Hi,

I'm actually in the process of revisiting my plans for a large cement plant.

I've been happy enough to talk with a fellow modeller whom is uncle worked at the plant. He's getting old and his memory don't serve him as it was in the past, but he said interesting stuff.

According to him, CN hauled gypsum in "Brown car" which were unloaded with a shaker. Historic photos show us brown cars, in fact they are 3-bay uncovered standard CN hoppers. What is common to carry gypsum in such unprotected cars? Would they have put some weather protection over the hoppers? Sound strange to me!

He also told us "black cars" were used to haul coal. Once again, is memory is right, those were Pennsylvania 70-ton coal hopper in black paint scheme. There's photographic evidence of it.

Where things get messy is how they unloaded both commodities. Insurance maps do indicate the coal unloading device, but not the gypsum. But if you follow the conveyor, it indicates it is used as "Gypsum & Coal Discharging". Well, that means the SAME conveyor was used for the coal AND the gypsum!!!! Sounds crazy to me. You don't mix your fuel with a primary ingredient of your final product! My guess is the conveyor was in fact a double conveyor, one part for gypsum and one part for coal. But that would means gypsum and coal were discharged from the cars into the same pit. Could it be possible to have, located side to side, to bins with a parallel conveyor?

Hope my questions makes sense!

Matt

I think I will have to find a copy of these..

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhNcMAcPwjs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhNcMAcPwjs</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srxdItx9I10">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srxdItx9I10</a><!-- m -->

And a vid of K-4's & Camelback's.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDmNAu0v__g">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDmNAu0v__g</a><!-- m -->

Via the latest PRRT&HS Keystone, I learn that Alvin F Stauffer passed away on October 30, 2013. Another discussion is at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="ahttp://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=153390">ahttp://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtop ... 3&t=153390</a><!-- m -->

Stauffer's motive power books were part of a next-generation of railroad and railfan books that went beyond Lucius Beebe in content. I remember buying Pennsy Power about 1962. It cost something like $18, and I remember the hobby shop guy giving me a weird look and wondering how anyone would spend so much for "a book". The PRRT&HS obit suggested that Pennsy Power was a major influence that got the PRRT&HS itself started. I've also heard that Rehor's Nickel Plate Story was the influence that got the NKP group started.

There's another side to this story, though, and that's that in the same Keystone that carried the obit, the editor put out a call for articles, saying that in his 30 years as editor, he'd always had a good supply, but now he'd run dry. This Keystone is keeping up the trend that's been happening, where there's mainly a lot of whining about how K4s 1361 is still in pieces, the RR Museum of Pennsylvania isn't restoring enough PRR stuff, etc. There've been a lot of multi-page articles on how UK railfans are able to restore lots of steam, why can't we do the same -- and less and less on the actual PRR and its history.

There's more to the problem than this, too. The ONLY actual PRR-focused piece in the Keystone (maybe 80 pages) was a self-important thing on the committee that was going to come up with the official PRRT&HS version of PRR paint colors. No actual colors, mind you, just who's on the committee, and what wonderful things they're going to do when they do them. I have two problems with this. One is that, if you look in any "all color book" or even on the web, no two pieces of PRR rolling stock seem to be the same shade. Certainly things came out of the shop in the same color, but after a few weeks on the road, in different environments, through tunnels, in different weather, etc, they turned different shades, either via chemical changes in the paint itself or via soot, road dirt, etc. So a guide to official colors is a nice to have, and it's a basic good thing to tell people there were no Tuscan GP9s or whatever, but I'd actually be wrong to have all my PRR equipment in the same set of shades.

But then I had a problem maybe 10 years ago. The PRRT&HS made a big deal about how they'd given Walthers the right colors for their PRR passenger cars. I picked up an R50 and was blown away -- yeah, I'd never seen a color that reminded me so much of what I'd seen on the New York & Long Branch in the late 1950s. I posted on the PRRT&HS Yahoo group and asked what they'd given Walthers, it was really great, was there a way to mix it with Floquil or Scalecoat? Their answer was that this was confidential, it would be "premature" to give anything out, the Committee was still in the process of blah blah blah.

Well, wait, you've given the formula to Walthers, and they've put out thousands of cars with it, but it's premature to say anything else? That was a major milestone in my disaffection with the PRRT&HS. And it looks like the Committee is still, ten years later, in the same place it's been.

I'm wondering if the passing of Alvin F Stauffer is sort of a bookend to this phase of modeling-railfanning. We probably now, 50+ years after Pennsy Power, have more than all the PRR books we'll need, and the marginal utility of each extra grows less and less. Stauffer's was among the first, and it was really needed and really useful. PRR Color Guide Volume XVII, not so much. Mr Stauffer, thank you and RIP. But this may well be the last year for me in the PRRT&HS.

I came across these which may be of use to some of us - no waiting for delivery!
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/threedk/m.html?item=121277832813&pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item1c3cb8de6d&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562">http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/threedk/m.htm ... 7675.l2562</a><!-- m -->

I've had the narrowgauge bug for quite some time now, and a couple of days ago I finally took the plunge and ordered a small tank engine, some cars and enough track and turnouts to build a small layout. I've chosen H0e / H0n30 for this small adventure, and the layout size will be only 60cm x 120cm (approx 2 x 4 feet).

I've been working on different track plans, and yesterday I printed out a couple of the plans full size and did a mockup with some structures to see what worked and to make sure I didn't try to cram in too much. The mockup will be sitting in our living room for the next couple of days, so I can study it and maybe make some minor changes before construction begins.

I expect the order to arrive within a couple of weeks, and will post updates here as the process goes along.

Svein

It has been a loooooonnnnng winter!

Anyone else more than ready for America's Pastime?!!?

Ralph (planning to take the day off to watch the Mets opener on TV March 31st)

A picture of my T-Trak layout from a recent show.

Some time ago, a good friend gave me this simple IHC kit for the Novelty Iron Works:




It took me some time to decide where it should be situated (long enough that he was probably wondering if I was ever going to use it    ), but I finally decided that a little shuffling of the existing structures in Elfrida could create enough room for it.  Here's an older view of the town (courtesy of Secord Air Services) a place long unfinished and for which I had few ideas:



While the grain elevator in the distance had been moved since that photo was taken, many of the remaining industries were too small to merit rail service, and the downtown area itself was virtually non-existant.  With that in mind, I decided to build the new structure with both of its long walls facing the viewer.  This would require that some smaller shippers be (re)moved, and another larger one be moved.  That prospect inspired me enough to resolve to also work on the business district (which is mostly in the background) and to perhaps add a little interest to the backdrop, too.
First up, though, was re-routing the industrial tracks to serve a larger industry.  
This mainly involved moving a turnout (shown at lower left in the photo below), then re-aligning the three tracks to which it's connected.  As you can see, the large industry previously close to the camera has already been moved down the now-lengthened siding and the smaller industries previously there are gone.  The grain elevator, moved some time ago in another thread, is now situated on the other side of the mainline:



Here's the turnout:



...and after a generous spray of "wet" water:



...and a little clean-up and the ends of the existing track already re-aligned, it's ready for the track to be re-layed.  :



With the new track in place, ballast and weeds are added, plus a generous application of wet water and diluted white glue



...and the partially-built factory can be test-fitted to the site:



Because of the winter weather, there was some delay with painting, but I was eventually able to build most of the low-relief structures for downtown and at least get a coat of paint on their brickwork.  These are left-over parts from DPM kits, almost all purchased over the years as miscellaneous bits in clear plastic bags at my LHS.  The three more-fully-modelled orange structures are also from these bargain finds, and consist of rear walls with partial sidewalls (already hacked-up when I bought them).  The roofs and front walls are plain .060" sheet styrene (the fronts aren't viewable from the aisle).  
As you can see, the new factory has acquired a roof (more .060" sheet styrene) and a coat of grey automotive primer from a spray can.  The pieces of grey-painted styrene sitting on the tracks are floors for the new factory, but they won't be installed until the building is almost completed:



Here are a few views of the area, this one taken from the main road into town:



...and as seen from near the station:



...and an over-all view:



There's no telling how long this re-building of Elfrida will take - it's certainly not Rome, but it'll be more than a day or two, as I'm also working on locomotives and...wait for it......more freight cars.    

Next installment soon.

Wayne