Eggs a la Ed Lee

Oh, this car has been on the bench way too long.  That delay has nothing to do with the car itself, rather the good things happening in the rest of my life that keep getting in the way of model railroading.  Still, I'm glad to see it finished and rolling down the track.  Here's the story.

This freezer, NADX 6002, in service of the Pacific Egg Producers of Seattle, is built from 'An "Ed Lee" Kit', from E. Suydam & Co of Duarte, California.  What brings this kit to my bench is its presence on John Allen's Gorre & Daphetid.  Yep, another "Heritage Fleet"car.

NADX 6002 seen on the G&D in May, 1963

I began this car in July - almost exactly four months ago.  I did not deviate far from the kit instructions, only adding weight, backdating the air brakes, and changing a few minor details.  I've got a great prototype image of this car in Hendrickson & Kaminski's Billboard Reefer book.  Suydam got most of the details correct but I took the opportunity to add missing corner straps and reduce the number of grab irons on the sides and ends.

What's funny is that while Suydam did well in this regard, they missed one "colorful" detail, that is, the PEP Eggs banner should be royal blue.  An eBay search turned up some original blueprints for the car with painting instructions and the blue color is noted.  I very carefully added some blue paint to mine and it looks good from 3 feet away.  Red Ball got the color right but has too many hinges and grabs on their NADX 6001.  Likewise Train Miniature's plastic version, NADX 6003 (though in their defense, all of their reefers used the same body).  I mention the hinges because that was a key ingredient to identifying the maker of John's car.  

Sometimes I wonder where the manufacturers get their information and why they make some design choices that don't match the car itself.  It may be clear they're working from an image of the car or even drawings as some claim, and yet, they choose to include the wrong number of hinges on the door.  Go figure.  I can come up with some plausible reasons, but they'd only be guesses.  One is that Suydam was using a black and white photo as reference.  Who knows.

Finally I decided to change the brake detail in order to run this car on my late 20s era railroad.  I took my weathering cues from John's car but toned it down slightly.  The Ed Lee/Suydam kit was fun to build and follows the classic construction methods of kits from this era involving drilling, cutting, shaping, painting, etc.  There's a sublime satisfaction I get from taking a box of parts and turning it into a rolling freight car.  I'm happy with how it turned out and can now run another car "from the G&D" on my railroad.

GM&G Ventilated Boxcar

The Gorre & Daphetid "Heritage Fleet" keeps on growing.  I suspect I have nine or ten cars, total, that are identical in make and model to John's cars, and another half dozen cars from private roads that ran on the G&D but don't match the car type.  This latest car fits the first category, being a Central Valley ventilated boxcar lettered for the Georgia, Midland and Gulf, number 1254, as seen on the G&D.  However, I didn't set out to build a replica of John's car.  

A while back I built one of these cars lettered for the Mobile & Ohio and had such an enjoyable time that I decided to look for more.  More were found and procured with the intent of making a fleet for the Ocali Creek Railway.  Of the cars I found in various states of disrepair, this one - GM&G 1254 - just happened to have the nicest 'bones' and was close to complete.  Donor parts from the other cars made up the lost parts.  I even decided to use the Central Valley dress-snap truck attachment, not knowing for sure what John did but guessing he might have used the original kit parts.

One bonus specific to this car; it fits my 1920s era perfectly and can see regular operation hauling perishables on the Ocali Creek Railway.  Enjoy the images below from the reconstruction process and a picture of the car with its Heritage Fleet brethren. 

Ocali Creek Mogul 145 does the honors, pulling the current G&D Heritage Fleet cars tailed by an Ocali Creek caboose.

 

The One and Only Covered Hopper

One, and only one.  As best I can tell John Allen only ever rostered one covered hopper in his entire fleet of rolling stock.  And, based on scant evidence, admittedly, my best guess for that car's road name is "Jack Frost" Cane Sugar.  More confidently I can say the make of the car was an MDC Roundhouse 2 Bay Covered Hopper.  The rib spacing, round hatches and body shape tell that story pretty clearly.  Beyond that we get into the realm of speculation.

A close-up crop from the Optimum Use of Space slide show.  Note: this is a reflection - you're looking at the left end of the car on the right side of the image.  The proof of this is the G&D boxcar to the right, whose lettering is reversed.  Original photo by John Allen.

Dating it on the G&D is difficult since it shows up so infrequently.  The best color image comes from John's clinic on the Optimum Use of Space.  Even then it doesn't clearly show the full side and is only seen reflected in the mirror at Great Divide behind a bridge column.  If you've got the Westcott book you can see it on page 4 but only a top view.  Jerry Drake's clinic on the G&D includes a full side view - completely shaded almost to the point of silhouette.  And so it goes.  Still, unless new evidence surfaces, I remain convinced it is a Jack Frost car based on the schemes of what was available in the model train marketplace during the 1960s.  I'll let you visit the gdlines.org site and dig around to see if you can find it on your own.

"Lagoon Blue" was nearly an exact match.  Trucks are metal and sprung to match what would have been under the car originally though the MR review notes the wheels were plastic.

Model Railroader reviewed the car, new, in August 1962.  There seem to be two variations in the lettering - the key difference being the position of the 'sugar baby', either next to the Jack Frost lettering or beneath it.  Without knowing when the car appeared on the G&D or when Roundhouse changed the lettering I had no guidance on which version to look for.  Being the G&D aficionado I am I had to have one for my Heritage Fleet - my own roster of cars found on fallen flag model railroads.  The car was surprisingly difficult to find on the second hand market as a complete, unbuilt kit.  Though I suspect the version I selected is not the oldest, it more closely matches the lettering on a prototype image I found, for what that's worth.  

Tamiya black panel liner provides a shadow effect to make the best of the thick plastic running board.  My acrylic weathering sludge in the cup is a mix of charcoal gray, tan and a drop of rust.

The MR review states this was an easy kit to build.  I struggled to get the hopper door braces cut to length and glued in place, and needed to spend a while with a set of files to get the underframe to fit correctly.  Roundhouse suggests painting the underframe black but I chose to match the brilliant blue of the sides, as that seems to be what the prototype did (again, that matters less than trying to match how John built his, but that's impossible to know with current images).  Where I tried to more closely follow John's practices was with the weathering.  There having a good prototype image IS important, as this is what John followed when weathering his cars, though his results often appear quite heavy handed.

 

Overall I'm pleased with the result, both in terms of adding another car to the G&D Heritage Fleet and on its own merit as a bright and colorful car.  As of writing this post, the next heritage car under construction is a GM&G ventilated box car, for which there is far better photographic evidence!  Thanks for reading.  Feel free to comment or ask questions.

 

Towards a G&D 2-8-0

No, this isn't a post about the "Putnam" 2-8-0 kit-mingle, but a new 2-8-0 project - at least the research stage.  A few years back a friend of a friend needed to sell some trains to make a little traveling cash - I know, this sounds sketchy but it's all above board, I promise.  I nearly made the mistake of buying another Spectrum 4-6-0 but narrowly avoided that fate after spotting the wheel lope; I swear half of those must be lemons.  Instead, I purchased the most reliable runner Bachmann ever made, in my opinion, the "evergreen" Spectrum 2-8-0, as Iain Rice once dubbed it.

Before the cash had even changed hands I had begun to formulate a plan for what this engine might become.  Readers who have been with this blog a while know I can't leave well enough alone and must modify and manipulate a locomotive, rarely leaving it in an un-molested state as the manufacturer designed it.  My first consideration was an ET&WNC 2-8-0, detailed to match one of their two ex-Southern standard gauge engines (one still steaming today and another under restoration).  However that option had too many compromises and difficulties.

After a bit more cogitating I decided it would make a fine Gorre & Daphetid tribute locomotive.  John Allen was fond of the 2-8-0 wheel arrangement, owning four of them, three from different railroads but redetailed or at least repainted for the G&D.  I wouldn't be attempting to make the Bachmann model match a specific 2-8-0 from the G&D stable, but a plausible G&D 2-8-0.  All I'd need to do is modify a few details to disguise the look of the Bachmann model and give it a G&D "family" appearance.  A high headlight, tender coal bunker extensions, maybe a cinder catcher on the stack, and other small details here and there should do it.  Now to find a similar prototype from which I could gain some guidance...

See this site for similar images: https://snyrr.com/category/uncategorized/116/

Susquehanna & New York number 116 fits the bill, but almost...needs a few more modifications...let's see...

This photo is available for purchase from Taplines at https://www.ebay.com/str/taplinesrailroadphotography

S&NY 116 became Meridian & Bigbee River 116 and is preserved on display in Meridian, Mississippi.  The Taplines image above (I'm hoping the link to the listing will be enough to justify its use here...) shows the engine sans spark arrestor and with a lowered headlight.  If I were happy with the look of the Bachmann headlight, (and its dim glow), I could just leave it where it is, but I like it up high and that matches the G&D style.  Point being, there's plenty of flexibility in detail options not only because I'm modeling a plausible locomotive from a freelanced railroad but also in terms of the prototype practices.  Just because it's freelanced doesn't give a modeler license to stray from the practical realities of railroading.  I would argue it makes the freelancer's task that much more challenging; otherwise, you're wandering into the artist's realm of fantasy and out of the real-world grounding that railroads have provided for modelers.

As mentioned above, this project is really just in the research stage and that's fine for now.  When it finally comes time to modify the Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0, I'll have plenty of prototype practice and modeler's imagery to guide me through the work.  I've got most, if not all, of the parts, paint and details I'll need to do the conversion, and the engine is a smooth-running example of Bachmann's early Spectrum products before gears started splitting.  Some day this will make a fine tribute loco to pull a train of heritage cars.

 

Full Circle

This is blog post number 200.  Rather than write a big blog recap or make some major announcement, I decided to spin a yarn about a mystery solved.  Let's start with this image:

I snipped this sliver from one of John Allen's photos of a scene at Port on his Gorre and Daphetid railroad, taken in 1971.  Yup.  That's all you get.  Running the image through Google image search gives you all manner of fun things, none of which help in this situation.  All I could make out was some text along the bottom beneath that colored logo, "Bay RR".  However, I could tell the steps are molded on, the side appears to be simulated wood and the roof walk tells me its a box car.  That's it.  Maybe another image might help:

This full-side view is from a John Allen photo of a train on the high bridge over Squawbottom, 1972.  Now the overall shape of that herald is clearer and some general text is emerging on the left side.  Perhaps a road name up high and a slogan below?  The images above are all I could find of this particular car and offered no definitive answers to what the full road name was.  That is, until I was searching for other surviving relatives of a totally different car:

More is known about the Virginia Midland, though not much more.  Still, I was trolling eBay, as one does when on the hunt for vintage models, when I found a listing for a Virginia Midland hopper.  I was not entirely sure it was the same VM as the box car on the G&D, but I figured if the seller has one private road name car, there may be more.  And I was right.  Check this out:

Look familiar?  This is a picture from the eBay listing and the photo quality is not the best, but it was certainly good enough to make out the relevant text!  Until this point I had no hope of ever identifying that mystery car I had been calling the "X Bay RR".  Now I knew it was the Seaford and Oyster Bay RR, "Trail to the Sunrise"! I was ecstatic. 

Fine.  Mystery solved, right?  Not so fast.  Whose railroad was this?  How did one of their boxcars come to be on the G&D?  That's hallowed ground on which not just any car trod, er, rolled.  How was it hitched into a train alongside such famous lines as the Alturas and Lone Pine or the Texas and Rio Grande Western?  Perhaps the internet, that great oracle of our age, could tell me more.

After a string of fruitless searches I found the goods but it wasn't a direct route.  However New York State Route 135 appears to be.  This road is commonly known as the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway.  We're getting warmer.  Model Railroader database?  Nothing, except that Seaford is mentioned in connection with the NorthEastern Region of the NMRA.  Hmmm.

Adding NMRA and NER to the search term "Seaford and Oyster Bay" brings me to "The Coupler", the publication of the NER, specifically the Summer 1981 issue.  There on page three is a fine article about newly minted Master Model Railroader #85, Frank Murray.  Click here for a link to the full issue, however this snip answers most of the pertinent questions:

That last line brings it full circle.  There it is.  "Trail to the Sunrise"?  A nod to the Sunrise Trail Division of the NorthEastern Region of the NMRA.  "A number of years ago" was probably at least 10, since the earliest image I could find of an SOB car was from 1971 and Frank completed his MMR certification in 1981.  

Only a few details remain and they're perhaps less important.  Did Frank mail his car to John or bring it with him on the "vacation"?  Oh, and there's a bonus G&D connection; in the same article are names of other modelers in the Sunrise Trail Division who had achieved MMR.  One in particular stood out: Waty House (#5).  Did Watson House have anything to do with securing an invitation to the G&D for Frank?  John considered House enough of a friend to name a major structure on the G&D after him.

The world may never know any more than what's been discovered and shared here, and that's okay.  And the car I found on eBay?  Why I bid on it of course!  And won, along with another private road name car, a reefer lettered for the "Busted and Maimed", Route of the Busted Pine.  No, I don't have any clue to its origins.  Yet.

Thanks to all who regularly read this blog, and any who stop by occasionally or stumble across it.  However you find it, if you would consider following along I'd appreciate it and as always, leave any comments or questions down below.  There will be more to come.
 

Caribou Southern

Hang on, this post is all over the place.  That is to say, the road is winding, with turns aplenty.  

Periodically I search eBay for a particular car; a card side refrigerator car that fits into a series of custom printed road names.  These often turn up in lots of old cars needing refurbishment, the sort of treasures you'd find buried in the junk box at a train show.  During one of these scans I stumbled across two cars that caught my fancy.  The first was indeed a reefer and appears to be hand painted:

It should go without saying, but I can't find anything about this car's origins either.

The second I almost didn't buy:

I had no connection to this car apart from my interest in collecting and preserving lost and forgotten private road names.  That is, until I began cataloguing John Allen's rolling stock.  While there has been plenty of interest in the private roads that appeared on the famous Gorre & Daphetid Railroad, no comprehensive list has been made of the plain ordinary rolling stock; the cars based on actual prototypes.  I set to this task when I was sick and couch-bound for a week.

During my research I dug back through the archives of the G&D discussion group.  There on a partial list of cars that appeared on the G&D was an entry for a gondola - a Caribou Southern gondola, number 55.  Hey...I know that name from somewhere.  About the same time a new set of slide images from the G&D was posted on the group and there it was, the CS gondola, on the RIP track near the Great Divide engine house.

From a photo by Jerry Drake.  Click here for the original.

Okay!  Now we're getting somewhere.  But let's take a step back...what about this Caribou Southern?  Whose road was it?  Where was it located?  How did John Allen come to have one on his railroad?  The Model Railroader archive has NO mention of it, though there's another fascinating Caribou-named model railroad with a car ferry that moved on a track in actual water.  Google turns up nothing.  It seemed to be a dead end.

Well, let's just say the road doesn't go much further but I can now answer two of those questions.  During a totally unrelated search as I rifled through my collection of model railroad passes I found this:

Yup.  There 'tis.  Ken Vere, Supt.  Vancouver, B.C.  And Google did turn up a little on Ken, with a mention in the Pacific Great Eastern newsletter from the 90s.  PGE?  Oh, you know, that Canadian road with the Caribou Head logo...