Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Down by the Milton Tracks

Overall view of the Milton trackside. From left to right are the loading platform and crane, Hunter, Bunds & Walker, the depot, L. Beysser warehouse and the Peterson & Dake Warehouse. There is much finishing to be done e.g. staining platforms, adding baggage. Compare this view with the prototype one below.
Looking from the same end of the siding as above, the prototype view shows much of the activity surrounding Milton in the early days. In the background are the Milton Hotel and some of the commercial buildings. Note the privy on the platform.
The first phase of the Milton townsite construction is mostly completed. That was the building of the structures along the siding in town. These consisted of the Peterson & Dake Warehouse, the L. Beysser freight forwarding warehouse, depot and freight station, the Hunter, Bunds & Walker Warehouse and the loading platform. None of the buildings are as yet fastened to the layout since they will be removed so that the structures in the background can be installed.
   
The Peterson & Dake warehouse takes up most of the other end of the siding. I don't know if the business name was painted on the building side as I have no photographs of that part of the building but I think it looks good.
Milton in 1871 in a view that will not be seen on the model. The P&D warehouse is to the left with the depot building at the right. The P&D general store is at the center.
The layout of the town is according to both Sanborn insurance maps and railroad station plats. The buildings' appearances were derived from photographs of Milton taken around the turn of the century or before. The occupants of the various buildings changed over the years. I have tried to label them per the 1893 town directory I have. The names used give more of a feeling of reality than any fictional names I could have devised.
 

3 comments:

  1. Wow, that's a lot of platform! Looks great!

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  2. Looking at that 1st period pic where you mention the privy, another interesting element is the track holding the hand car. Given the wide spacing of ties would this simply be a service track for the hand car as it transfers building supplies to this construction site?

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    1. Yes. There is no evidence that there was a permanent siding there. It would have gotten in the way of wagons loading in any case.

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