado, I stopped by the front desk and Kim kindly took my yearly membership donation. You can listen to the station at www.kunc.org/

Fifteen minutes later, I was at the Colorado Model Railroad Museum across town to get a private tour. The curator Michelle was inside busily snapping photos of a PBS crew from Milwaukee, Wisconsin taping segments for Tracks Ahead, a show about the aspects of railroads from models to full size. 

And Brush with Greatness part two occurred when I met the host, former ABC Good Morning America weatherman Spencer Christian. 

It was great to meet and talk to him during takes. The crew consisted of a cameraman, the assistant camera woman, an audio person and the director. 

After the tapings were done, I managed to get a picture taken with Spencer before he was out the door and on his way to catch a flight at Denver International Airport.

 One of the museum's operators, Darryl, was kind enough to show me parts of this huge layout. 

  
All of the layout's locomotives are equipped with DCC which stands for Digital Command Control. Power is fed to all of the tracks and the "engineer" has a walk-around wireless controller to operate any train on the museum's layout. The locomotives are also equipped with a full range of sounds including the rush of air for releasing and applying the brakes, bells and whistles, and the opening and closing of the throttle: just like you would hear on the real thing. And behind one of the great scenic walls is the hidden staging yard where trains originate and terminate.

For any railfan or model railroader, this is a site to behold. More information on the museum can be found at www.cmrm.org and thanks to Michelle for arranging the tour.

After all of the morning's activities, it was time to grab lunch, head north on Interstate 25 and then make the wide right swing to the east on Interstate 80 to our next stop in Sidney, Nebraska. 

And just before I entered Nebraska, these quick pics from Pine Bluffs, Wyoming. That is the model of caboose I would like to have on my Nebraska homestead for my ham radio shack:

And those old gas pumps?? None of them can go no higher than 99.9 cents per gallon of gas. Man, remember that from way back when??!!

Once back in Nebraska, the UP provided the afternoon's entertainment. From Bushnell, a very long double stack:

And from my office just east of Sidney in Brownson:

Friday we head to our next stop, North Platte, Nebraska. A simple day of chasing trains and a lunch time stop at that nice general store in Julesburg, Colorado for one of those incredible grinders.

And today's installment ends on a somber note for me. My good friend and anchor Ann Nyberg at News 8 sent me a note from the New Haven [CT] Register newspaper that an old friend of our TV past had passed away back on September 20. His name was Robert Schulz from Woodbridge, Connecticut. Bob was a former camera man at News 8 and he was also a ham radio operator, call sign K1BEM, or in his own way of phonetics, "King One Bug Eyed Monster". We worked together for 14 years before he retired and we always kept in touch via 2-meter ham radio. Bob was also the fire marshal for 30 years for the town of Woodbridge, just northwest of New Haven. Bob leaves behind his wife of 63 years, Polly, and a son and daughter. He passed away in Kernesville, North Carolina at the age of 86. In ham radio parlance, when a ham passes away, he or she becomes what we call a "silent key": the key being the device that sends Morse Code; what everyone uses to learn the code to become a ham. So, K1BEM/SK de N1BOW. RIP, OM and thanks for being a part of my life. It was an honor and a pleasure. May God rest your soul.

I'm Philip J Zocco. On The Road. In Sidney, Nebraska.