Scenes Along the S&C

Looking down one of the aisles on the S&C. Farmington lies in the distance with Peters at the left.

Recently, a friend of mine and reader of this blog told me that he would love to see overall shots of the railroad rather than just closeups of individual scenes. While I like photos that look prototypical, I can understand his request. We all live in the real world and, after all, the Stockton & Copperopolis is a model railroad so I decided to take a few shots of what the layout looked like to we real people.
   The photos were taken to produce a sort of mile-by-mile picture of what we are building. Just click on the link right under the title photo above or click here. When I have some more scenery, I hope to produce some stereo cards just as they might have done in the 1800s. That's in the future for now, though. I hope you enjoy the tour.

On to Ione!

Soon-to-be Engine No. 2 of the Stockton & Ione RR arrives opposite downtown Ione City. The real S&I No. 2 was an
0-6-4T while this engine is modeled after the DSP&P's 2-6-6Ts.

From the Amador Times:
Late Monday night, rails of the Stockton & Ione line finally reached our bustling city and the shrieking of railroad whistles filled the night air. Our railroad connection to Stockton and the outside world has arrived.

Another way to put would be that I spent a couple of days finishing the trackwork from what I've been calling Forbe's Crossing to Ione. There's still no wiring; I'm working out any inaccuracies in the turnouts and I had to get things cleaned up for Prairie Rail 2014 which is occurring in Kansas City this weekend. Prairie Rail is an invitational bi-annual model railroad operations weekend. This coming February 21-23, about 120 model railroaders from all over the country are converging on the Kansas City area, each to spend time operating on four of the 29 model railroads participating in the event.
   The S&C will be hosting two three-hour operating sessions during the weekend as will the other model railroads. We've done this before and it's a lot of fun meeting folks from out of state and getting to know them.
   Not all of the work you see in the photos was done in the two days I mention, however. The four turnouts, two of which are 3-ways, were built several weeks ago and were just waiting to be installed. After Prairie Rail is over and I catch up on some of the things around the house that I have been putting off until after Prairie Rail, I can get back and get the track wired. After that, I will have to get serious about getting some locomotives built or modified.

Looking north at the small Ione yard. A diamond has to be built so that the industrial sidings can access a couple of businesses but most of the area will be the townsite.

Stockton & Ione Railroad - Track Reaches Forbes Crossing

A Stockton & Ione work train pushes flat cars with track-laying supplies near the new depot. The Amador Coal Company is at the left.

Stockton Daily Independent - August 20, 1875
In a flurry of activity, track crews of the narrow-gauge Stockton & Ione Railroad laid track from its junction with the Stockton & Copperopolis to Forbes Crossing. Officials of the railroad expect that trains will be running to Ione City by September.

    Well, the above is not really from the Stockton Daily Independent but it shows that some work has been done and engines have been run over the track, after a fashion anyway. There is no wiring as yet but jumper cords do wonders. As a short feeder line for the S&C, the S&I won't be much of a railroad but more of a switching line. Forbes Crossing will be a small town with a coal mine run by Amador Coal and served by the railroad. A short team track will be the only other track there. The reason for this new construction is that the National Narrow Gauge Convention is coming to Kansas City this September and the Stockton & Copperopolis has been asked to be on the layout tours. I figured that there should be some narrow gauge trains running even if there are not very many.

The S&I leaves 3-rail track at the far right, passes through "Forbes Crossing" and will continue to the left.

Looking from the junction, the whole of "Forbes Crossing" is seen. The team track is at the right with the Amador Coal-to-be building at the rear.

    The mine structure used to represent a silver mine on my previous layout and it will be repurposed into the needed coal mine including a new "Amador Coal" sign. The small depot was at Forbes Crossing on the old layout as well and the town may or may not be renamed as well. When I started this project, I did not think that many of the old buildings would be usable on this railroad but, so far, I have managed to reuse several of them much to my enjoyment.
   The track construction is the same as on the main railroad, foam insulating tape with flex track glued to it with silicon caulk. Code 55 is used for the main lines and code 40 for the sidings. The turnouts are all code 55 built from Fast Tracks jigs.
 

The traveling photographer disembarked from the noon Peters train to capture the image of an 1887 Benz newly-arrived in the neighborhood.

Like most photographers, Mr. Ball uses an 8x10 inch wet-plate camera on which to capture his images. These plates must be developed in the photographer's wagon within a few minutes following their exposure.

On another note, I finished painting a couple of small figures so I put them to use on the railroad.

This elderly woman was painted by grand-daughter Jessica, 7 years old. It was her first foray into figure painting.

It's lunchtime and, before making his deliveries, one of the workers decides to entertain his friends on someone else's piano.

Rural General Store

The Micro Engineering structure with an added roof over the walk.

Finally, I've constructed a building that will NOT be located in Oakdale. Several years ago, I had bought some model railroad stuff which include a couple of old Micro Engineering structures someone had built up directly from the kit. They were dirty but had satisfactory construction and somewhat typical of the Central California area I am modeling. As a filler in my construction plans, I decided to paint and letter the building. The prototype I chose to loosely model was an old store near the junction of the Milton Road and the Sonora Road. It was abandoned when I photographed it a few years ago but the signs attracted me and the little plastic building seemed right for the signs.
 

Kelliher's store located not far from the route of the Stockton & Copperopolis. The real Mr. Kelliher also raised sheep in
the 1910s at this location.

 Since the store was on private property, I could not see the false front on what was once the main road so I improvised. The porch roof was added since most California buildings had them to deflect the intense sun received in the summers and was supported by columns from Alexander. I decided that Mr. Kelliher would have sold Buffalo Beer which was made by a Sacramento Brewery. This brand was an common as Boca Beer which signs have been seen in other postings.
 

The building sign was duplicated as close as I could get it using Adobe
Illustrator. 

 I am not sure just where the building will end up. Like the prototype, it represents a rural local store which would be out of town. Right now I am think either Cometa or Burnett's. We shall see as scenery develops in those locations.

Wagons Galore with Harnesses, Too!

Three companies unloading goods at the Oakdale team track. The typical two-horse teams gave the public track its name. All three wagons are variations of the Jordan Farm Wagon kit.

The wagon building project is done. As mentioned in the last blog (Wagon Assembly Line), Jordan kits were used as a basis for them all. The lettering on the wagons was all decals made by Art Griffin. If you are not familiar with his line, you should check it out at http://www.greatdecals.com/Griffin.htm. The only exceptions were the Wells-Fargo wagon and the Moulton Soda wagon, both of which were made from my artwork. If you look closely at the Wells-Fargo decals, you can see that it says Wells, Fargo & Co's Express. Prior to 1898, this was the name used by the firm. After 1898, they left off the apostrophe-ess on both the spelled-out name and on the diamond-shaped sign that was used.

 

Another Farm Wagon conversion into a flatbed for lumber. This load and
the obvious compression of the rear springs was based on a photo found
in a Blue Springs MO restaurant.

The Jordan horses all have the harnesses cast on the horse so all the modeler has to do is paint the harness to make a good-looking horse. Heretofore, I have left off the traces and reins mostly due to a lack of a good scale-sized material with which to make them. A friend of mine, Keith Robinson, suggested a carbon-fiber based fishing line which was very small. I checked it out and, while I did not buy the exact line Keith suggested, I did find one that seemed to work and it was a light tan color which was close enough to harness color to suit me. The big problem now was to find out what harnesses looked like, where they attached and so on.
 

A couple of pieces of new furniture bound for the local "social" club. The colors and lettering styles for the Wells-Fargo wagon were taken from a period color drawing advertising the wagons.

The Jordan Light Delivery Wagon was the basis for this grocer's delivery.

 I found out that knowledge about harnessing horses is not quite as common as it once was. You can find catalogs of current suppliers of the necessary appliances but they don't publish instructions on their websites. To make matters a bit worse, I found out that, for every application, there were several different rigs. To make a long story short, I found out what I needed to know and applied it to my project wagons. This is a first trial and I am still learning the best way to work with this material but it seems to be promising.

While his horse tries to find a little nutrition, a drayer waits his turn at the team track.

Delivering soda is a big business so the Soda Works keeps a small wagon and a single horse. While the wagon sits outside, the horse gets an inside stall.

 
 

Wagon Assembly Line

The assembly line of wagons almost ready for decals

When I build items where I need more than one, I find it a bit more convenient to build more than one in an assembly line fashion. When you model the nineteenth century, you need a lot of wagons to make the scene look right. Think how many wagon loads are there in a boxcar? I decided to build a few of the Jordan kits I had been accumulating but I wanted some variation so they would look like they came from different manufacturers.
   I chose the Farm Wagon as my basic kit, built one as Jordan intended, another with lower sides, another with a spring seat, one flatbed wagon and a last one with very low sides. These went all right. The Jordan kits are finely detailed and look right if you don't lose too many of the very tiny parts. Most wagons had two colors, one for the wagon bed and another for the wheels and running gear. This now takes a little more planning since the right running gear has to go with the right wagon. You also find that very small parts are often blown away by even the light pressure of an airbrush so you need to make sure that they are very secure. I used painters' tape which worked fairly well.
   The last three wagons were also Jordan products, the light and standard Delivery Wagons. These were assembled per the directions. I used some of Art Griffin's wagon decals (www.greatdecals.com/Griffin.htm) so the colors had to match them.
 

When the body paint is dry, the heads, harnesses and hooves will be painted. The tape is really not holding them upright. They are just standing there on their own. No, the end horses are not blue, they're really gray.

 Painting horses is another interesting chore. Horses are hard to hold while painting. There is not enough hoof surface to hold well on tape. I decided to hold their heads and paint the rest. I'll go back and get the heads after the body dries. Then I have to paint the hooves, add stockings and other small marks to make them more individual and then paint the cast-on harness which is painstaking. I use a water-based paint, a fine brush and a wet Q-tip to wipe off any paint that shouldn't be there.
   Painting figures to drive the wagons come next and that's a little easier.

New Boxcars for the Stockton & Ione

New boxcars for the Stockton & Ione are patterned after 1880s Denver & Rio Grande prototypes. The red barrels are on a building behind the cars.

The HOn3 Rail Line boxcar kit has been around for a while and it is a good representation of a 30-foot later period D&RGW car. I wanted to try to see if I could easily modify it to represent an early 25-foot car of 10-ton capacity. To do this, I cut the car at the door opening and glued the two halves together with some reinforcing strips inside. This gave me the necessary length. Using a fine razor saw, I removed the roof running boards. Some .020 thick styrene with .060 scribing applied right over the Murphy roof gave me the earlier wood plank roof. A .010 x .080 strip was applied for a new fascia and cut flush with the car ends. New doors were made from .020 scribed styrene and the door hardware from the kit used to "hang" it.
 

The lettering was varied slightly with the arth to a give a little variety to the cars.

 The earlier boxcars had short end platforms for the carmen to stand upon. I glued .060 x .124 strips with scribed siding to represent those. The nut-bolt-washer representations for the grab iron bolts were removed with a razor blade except for two on the end for the new grab irons. The floor was similarly shortened and reglued. Fishing line truss rods and Grandt turnbuckles were used. The brake cylinder was only applied to one car as I figured this little narrow gauge line would be slow in putting brakes on everything.
   

Compared to the 1875 S&I prototype cars, the D&RG freelanced cars are much more graceful.

   The cars were painted boxcar red and decals based on D&RG lettering schemes were applied. The finished car is not an exact model of the prototype but close enough for the Stockton & Ione.