For sometime now we have had this huge gravel pit just outside Penticton and above Naramata near Little Tunnel. We inadvertently created this impossible to reach location when we built the broad loop of track that rises to the major Myra Canyon section of the layout.  

At the time it was decided to just build an industrial sized gravel pit up there producing ballast and served by a very short spur and loader.  We could simply fill the ‘pit’ with heavy equipment and the accompanying flashing lights and sounds.  The loader itself was reduced to a European building of odd design bashed and weathered to look industrial but in the end it looked completely out of character.  Visitors weren’t impressed and the tiny spur held two hoppers that never moved.

The gift of three wood and metal kits of purely North American style could solve everything.  Our kit-bash expert was given some acreage, a new spur was planned and work began with the removal of an old farm house, the original spur, the German mill and a few trees.

What you see here is the firm new foundation for the new construction as it looks now with all the old scenery removed and cleaned up.  

That’s the main line to Myra Canyon and Beaverdell at the bottom.  The old spur roadbed is seen curving upwards on the right. Parts of a scene dividing hillside is torn away at the top center and the lighted interior of the farmhouse is still connected, but set aside, at the left. 

If things go as planned, the new and longer spur will cut across this view from about the 4 o’clock position and go up to around the 10 o’clock area. A larger and newer gravel crusher/sorter will dominate the scene on both sides of the spur receiving truckloads of raw material from the still busy pit off to the right.

Yes it’s true.  No such place exists up on the KVR but we’re here to entertain.  More pictures will follow as we rebuild this formally boring and unused hilltop.