Hi guys,

So i have been buying a few buildings from the Cornerstone Series for a guy that im doing some custom work for. So far, i have the Champion Packing Plant, the Prairie Star Milling Building and the Prairie Star Grain Elevator, and a large double track bridge that spans 36" on my plate from him lol.

I got the 3 buildings yesterday from the LHS and started on the Champion Packing Plant first, and i just finished it about an hour ago, estimated time spent assembling, painting, detailing, and weathering was about 12.5 hours. Here are some pics of the packing plant, tell me what you guys think of it?

Its July 12, 1959. Barney Secord was chasing the Central New England Milk train through Winsted. He took this picture as the train passed by the industrial area. When he developed the picture he noticed there was something wrong. He hadn't noticed it when he took the picture.(Kinda hard to take a picture and fly a Curtiss Jenny at the same time)
Maybe Barney wasn't where he thought he was?

Can you find the things wrong with the picture.

Have some fun.

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Hi All,

I had two cars delivered today one a flat AAR car and an autocar both from Walthers Proto 2000 range the flat car is great and runs smoothly with the non magnetic weight in the frame but the autocar comes with a magnetic steel plate which is fine if you dont like me use the Kadee #308 magnet & Kadee couplers ........... but i know if i fit it the car will hover over the magnet and cause problems uncoupling .......... what do you all use as a non magnetic weight for cars to solve this please.

Found this interesting... Model Railroaders were the first hackers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Model_Railroad_Club

Dave

Well...

I received an e-mail today from George's Trains that they will be shutting down the Mount Pleasant Rd. location in Toronto and moving everything up to the "newly expanded" Markham Store.

They will also no longer carry the Thomas The Train line.

I can hardly say I blame them. With the way the The City of Toronto is taxing everyone or seemingly charging a fee for just about everything these days, I'm not surprised that more news like this doesn't come about more often. :|

Some shots from this week.

The Canadian Rolls eastbound into the city

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CN 303 rolls west on a cloudy sunday afternoon

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CN freight heads west

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After rebuilding and painting refurbished GN. observation Johan Carlson hits the high iron, In the 2nd photo she's number 4 in the consist.
No.1897 was named after my wife's late Grandfather a wonderful old gentleman who arrived in the U.S in the early 19th century as a child.
from Sweden.
The car number signifies the year of his birth.
Now a privately owned car she roams the rails all over the western United States providing wonderful old world accommodations for her new owner's....

Has anyone bought from hiawatha hobbies. I need some locos for my UP coal train and want some katos GE C44-9W. They havfe a good price and wanted to know if anyone has delt with hiawatha hobbies.


Thanks Roger

Hi All,

After seeing the Buda/Hayes type SF wheelstops in MR (March P37) where can i purchase them in HO scale as i have searched for some without success ......... they would be ideal in the shop for the cars while being repaired.

Here's an industry that no longer exists, but if you model the period between 1900 and 1960, there may be a place for it on your layout.
Back in the days before mechanical refrigeration, and even after it was introduced, ice was used to preserve food, both during shipping and during storage, and the railroad played a big part in this. Many of you may have seen some of the various ice houses on my layout, and for those of you that haven't, I'll try to explain their various functions.
The long, white structure in the background (I never seem to have a photo of only the item that I want to show) is the origin of the ice used in the towns and cities on my layout, at least as far as the railroad is concerned. While this ice house supposedly sits on or near the shore of Lake Erie, the true origin of the ice blocks that it ships is unspecified.

   

   

   

This facility supplies ice to all of the other icehouses on my railroad, and can also ship it to other nearby railroads, when required. In the second photo, those refrigerator cars are being loaded with blocks of ice (as cargo, through the side doors, not through the ice hatches, which have been sealed). From here, ice will be distributed to other ice houses along the route, either smaller ones that supply residential and commercial concerns, or larger ones that use large quantities of ice, but are not equipped to produce or harvest it themselves. The cars shown are in designated service as ice cars and are not used for any other purpose. Ice was also moved in regular reefers and also in boxcars, particularily in colder weather.
In the second photo, you can also see a reefer spotted at the platform for icing. This is a feature of most modelled icehouses, but the one here is only for icing the occasional car that passes through and requires icing. At the platform, ice is usually only added through the ice hatches, to replenish the bunkers. Crushed ice can also be added to cargo that requires "top icing", but that is seldom required here. Many main ice houses have no provision for icing cars: their sole function is to provide ice for other icehouses. This facility, however, also supplies ice to many local customers, by truck or wagon. Most homes and businesses have iceboxes, even though refrigerators are in use in other areas, so home delivery of ice is an important business. The main commercial customer for ice in this area is Finlay Fresh Fish, which ships carload-lots of fresh fish requiring "top icing".

   


Hoffentoth Bros. deliver block ice daily, by truck, to Finlay's, where it is used in storage coolers and also crushed for distributing directlly over the open-top crates of fish after they are loaded into the reefer.

When a carload of ice leaves the main storage facility in Lowbanks, it can be destined for any town on the layout, as all have some type of ice facility. Most are small structures that supply ice for domestic use, and have no car icing platform.
Here's the icehouse in Elfrida, built to the common design used in all towns requiring this type of service.

   

   

This simple structure is 12'x24', with a door and platform at trackside, and another door and platform on the other side for loading the delivery trucks or wagons. Depending on demand, the entire carload may be transferred to this ice house, or the car may be left spotted here to allow transfer as the icehouse requires replenishment. Another option is for part of the ice to be unloaded from the car here, then the next train through town will pick up the car and take it to the next icehouse that needs ice.

The largest icehouse currently on the line (there'll be another once the northern part of the railroad gets built), other than the storage facility in Lowbanks, is this structure in Dunnville.

   

Here's an view from the south....

   

...and another from the north:

   

...and an aerial view, courtesy of Secord Air Services:

   


This is the Walthers kit, with some add-on platforms. It is the main car-icing site on the layout, and does pre-icing for most cars destined to be loaded on-line. It also re-ices loads from other railroads, as required, that are headed to on-line destinations or that are passing through, in interchange, to other roads. In addition, this is the main distribution facility for residential and commercial use in Dunnville, with ice being delivered by truck. An icehouse this size and this busy requires a constant supply of fresh ice, so at least one carload of it is delivered here daily.

You don't need to model all of the different types of ice houses that I've shown, but the addition of any, along with an "ice-service only" reefer, can add operational interest to any layout of the era. If you don't have room for the main storage and shipping facility, simply bring in a carload of ice from a staging yard, or spot it on an interchange track, where a connecting line has left it for pick-up.

Wayne