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."

J Street Buildings

These new structures are all patterned after Oakdale businesses of the 1880s-90s.

J street was the southernmost street in Oakdale and there really weren't many business down there. The railroad, however, had a gap which just had to be filled. I delved into my supply of kits and came up with a couple of good ones. They are all patterned after businesses that were in Oakdale during the 1880s and 1890s. The first structure, the Tuolumne Cheap Cash store was covered before in my post of August 12, 2012. The next in line is Barkis's Dry Goods and Grocery store. The lettering was copied from a photo of the prototype structure and the building did indeed have the fancy Old English style font. That business and the adjacent Hubbell's Sample Room were from Main Street Heritage kits. The final structure is a Woodland Scenics building which translated into a Chinese laundry.

The second floor of the Barkis building is occupied by the Barkis family plus a single lady, Lotta Kerr who is a dressmaker. Yes, Miss Kerr was a dressmaker in Oakdale.

The two signs on the porch posts advertise Boca Beer, a very popular California brew in the 1890s which was sold by Mr. Hubbell. The Chinese characters do proclaim the building a laundry. They came from a sheet of Chinese signs which  wording I had verified by a Chinese gentleman with whom I worked.

   In the nineteenth century, another euphenism for a bar was a sample room. The name, I suppose, added some gentility to the occupation. There is a photo in my collection of Mr. Hubbell standing outside of his establishment adjacent to two Boca Beer signs similar to those on the model. The laundry is freelanced.

A Dempster windmill pumps water to the small tank which supplies the needs of the residents on this block.

Since windmills show up everywhere in photos and on insurance maps, I had to add a few. This one was built from a Vista kit to which I added the Dempster lettering based on the prototype Dempster mills. My research has led me to looking into windmill manufacturers. They all had their own colorful designs with their names painted on the vane. The railroad will include a number of different manufacturers as I continue to build them.
   More oak trees need to be made and planted. That will be the next project. After all, there was a reason the town was named Oakdale.

Operator Aids - Station Plats

Positioned next to the fast clock and shelf, the plat can help visiting operators find the industries they want.

The Stockton & Copperopolis has been operating now for over four years with minimal on-layout help for operators. I had made up some tent cards and placed them at industrial sidings but the crews still had to search to find the right siding (Unfortunately, those cards will remain until the industry they represent is built). A couple of years ago, I printed out portions of my layout plan and placed them at switching locations to give operators a better view of things but blue masking tape holding up copy paper didn't really look that great. I wanted something that looked professional but could be easily changed if I added a siding or industry.While operating on Dave Acheson's layout last weekend, I noticed the signs he had and asked him about them. They looked good and met my requirements so I decided to incorporate them on the S&C.

Acrylic picture frames are the foundation of the S&C's station plats. The rear stand must be removed so that the frame can lay flat on the fascia.

   The basis of the station plats (so the prototype called these small maps) is a series of acrylic picture frames made by Green Tree Gallery. I bought mine at the local Hobby Lobby (www.hobbylobby.com). They come in several sizes and orientations. I used the 5 x 3-1/2, the 6 x 4 and the 7 x 5 frames. This one-piece frame has a built-in stand which is not need so I sawed it off using my table saw. This gave me a flat frame which was then attached to the layout fascia with double-sided tape. Using Adobe Illustrator, I drew up some better-looking plats sized to fit the frames and am quite pleased with the results. In my eyes anyway, they add to the railroad and, hopefully, the ease of its operation.

The finished plat gives the relative location of the industries at each switching location. 

Stanislaus Milling & Faire Coal

From left to right, the mill is made of the boiler house, mill building and warehouse. Stanislaus flour was popular in the area. See my post of August 6, 2012 for a picture of one of their advertising signs.

Two prototype businesses in Oakdale were A. Faire who was a coal dealer and the Stanislaus Milling and Power Company. In reality, Faire was at the south end of Oakdale while Stanislaus was at the north end. To fit everything in on the model, I made some compromises and moved the industries around.

The Faire coal yard is across C Street from the Stanislaus Mill.

 I did not have any information on Faire beyond knowing of his existence so his coal yard is completely freelanced based on other photos I had of nineteenth century coal yards. On the other hand, I had two photos of Stanislaus, one from each side. Of course, the higher resolution shot was on the side that faced away from the aisle. With the help of insurance maps, though, I was able to build a full-size model of the company and fit it in on the siding.

 The Stanislaus building is entirely constructed of styrene except for the roof which is Campbell's corrugated aluminum. This was correct according to the photos and insurance map. Although corrugated iron was just beginning to be widely used, it had been around in California since the 1870s when the Central Pacific started making it in their Sacramento shops. Building the structure in three pieces (warehouse, mill and boiler room) made it a bit easier to put together and certainly to carry around.
 

The coal yard consists of piles of various grades of coal, a small coal shed and an office adjacent to the scale.

 Faire's coal yard did not have much to do. I had a Walthers stock yard shelter left over from the stock yard project. I put a fourth wall on the building along with some loading doors and it looked just like some coal sheds I had photographed in Massachusetts. Some Walthers fencing around the property and an office building made by someone I have forgotten completed the scene or so I thought. I looked closer at one of my photos and saw a small sign on the office noting the manufacturer of the scale.

Mr. Faire waves goodbye to one of his customers after checking his weight
on the Howe Scale. Although you can't see it in this photo, the Howe sign
is posted next to the office door.

Of course! Coal was sold by the ton and there had to be some means of weighing the wagons before and after loading. Now, what does a nineteenth century wagon scale look like? Some internet research yielded several photos including ads with dimensions. I opted for a Howe Scale measuring 8x14 feet and built that up with some scribed wood and styrene. The actual scale mechanism would be in the office so it is not seen. I found out that a great number of them were outside in waterproof boxes which would make a great model for the future.
   When I started scenicking the scene, it became obvious that more structures, residential this time, were needed. The north end of Oakdale was sparsely settled with few dwellings so I am copying that on the model. It also saves on structure building time. The two smaller homes were built from Grandt Line kits and the larger building was also kit-built but I don't recall whose. It was constructed quite a while ago and was just waiting for a place to be sited.

Living across from a coal yard is not the best location in the world but neither
is the house the best. Even small houses had a modicum of decoration in the
1890s.

Another not-so-prime location but small houses were the norm at this end

of town.

The milling superintendent's house is across E. Railroad Avenue from the
mill so it's an easy commute to work.

 There's one more signature structure to be done: the Mouton Soda Company. There was actually soda water and soft drinks made here and the building was rail-served.

Fooling with Photoshop

Train Number 16 rolls by a small pond just west of Waverly on the Milton branch. Gopher Ridge is in the background.

Today, I was preparing a presentation for the upcoming NMRA Mid-Continent Region convention which will be held here in Kansas City. Being asked to do a presentation on period railroading, I have been making new photographs of the railroad to illustrate it. While using Adobe Photoshop to make slight corrections such as cropping and image size, I decided to try something different.
 

The original photo is all right but a bit bland in the background.

The original photograph looked like the above  with the background being just the blue-painted backdrop on my railroad. I decided to add some mountains to the picture. Using a photo I had taken near the modeled location, I inserted it into the background followed by another photo of clouds. You can see the result. This was the first time I have tried to alter a photo and I was pleased with the results. Now, all I have to do is to brush up on my painting skills so I can make the backdrop look as good as the photo.

Stock Yards and a Finished Warehouse

Howe & Smallwood have opened for business and are employing a number of Oakdale's citizens.

  At last, with all the delays, the Howe & Smallwood warehouse is finally finished. Alongside of it is a new corral so that the ranchers around Oakdale can ship their cattle on the Stockton & Copperopolis. As has been seen in previous posts, I cut one wall away from the building due to lack of benchwork space. This made cutting the roof trusses very interesting and necessitated all of the grain sacks but I think the effort was worth it.
 

These steers will have a while to wait to be loaded as there are presently no stock cars available for shipment.

 The corral was put together with pieces from a Walthers corral kit. If you look at the layout plan, you can see that the loading chute is just about right at a track switch. For corrals, that is not that bad. Corrals can be located on odd sections of track because cars are not usually spotted there long enough to matter. You can't load a carload of steers and let them set so the train has to be ready to leave town when the cars are loaded. How long does it take to load a car? I will be setting up a sound module with a recording of mooing steers. When the sound stops, one car is loaded. Spot the next car and do it again. Right now, I don't have any stock cars on the railroad so that traffic will have to wait a bit.
 

Jake, the foreman is exerting his authority to impress Mr. Howe, lounging in
the background.

Quite a number of figures were needed to complete this scene. The cows were prepainted by Woodland Scenics while the cowboys started out as unpainted Preiser figures. The boys in the warehouse were a combination of old cast metal Lytler & Lytler and Gandy Dancer figures that I have had forever. It was time to use them.
   Of course, wagons full of grain sacks had to be brought in my the farmers so I built up a couple of kits that I had in stock. The green wagon is a Lindsey which is made in the United Kingdom while the brown wagon was made by Imagine That Laser Art (www.imaginethatlaserart.com). It is laser-cut wood and very easy to assemble.

Farmers delivering grain are guided into position by warehouse workers.

New Warehouse Nears Completion

The white substance is unpainted Sculptamold which will eventually be covered with dirt and growing things.

Running out of shingles can sure put a damper on a model's progress. I thought I had enough to finish the new Howe and Smallwood grain warehouse but I did not. Even though I ordered more, it took a few weeks to get them made and in my hands. The material I use is from Minuteman Scale Models (www.minutemanscalemodels.com) and is a very good product. I have used them on several of the buildings in Oakdale and elsewhere. They come in strips and have a peel-off backing so the strip can just be stuck down on the roof of the model. I highly recommend them.
 

 Casting the grain sacks to populate the warehouse took a bit of time as well. I used up the last of my casting resin which, fortunately, was enough to finish the job. In the 1890s, before forklifts, warehouses generally only stacked things about eight feet high. That was as high as a man could reach. A few hand trucks completed the interior.
   The terrain on the warehouse site was not quite level so I used some Sculptamold to fill in the low spots. It still needs to be painted and have dirt, etc. applied. There's still a bit of scenery work need plus a wagon or two delivering grain to the building.
 

An 1885 bird's-eye map of Oakdale yielded this view of the warehouse. With the side of my model cut off, I could only show one door and one window.

 The prototype of this warehouse was built in the early 1870s and was a brick building like the model. It was 400 feet long while my model was cut back to 200 feet. They must have moved a lot of grain in those days! By 1895, the building was gone, probably due to fire although I have found no confirmation of that. I would probably have to go to Oakdale and read through the Oakdale papers to see if there was any mention of a fire. Although the prototype building at this site was one of the Stanislaus Warehouses, I used the name of another warehouse in town just to give some variety to the scene.