A Visitor on the S&C

The Western and Atlantic's General coasts through Farmington.

 Last week, the Stockton & Copperopolis had a nifty new visitor running through town. It was George Bogatiuk's model of the Western & Atlantic's General. As most of you probably know, the General was one of the locomotives which took part in the Andrews Raid of 1862 otherwise known as "The Great Locomotive Chase." George was in town on business and stopped by to show me the locomotive. It ended up running over the railroad from Oakdale to Stockton and back and it is a very nice-running engine. George started with a Bachmann 4-4-0, added new domes, smokestack, headlamp and other modifications to recreate the locomotive's appearance in 1862. Of course, the engine has a Soundtraxx Tsunami2 TSU 1100 decoder in it with a current keeper and it sounds very nice. 

     For those of you who might not know, George works for Soundtraxx and frequently puts on clinics at various model railroad functions such as the Railroad Protoype Modelers' meet in St. Louis last weekend. He has just gotten interested in Civil War-era railroading and the General is a great first locomotive.

Some Progress Made on Stockton & Ione

The new Stockton & Ione locomotive is now in the yard at Holden.

Although the narrow gauge Stockton & Ione Railroad is not a major part of the S&C project, I would like to make some progress on that part of the layout. Last month, when my wife and I were in Durango, Colorado, I visited Soundtraxx where they showed me their new quasi-1890s locomotive. It's based on their C-19 locos but somewhat backdated with a diamond stack, era-correct smokebox cover and Russian iron boiler jacket. It's not truly correct but they have been testing the waters for older equipment and have found the market receptive. It's really a nice smooth-running engine with a lot of possibilities so I bought one for the S&I.
   My plans for the loco are to shorten the smokebox, remove the dynamo, relocate the air pump and tender air cylinder. I may possibly add an older cab and more rivet detail on the stack. The S&I only had two locos in its short life and neither were 2-8-0s but neither did it get all the way to Ione.

Using this and another original Mason drawing should help recreate the S&I locomotive Amador.

 Speaking of S&I locos, I also managed to locate two original drawings for the S&I engine Amador. It was an 0-6-4T Mason bogie. This was a great find as I don't have any photos of this loco as the Amador and the boiler is a bit different than what I thought it would be.
 

Code 40 and 55 flex track is being amassed adjacent to the almost-abandoned S&I grade east of Holden. 

   The National Narrow Gauge Convention is going to be here in Kansas City in 2014 and the committee asked to have my railroad on the layout tours. I agreed and decided that I should get at least some operating narrow gauge on the layout so, as the Stockton Daily Independent said "Rails and ties are being stockpiled at the S&I junction switch east of Holden. It looks like the narrow gauge project may still have some life in it."