Another Grain Warehouse

The Howe and Smallwood warehouse sits at the south end of the town. Adjustments to the ground level will have to be made before the building can be permanently installed.

Oakdale was a town with several warehouses for grain. After all, that was the major commodity carried by the S&C in the '90s. The Howe and Smallwood warehouse sat on the west side of the main line at the south end of town. On my model, that puts it across the tracks from the Oakdale Lumber Company. The prototype structure measured 50 x 400 feet which is way too big for the space I have. I cut the length down to 200 feet but left the width the same. This posed a dilemma since the benchwork was not wide enough to accommodate this width. I decided to slice off part of one side which would result in a model with one wall open. Of course, this meant that I had to provide an interior for the building which was pretty simple since it would be more stacks of grain sacks.

A trackside view shows the loading door and a window. The office door and window are on the building's end at the right of the photo.

   The open side also meant that I would have to construct roof trusses. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon building these trusses using a jig I built. It was not difficult except for the time spent waiting for the glue to dry so I could take it out of the jig. Thirteen trusses later, I was done and assembled them to the building and the way oversized ridge. On half the trusses, part of them would be cut off where the wall didn't exist and they would be supported by this ridge which wouldn't be visible once the roof was on anyway.

The partial roof trusses can be seen in this view. Now I need to fill up the place with grain.

   Today, I'm spending a lot of time casting up more grain sacks to fill up the warehouse. Some workers and hand trucks will be added to complete the scene and then I will attach the roof, shingle it and add exterior details.

Pocahontas Comes to Oakdale

Dr. Borkon extolls the wonders of Pocahontas to the snappy tune of the hurdy-gurdy while one of Oakdale's finest looks on the background to ensure there will be no flim-flam.

Folks of the nineteenth century wanted entertainment as much as any of us in the twenty-first century. Concerts in the park, theater shows and the traveling medicine show provided much gaiety. Oakdale now plays host to Dr. Borkon's show, complete with jokes, stories, trained monkeys and songs accompanied by concert quality music played on a genuine hurdy-gurdy. Of course, if you are feeble, lethargic, asthmatic, bothered by heart palpitations or have aches and pains, you can buy a bottle of Pocahontas Remedies guaranteed to cure or, at least, make you forget your ailments.

Capturing the spectacle is more important to Oakdale's
photographist than sampling the Remedy.

Pocahontas seems to be very popular with the male population of Oakdale.

   Dr. Borkon's wagon was built from a Jordan kit with custom decals and added curtains and stage drapes made from a single ply of facial tissue. The audience is composed of several cast metal figures while the hurdy-gurdy and Dr. Borkon are by Presier. The photographer is from Lindsey, a British company. The bottles and cases are from Presiser.
  Incidentally, the name Pocahontas Remedies is from a brew that Will Rogers sold in his film Steamboat 'Round the Bend made in 1935. The name Dr. Borkon, however, is completely made up and any resemblance to any Kansas City model railroaders, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Telltales

Telltales now protect train crews of the Copperopolis Road.

 The Stockton & Copperopolis management finally grew tired of replacing brakemen who had been knocked off car tops when passing through Gopher Hill Tunnel. To help end this problem, telltales were installed at each end of the tunnel. At least the brakemen would get a warning when the train passed beneath the hanging ropes and would, hopefully, have enough sense to lie down on the car until they were out of the tunnel. It seems to have worked since there have been no complaints from the train crews and no reduction in the work force.

It looks like it will be a stormy day over Gopher Ridge. The east end of the tunnel is also protected by a telltale. Scenery is yet to be added on this portion of the railroad. 

   The telltales I installed were made by Tichy and they come two to a package. Mine were simply painted Grimy Black while the hanging "ropes" were painted Antique White to make them look like they've been out in the weather for a while. The bases were painted a concrete color. This was a quick project to fill the time while I was waiting for paint to dry.

Some Details on Sound

Following my last posting (Finally, Some Sound), I had a few questions on how I mounted the electronics in the slope-back tender of the 0-6-0. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of the tender insides but here is a diagram of what is mounted and where.

   To begin with, the motor and drive was replaced with a Sagami 16x30 can motor and a NWSL 150-6 gearbox (36:1). All of the electronics mount in the back half of the tender shell. I had previously filled the coal bunker with coal and had weights in the water part adjacent to the coal. I used a Micro-Tsunami (C-Class Steam) with a Soundtraxx 810112 oval speaker. The wires for both were oriented toward the middle of the tender beneath the mounting strap. The capacitor was also mounted beneath the mounting strap. I used an incandescent 1.5V bulb for the backup light and the resistor for that was stuff in one of the legs adjacent to the coal bunker. None of these pieces was fastened to the tender body but just laid in. Three 1/8” holes were drilled in the tender floor beneath the speaker to let the sound out. An additional hole was drilled in the floor for the wires to pass through to connectors located beneath the front truck body bolster. I kept the wires as short as possible so they could all be stuffed beneath the mounting strap when assembled. It was programmed this morning and it sounds great. 

Finally, Some Sound

The Number 19 at Orford Junction.

Like everyone, I work on a project for a while, get tired of it, quit, and, hopefully, get back to it some time later. A couple of years ago, I refitted almost all of my locomotives with Tsunami sound decoders. By the time I had finished most of them, I got tired of the project and left two locos silent and running with only non-sound decoders. Over the last couple of days, I finally decided to remedy that situation and install the sound decoders.

The speaker can barely be seen at the left rear corner of the tender. A Sagami 16x30 motor  was used.

Some of the tender frame had to be removed to allow the decoder to fit.

   The two engines in need were No. 19, a Pacific Fast Mail import of the V&T Reno. This engine is a 4-4-0 with the motor, decoder and speaker in the tender. There is precious little room for all these things, so little in fact, that I had to skew the motor slightly to allow the Tsunami to fit. Many people think that a motor in the tender will result in "tender wobble" as the loco runs. This is not the case. If a rubber tube coupling is used between the engine and motor, you can expect the wobble but not if Northwest Short Line U-joints are used. The drive shaft between the engine and tender is not real noticeable and there is more room in the engine for weight which means long trains. My 4-4-0s pull 10-12 normal-sized cars without a problem.
   The speaker I used was a Soundtraxx 3/8" speaker. It's not real big but it does put out the necessary sound and it's the only one that I can get to fit. It's located at the extreme rear of the tender behind the flywheel.

The motor is attached to the tender shell. Screws are covered by the wood load.

The Number 16 at Stockton. It is still lettered for the MSN but the tender will be repainted and relettered for the Stockton & Copperopolis.

   The other engine was No. 16, the Stockton switcher. It had a small Lenz decoder in it which gave good results but no sound. Another Tsunami went in here. There was enough room to add a big larger rectangular speaker I had. Everything was a tight fit due to the slope of the tender deck but it now works well and will please the Stockton yardmaster who was complaining about having an engine without sound.

Oakdale Gas Works

I have always been fascinated with obscure industries of the nineteenth century. The ones to which I refer are those that were commonplace at the time but vanished by the early- to mid-20th century. One of these is the gas works. Before tapping the abundant natural gas supplies, cities who wanted gas for lighting and other duties had to manufacture their own gas. There were several different processes but most involved heating coal and capturing the gas which resulted. Some, such as the Lowe process, added oil to the gas.

Note the coal bin at the right side of the processing building. 

   It doesn't appear that Oakdale had a gas works but I decided to add one simply because I wanted to model such a plant. I patterned my model after the Modesto Gas Works of 1884. In that form, it used coal and had only a single gasholder which made it a bit easier for the space I had allotted. The woodcut showing the gas works was found in the History of Stanislaus County published in 1884 while the Sanborn map drawing was from 1888 after they added another gasholder. The Modesto plant was not rail-served but other plants, such as the San Jose Works were so I added a spur to provide the coal that would be needed.
   The processing building was modified from a Vollmer kit while the gasholder used a Rix tank with scratchbuilt superstructure. In the Modesto sketch and map, you can see the coal storage bin which was freelanced. Fencing was by Central Valley.

   The small gas company wagon was modified from a Jordan buckboard to more resemble a prototype wagon found at Travel Town in Los Angeles.

 

Sometime in the future, I may "convert" the plant to the Lowe process so I can run an occasional tank car to the facility but, for now, I will leave it as it is.

The Younger Generation

Much talk has been in the model press lately about the future of model railroading and how we should get the younger generation involved. Our six-year-old granddaughter, Jessica, has been interested in the railroad since she was about two years old. Recently, she completed her first kit. It was not too difficult and she had some help but she is very proud of "Jessica's Pet Shop." I'm not quite sure where it will end up on the S&C but it should be somewhere. Will this lead her into the hobby of railroading? Who knows? All you can do, though, is expose them to the hobby and see what happens. It will be interesting to see what her interest is when she is tall enough to actually see the trains.

By the way, she's run the trains before and is very careful. Her only fault would be going a bit too slow which is hard to do on a railroad with 15 mph speed limit!