Along the Right of Way ...

Merry Christmas!

Milepost 298

 
Merry Christmas to you and yours.  I sincerely hope that you all have a special day with family & friends celebrating the birth of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.  Remember, 'tis the reason for the season! 

Oh yes, I do hope that Santa Claus managed to find it in his heart to leave you some really cool railroad stuff under your tree... even though you haven't been perfect this past year.  Look on the bright side... even a few lumps of coal can be crushed up and used to fill that scale tender on your new steam locomotive!  One has to be optomistic at times like these!

dlm

 

Letter To Santa

Milepost 297

It is time for my annual letter to the Jolly One up North.  As I mentioned last year, it seems that everyone who writes anything writes one so I must "go with the flow."

A check of last year's letter tells me that the old guy took pretty good care of me.  The EM-1 2-8-8-4 magically materialized shortly after my epistle last year.  Thank you very much, Mike, for your offer and I was glad I was able to help out with your collection.

Readership is up as I did ask Santa for more readers of this blog.  I hope he didn't threaten to give you coal in order for you to stop in from time to time.

Now for this year... I still haven't taken my first shot at a laser kit; I'd like to see one of those under my tree.  I've looked long and hard at several of them.  Wicked Wanda's looks interesting and I'm thinking that I'm going to have a small section of town on "the wrong side of the tracks."  That kit would fit right in I'll bet.

How about still more readers AND some topic suggestions from you?  Please feel free to email me at danmerkel@sbcglobal.net with any suggestions that you may have.  Yes, you can use the comment section here but I don't know when people have commented; I don't get an email telling me so.  Feel free to write to me directly.

A few more hours per week to spend with some friends working on the layout would be nice as well.  I've always wanted to get a little "round robin" group going where we could help each other out from time to time.  I've learned that this isn't as easy as it sounds.  It takes some planning to pull off a successful work session.  But I'm willing to try.

I'm always in need of just a few more pieces of Nickel Plate Road rolling stock.  Thanks to the nice folks out at Athearn, those of us who model the NKP have been well supplied.  Kudos also to AccuRail and Intermountain as they have added nicely to the offerings as well.  But more is always merrier they say.

Storage boxes... yes, storage boxes to put railroad "stuff" in.  And it would really be nice if they were different sizes but still made to stack on top of each other.  It would also be nice if the same style is available later on if I decide that I need a couple more.  Right now, I have about half a dozen, but I don't think that more than a couple of them are stackable with each other.  When I get a few more, I'll be able to clean up the train room and have all of my railroad stuff organized!  (yeah, right!)

Last but not least, I wish for all of you the same as I did last year.  I hope you have a few more joys than sorrows, a few more dollars than bills, more better days than bad ones and time to spend with those people that you love and things that you like... and the wisdom to separate the two.

OK Santa, please do your thing!

dlm

Malinta, Ohio

Milepost 296

 

Photo provided by Chuck Bohi

If you are a regular reader of this blog, it will come as no surprise to you that I like railroad towers  that appeared at various junctions along the right of way.  This particular picture was posted as part of one of the Nickel Plate Road groups that I belong to and is of a simple station & tower at Malinta, Ohio.  I'm guessing from the "look" of the photo that the picture must have been taken later, perhaps in the 1950s as the tower appears to be boarded up and the station doesn't look all that active either.

Originally, the Nickel plate was to go from New York to Chicago AND St. Louis.  While the line between Buffalo & Chicago came about rather quickly, it wasn't until the 1920s that the NKP got control of the Clover Leaf and finally gained access to St. Louis.  Thus, it acquired the station at Malinta.

From the looks of things, the track there ran in a northeast-southwest direction.  Another line crossed in a north-south direction creating the need for a tower to be located there.  There was also some local traffic sent & received by some local businesses.  Both the station and tower were probably reasonably busy when they were in their prime.  Of course, a lot of this would also depend on the traffic generated by the north-south line that crossed there.

Note that the tower appears to have two sets of semaphores to signal to oncoming trains.  I'm guessing that they were still in use at the time of this picture or else the arms would have been removed.  It appears that they are both displayed in the "STOP" position.  The only thing missing in the photo would be the steps to the second floor of the tower; I'm guessing that they were on the other side of the structure; few towers had internal steps unless they were much bigger.

I'm sure that the tower & station are both gone today.  The Clover Leaf track is even gone through Malinta but the right of way shows up very clearly on satellite photos of the area.  If you are interested, do a Google search on Malinta, Ohio, and check the map & corresponding aerial photos and you will see what I mean.  It's just too bad that buildings like these are rapidly fading into the past but I guess that is the price of progress.  But both tower operators and station agents tended to be a friendly lot and there were a lot of kids who spent their extra time watching trains from the stations & towers located along the right of way.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:  The NWORRP is having North Pole Express train rides at their location here in Findlay.  Check their web site at www.nworrp.org for dates and times.  There are twoo weekends left; stop out and take a ride on their scale steam train.  Say "Hello" to Mary while you are there!

dlm

Only a Few Thousand Sold...

Milepost 295

 

On one of my many trips to the train store in Toledo many years ago,I happened to see this model and almost bought own.  But since it had just been released, I thought I had plenty of time and went after some bigger fish to fry.  Little did I know... 

The kit was released by Life Like Models as part of their Buildem's Series.  Only problem was that it was released without the blessings of Ronald McDonald and his minions, so shortly after it was released, McDonald's secured a court order calling for Life Like to cease & desist in the production and sale of the kits.  I never asked the owners of the hobby shop in Toledo how this came down at the local level, but I'll bet it was pretty quick.  Anyway, the kits that were sold in the first few weeks have become real collector's items.  I'm guessing that the kit probably sold for about $5 and I have seen them go as high as $135 on Ebay.  Recently however, they have come down a little in price and if you really want to have America's favorite fast food restaurant on your layout, you can sometimes find one for about $60-%70 if you are willing to wait a little and be patient.

The person who sold me mine didn't realize what value it had in the HO market.  It was sold as a McDonald's collectible.  Yes, it is collectible by typical McDonald's fans but has a higher value in the world of HO model trains.

For those of you old enough to remember, this is what some of the very first McDonald's restaurants looked like.  Later, they got bigger as sit-down became almost as popular as the original drive-in concept.  Even later, the more familiar double arches began replacing the single arch depicted in this model.  If you are a real fast food nut and want to develop your own "fast food" avenue on your layout, you can also find a Pizza Hut and a Burger King kit but they are typically much easier to find than one of these. 

Today, HO scale is the only scale that doesn't have a McDonald's Restaurant, so I'm guessing that soon, some manufacturer will strike a deal with the higher ups at the Golden Arches and we will be able to feed Big Macs & French Fries to those along the right of way...

dlm

What's In a Picture?

Milepost 294

During one of my recent trips home, I took this picture just across the street from where i grew up.  I'm not one to usually put too much into a picture, but in this case, this one tells us a lot.  Let's take a closer look...

First, there are some trees with leaves gone and others that have turned yellow & orange, indicating that the photo was taken in the fall.  In fact, it was at the end of October.  Note the general condition of the track... it looks kind of rough, so it would be pretty easy to conclude that this wasn't on a highspeed mainline somewhere.  No, it is a section of the CSX (on the left, originally part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system) and the new Wheeling & Lake Erie on the right.  Neither sees much more than maybe 6-8 trains a week.  The weeds growing between the rails are another giveaway of the track's lack of use.  The mills back home have been shut down for quite some time which has hit the Wheeling quite hard as they used to run a couple of trains a day between the mill in Yorkville and the one in Mingo Junction.

It's a little harder to see, but there are no wires on the telephone poles suggesting that this is a more recent picture.  As I mentioned earlier in my post about the call box, at one time, the telephone was the main form of communication between trains and dispatchers.

Can you see the derail almost exactly in the middle of the picture?  It is the small yellow object that is on the left rail of the siding.  This is in place to avoid a train pushing cars out onto the main line (on the left) where they may interfere with other traffic.

The ground level switch stands to the right suggest that this is an area where a lot of switching is done.  Otherwise, the switches would probably be powered and the crew wouldn't have to de-train to throw them.  The interchange track, visible in the distance, also suggests that there is a reason for traffic from either main line to be diverted to a larger customer.  Again, during the mill's heyday, both the Pennsy and the Wheeling switched traffic into and out of the mill.

Yes, there are a lot of little details that show up in what many might see as an ordinary picture of some old tracks along the right of way...

dlm

Southern Pacific AC-9

Milepost 293

A while ago, I told you about beginning a kitbash of an older AHM 4-8-8-2 Cab Forward into a Southern Pacific AC-9.  While I still plan to make that conversion, its urgency was delayed by this steal on Ebay.  It is an Akane Southern Pacific AC-9 brass locomotive. I got really lucky with this one and I took the leap.

This was a steal and a lucky purchase because of a person's inexperience with the whole Ebay selling process.  So if you plan to sell anything on Ebay OR if you want to try to get a real deal, consider this.  The locomotive was listed in the afternoon and didn't have a delayed start time so the auction ended in the afternoon.  It was about 4:30 in the afternoon during a weekday.  I happened to catch a break being off the day I got it but the usual "snipers," people who wait till the last minute to bid on something, weren't in the mix and it probably sold for at least $75 less than what it would have sold for 4-6 hours later.  So much for your Ebay lesson for the day...

The Southern Pacific AC-9 was one of the largest steam locomotives built by Lima Locomotive Works just down the Interstate from here in Lima, Ohio.  So that makes it even more interesting to me.  I think it is the only articulated that was owned by the SP that wasn't a cab forward.  And, it has a semi-streamlined look to it that makes it one of the most beautiful articulated steam locomotives ever built according to many different people.  From the reading I've done about them, the AC-9s were used on the relatively flat sections of the southern portion of the SP.

It has yet to earn its first dollar pulling revenue freights on my layout and I'm not sure what the old NKP brass hats will say to a "foreign" locomotive being on their rails.  But they seem to forget that Through some stock market swindles and other shenanigans, "I" am now the owner of the railroad and they will simply have to like it.  : )

Akane Models were very popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s as they specialized in low-end models.  Their runs tended to be much larger than some of the other brass model builders and as such, their prices were also lower.  They built many different models during their run and while they sometimes were lacking a little in detail, in general, their drive mechanism was solid and sound.  I'd like to figure out a way to get a little better motor and flywheel in this one and I'm sure it would be much better in the performance department.  We will see.  But such a conversion would no doubt be the subject of another post.

dlm

BNSF

Milepost 292

I don't know if many of you saw the news recently, but financier Warren Buffet has purchased controlling interest in the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company.  His company, Berkshire Hathaway will actually be the new owners but he is squarely & firmly behind the 34 billion dollar deal.  Apparently, Mr. Buffet is betting that as the economy recovers, the nation's second largest railroad company will reap the benefits of it.

BNSF hauls a lot of basic commodities including corn for food and coal for electric generating plants.  But it also hauls a lot of user goods from western ports bound for the eastern markets.  The railroad has a very diverse product mix.

Berkshire Hathaway also owns stock in two other major railroad companies, Norfolk Southern and the Union Pacific.  Best wishes to Mr. Buffet with his investment.  If the railroads profit, so do we as an economy AND as those more interested in the rail industry.

dlm

The Call Box

Milepost 291

 

On a recent trip back home, I went for a walk with my camera and found this interesting call box on a telephone line pole near the railroad tracks.  It has been many years since the box was used to house a telephone connected to the local dispatcher's desk but the box still remains, a reminder of previous times.

When railroads first started, there wasn't much in the way of communications technology.  Each section of track had a signal tower at each end and the operators could communicate by telegraph to tell operators at the other ends of their respective sections when trains left and arrived.

As technology improved, the telegraph was replaced with the telephone and the operators no longer had to tap out their respective messages on a telegraph key.  Instead, they just picked up the phone and signaled the signal tower that they wanted to talk to with a unique code.  This might have been two short rings followed by a longer one but all phones were basically on the same line.  To confuse things even more, there were often several different lines so an operator had to know not only the code for a particular tower but also which phone line that tower was on.

Since it was impractical to have a tower at every switch & siding, call boxes were installed along the line so that a crew could communicate with the tower operator when they needed to switch into and out of certain sidings.  This allowed the line to be cleared and other trains could then be permitted to enter the track.  But again, time and technology marched on and the call box was replaced by two-way radios and the ability of the tower operators to "see" electronically when a switch was set in a certain position and if the track itself was occupied by a train.  This technology became so sophisticated and reliable that today, most towers have been closed and train dispatching is done from a location that is often a great distance from the railroad tracks.  But at one time, the railroad call box was vital to the safe and efficient operation of the railroad.

dlm
 

The Bluffton Western Terminal

Milepost 290

 

Over the past few weeks, I've had the difficult task of going through a lot of the stuff that was at my mother's house.  One collects a lot of "stuff" in 57 years; Mom was no exception.

One of the things I found was this set of three post cards from the Bluffton Western Terminal railroad in Bluffton, Ohio.  The BWT was the property of Dr. Boyd Travis and it was quite the sight to behold.  I'm not sure how long it took him to build it, but it was in the basement of his home.  And, he was fond to tell that when he added on a garage, he extended the basement so that he would have more room... for trains!

Each year on the Sundays in November, Dr. Travis would sell tickets to see his model railroad through the local Senior Citizens' Center there in Bluffton.  The shows were very popular and were always sold out.  One year, I was able to get tickets when my parents were visiting and that's how Mom came by these photos.  Dr. Travis sold them during the visits.

The layout was 3 rail O scale.  It was not the typical Lionel type trains but rather true to scale miniature models of various railroad subjects.  It has been a long time since I was there, so I don't remember all of the particulars, but it was indeed a fine example of what one could do as a builder.  Keep in mind that at the time when he was working on his railroad, most everything was built by hand.  There were few plastic kits for him to choose from.

Without fail, one of the questions that always came up in his question and answer periods was, "How much did it cost you to build your layout?"  He always looked for this softball and would simply reply that he didn't know... but had he been a smoker, he would have certainly spent more money on cigarettes than he did building the layout.  Great message coming from a doctor AND a powerful lesson to the kids who were in attendance.

When Dr. Travis passed away, there was some discussion of trying to move his layout from his home to one of the stores in downtown Bluffton.  There was even an idea to build a special building for it out near the Interstate highway.  But none of these plans ever caught on and as far as I know, the layout is now in sections and in storage somewhere.  Perhaps it has even gone the way of so many other nice layouts due to lack of interest.  I simply don't know.

The BWT was the end result of one man's lifelong interest in model railroading.  Dr. Travis really enjoyed talking trains and we often did so while I lived in Bluffton during my college years.  He was always willing to share his hobby with others and was truly an ambassador of the hobby.

dlm

 

Polar Express at Dennison Depot

Milepost 289

In previous years, I've mentioned that the folks at the Dennison Depot have offered Polar Express rides for the Holiday Season.  They are offering the same program again this year.

I've not been to the Depot Museum in Dennison but I have been told that it is very nice.  My cousin took her granddaughter on the trip two years ago and said that they did a very nice job.  Knowing her like I do, I'd call that a good endorsement.

For more information about the Polar Express trips, you may check their web site at:  http://www.dennisondepot.org/

Until next time...

dlm