A Beginning . . .

The Sierra Nevada Mountains can be seen from the line of the Stockton & Ione. In August, most of the grass on the foothills is dead with some contrasting bushes and trees.

Many of you may have noticed that the Stockton & Copperopolis has had no backdrop other than a painted sky. The main reason for this is that I have been wary of trying to do any painting of hills, trees, etc. In school, art class never really interested me and I have had little in the way artistic training. A few years ago, though, I attended a clinic put on by Dave Biondi of California. He is an excellent artist and gives good explanations of what he is doing and why. We had the opportunity to talk for a while and I eventually purchased a DVD showing how he paints California type foothills. After reviewing this DVD, I finally felt somewhat confident in trying my own hand. If things went wrong, I had plenty of "sky" paint to correct the mistake.
 

The Amador Coal Company mine will be located in Ione. Hillside scenery will be added to the left and right sides of the mine building and blended in with the backdrop.

 Today, I painted part of the backdrop along the Stockton & Ione line. There were no structures as yet so the painting would be easier. Here are the results. I still don't consider myself an artist but at least I feel I can do some justice to the backdrops of the layout.
 

The mine building is left from my last layout in California. It will be re-
purposed into the Amador Coal Company's headquarters.

   Over the last few weeks, I have also managed to install lighting and valence along the S&I. It's starting to look like a railroad!
   Next comes the backdrop behind Ione City at the end of the line.
   By the way, if anyone is interested in the Dave Biondi DVD, it is entitled Painting California Foothills and Forests and is a two-DVD set. It is available from Daryl Huffman's website.

Colorado (Model) Railroading

Harry Brunk's model of the Georgetown Loop on his UC&N RR in Cheyenne. Platforms allowing viewing from different angles.

Over the last week, my wife and I have been in Colorado. Quilt Colorado, an annual was being held in Longmont this year so we decided to go. I told her that I could probably find something to do while she was enjoying her convention. As it turned out, I found a lot to do. The first day I traveled up to Cheyenne, Wyoming where Harry Brunk's fabulous Union Central & Northern Railroad now resides. It is on a second floor of the old Union Pacific depot and is being nicely restored. If anybody is not familiar with the UC&N, the books Up Clear Creek on the Narrow Gauge 1 and 2 can provide you with plenty of material to digest.
 

One of many small scenes in Blackhawk on the UC&N. These structures were
scratchbuilt.

The layout was removed from the trailer in which it lived and was spread out with larger aisles and additional sections being added. Eventually, the railroad will extend all the way down to Golden including a Beaver Brook scene. I was told that Harry comes up to Cheyenne occasionally to help out with the work. It was really great for me to see a railroad whose construction I have followed for the last 20-30 years.
   On the way back from Cheyenne, I stopped in at the Greeley Freight Station Museum. It contains a very well-done model

Wider aisles allow better viewing of large scenes like Idaho Springs shown
here.

railroad which occupies about 5,500 square feet. I am a little skeptical of museum type layouts but this one was done to a high standard complete with mini-scenes and very realistic scenery, bridges and rolling stock. There is a "club" which consists of volunteers who run the museum and explain things to the public. They also get to operate the railroad on certain days of the month. Set in 1975, the railroad can accommodate 85-car trains. It's worth a visit if you are in the area.
 

An overall view of the Oregon Central & Eastern, the freelanced railroad in the Greeley Freight Station Museum. 

The next day I journeyed to Colorado Springs and visited some of the Colorado Midland and D&RG related sites. Visiting Palmer Lake was something I had wanted to do for some time. I was also able to get some photos of some structures which might find a place on the S&C. All in all, I did manage to find something to do.

Another New Locomotive

The Calaveras on its first day of work. The number on the headlight lens is so that opposing engineers can tell which engine they are meeting if it is dark.

As I mentioned in my last post, there was another engine in the works named Calaveras. This is for the county of that name in which Milton and Copperopolis are located. For Engine No. 23, I decided to build a loco which had been order in the 1870s but had been updated in the 1890s. To do this, I used another of the Model Engineering Works V&T moguls and replaced the smokestack with a capped stack. The engine already had the extended smokebox (which followed the prototype which went through this conversion) so this was easy. After it was remotored, I painted the loco a Brunswick Green which I hope is similar to the color used by Baldwin in that period. The lettering is based on Southern Pacific lettering styles of the late 1880s-90s using a multi-colored three-dimensional approach. I still have to add some jewels to the classification lamps but that will be done shortly.

Almost all of the S&C freight locomotives carry a wire rope cable for use in emergencies. 

New Locomotive on the S&C

The newly wiped down Stanislaus waits patiently at Oakdale for the day's work to begin.

After a month of working on it, the Stanislaus, No. 29, has joined the locomotive roster on the Stockton & Copperopolis. I had been waiting for a couple of new brass imports to come in but it finally became evident that they weren't going to show up.This prompted me to come up with two more engines from other sources. The Stanislaus is the first of the two. Both are based on Model Engineering Works imports of the Virginia and Truckee's number 20, the Tahoe.
   When the model was originally imported, it was based on the Tahoe as it now exists in Pennsylvania's railroad museum at Strasburg. It has an extended smokebox resulting from a conversion to coal as its fuel but is fitted with a balloon stack. I decided to cut off the excess smokebox to convert it back to its original appearance. While doing this, I also decided to give it a Radley-Hunter smokestack. Both the traditional balloon stack and the Radley-Hunter were suitable for wood-burners. A 16x20 can motor was substituted as well.
 

A wood load for the tender hides the Tsunami decoder.

Due to the configuration of the tender, the best place for the Tsunami TSU-750 decoder was in the fuel bunker. This was covered with wood to help disguise the decoder. A sugar cube speaker was used in the tender.
   The painting and lettering was based on the original Baldwin paint scheme for the Tahoe. Readers of my other posts may notice that the name Stanislaus appears frequently. This is one of the counties through which the S&C operates and where Oakdale is located. The next engine should go together a bit more quickly. It will represent a similar mogul which has been converted to burn coal and repainted in a paint scheme more typical of the late 1880s. It will be named Calaveras for another of the counties in which the railroad runs.

Last of the Wagons . . . For Now

Building four drays is not much more difficult that building one so I now have a supply for Stockton when that city needs them.

One of the more interesting or, perhaps, unfortunate tendencies I have is to get sidetracked by arcane technology. If you have been reading this blog, you can see that wagons have been the latest of those detours. It has been fun but the railroad needs more cars, locomotives and everything that goes into a layout, so this will be the last of the wagons for at least a while.
 

Taken at Old Sacramento, this example of a prototype dray
was used as the basis for my models.

These peculiar-looking vehicles are called drays and were designed to haul heavier cargoes, hence their low-slung design. Because of this design, they were mostly used in cities where the streets were smoother than the roads encountered away from town. Old photos of Sacramento, San Francisco and Stockton show many of these vehicles so I decided to build some. The inspiration comes from photos I took several years ago at Old Sacramento. They weren't quite enough to build a good model so I contacted my friend, Kyle Wyatt of the California State Railroad Museum, who was able to give me additional information.
 

Most of the drays are lettered for actual drayage firms operating in Stockton in the 1800s. This one, however, was named for a friend.

There is not much to the construction. All of the parts are of styrene except for the wheels which are SS Ltd.'s small and large wagon wheels. They matched pretty closely to the size of the prototype and had the hefty appearance needed. The long side stakes fit into stake pockets. I had first thought of using manufactured stake pockets but they are much too large so I built these using a styrene rod cut to the right length. The stake was just attached at the top of the "pocket."

Easy loading is the advantage of a dray over a straight wagon.

They are small enough that the lack of a hole in the empty pockets is not really noticed. The lettering is mostly for actual drayage companies operating in Stockton during my era. Horses are now on order from Jordan Products so I can provide some power for the drays.
  The next project will be two more locomotives which are now sitting in pieces on my workbench awaiting new motors, decoders and a paint job. By the way, take a look at a new blog on the Southern Pacific (http://southernpacifclines.blogspot.com/). It should prove interesting.

More Wagons and Stagecoaches, Too!

This Matteson & Company stage was built straight from a Jordan kit. The decals were from Art Griffin (www.greatdecals.com/griffin.htm). 

Lately, the different types of wagons and carriages has been interesting me as much as billboard freight cars. There is a lot of variety in both areas and they are both fun. Jordan Products, and others,  make a number of very nice wagons and carriages and those alone will furnish a nineteenth century railroad but there are a number of common horse-drawn vehicles that aren't represented. The last couple of weeks have been spent trying to reproduce some of these.
 

While the passengers dither, the driver is obviously eager to start his trip. The horses seem to be indifferent.

One of the biggest needs on the S&C is for stages. Stagecoaches met the trains at Milton, Burnett's, Peters, Oakdale and Farmington. Passengers changed from the steamcars to the stage to get to the mining communities of Sonora, Jamestown, Angel's Camp, Murphy's and the rest. While Jordan makes a beautfiul Abbot & Downing Concord coach, most of the California stages were what was lovingly called "mud wagons." This name came from two of its characteristics. The mud wagon were more heavily built than the Abbot & Downing coaches and, thus, better suited to the rougher California mountain roads. They were also cheaper by about half but were also more open affording little protection for the passengers from the mud and dust thrown up by the wheels. They could stand up to muddy roads but at the expense of a good part of the road landing on the passengers.
 

Wagon makes had builder's photos taken just as car and locomotive
manufacturers did.

 My version of a mud wagon was based on an M.P. Henderson design. Henderson was located in Stockton and made wagons used throughout the West. I used a Jordan stage as a base and adapted the running gear to suit the sturdier coach. The body was scratchbuilt from styrene. Some of the Jordan parts were used such as the luggage rack on the rear and the railings around the top. The lettering was based on a photo of an actual Guerin & Nevils stage. That company served both Milton and Oakdale during my period and was a good choice for me.
   Harnessing of the coaches was done as described in my post of January 23 (http://sandcrr.blogspot.com/2014/01/wagons-galore-with-harnesses-too.html). Harnessing one horse is not too bad, two is a little harder but six is a bit much. I'm sure they were hard to drive as well.
 

A surrey is a great carriage to go for a Sunday picnic. This couple is on their wagon complete with a picnic basket and what looks like a bottle of some adult beverage.

The two-seater buggy was probably the most common carriage in the 1890s, at least according to the photos I have seen. The second most common seems to be a four-seater surrey. Jordan makes a great buggy kit but no surrey. I spliced two buggies together to get the body and made a top complete with fringe out of styrene.
 

A housewife negotiates for a bottle of liniment from the Watkins salesman. J. R. Watkins had many different kinds of wagons and are still in business today making such things as vanilla extract. None of it is now delivered in wagons, however.

 The last wagon I attempted this time around was a commercial sales wagon, sometimes known as a milk wagon. It was designed for in-town service where the driver would be alighting several times during the day, hence the drop floor. It certainly would not do on a rough road but would work fine on a graded city street. The body of this wagon was scratchbuilt with underbody parts from a Jordan Light Delivery wagon. The decals are from my artwork.
    Next up on the wagon front will be a dray. This was a low-slung cargo-carrying wagon used to move heavy equipment around. I photographed one at Old Sacramento several years ago and will try to reproduce it.

Yosemite and Private Railroad Cars

Tacked onto the tail of the Capitol Flyer is the Argonaut en route to Milton. The leaded glass windows are decals applied to clear styrene windows.

Part of an 1870s brochure advertising
the Yosemite "package."

When someone wanted to travel to the Yosemite Valley in the 1800s, the average person would leave San Francisco at 4:00 p.m. on the Stockton steamer. By 7:00 a.m. the next morning, he was on the S&C train to Milton where he board a stage. He changed stages at Chinese Camp, stayed overnight at Garote and then transferred to a pack train and was in the Valley by 2:00 p.m. the next day. Only a two-day trip! If you had a lot more money, you had your private switch to the S&C train, left it at Milton and then took the stage/pack train. Old-timers said there was always a private car or two at Milton awaiting the return of their owners.

   To simulate this on my model Stockton & Copperopolis, a few private cars were needed. Well, at least one. A couple of weeks ago, a visiting operator left me with a Model Die Casting Palace observation car kit. Since I had no other big projects in mind, I put the kit together, made up some lettering and here is the result, ready to be pulled to Milton so its owner can sojourn in the fabulous Yosemite Valley.

The Argonaut blocks F Street while its owner gets a newspaper from the depot. The rear platform awning is paper glued to the car end.