malletman
Alcohaulic
Having a reason, the hows and why's, for a railroad to exhist are really important to me when doing a fictional or proto-freelanced model railroad. It has to make some sense or it tends to snowball itself. My line is set in Logansport, Indiana on the PRR Eel River branch and ties into the real world excursion train that ran when I was a young boy. While that railroad never developed beyond the once a year festival train, I am taking it further to reactivating the branch up to the large grain elevator at Columbia City. For the puropose of my line, we will pretend that the PC didnt pull the line north of Logansport, but let it lay in the weeds all these decades. The effort to reactivate the line is being spearheaded by a couple local businesses, the grain elevator and consortium of local farmers. The line was cleared of brush and brought up to 10mph conditions over the period of several months before the fall grain rush begins. With only the 2-8-0 steamer on hand, a search for a cheap diesel or two began. One of the head guys had a working relationship with the UP and headed out west to see what he could "squeeze" out of the UP dead lines. After many hours walking the dead lines and looking at various 4 axle EMD power and discussing prices, nothing was cheap enough as most was fairly modern GP units. The UP rep said to meet him at a location in Iowa in a couple weeks, he had something in the lines price range, but it was gonna need some work!
A couple weeks later, he was sitting in a small town diner near Oelwein, Iowa.The rep from the UP arrived and they headed over to what amounted to mostly an overgrown field with a bunch of trees toward the rear. The two started walking and only once he started tripping over rails hidden in the tall grass did he realize they were walking thru an old rail yard. But yet he saw nothing engine wise here, so he was puzzled. As they came around the end of the grove of trees, they came to the rear end of a old CGW covered wagon with a NE style caboose coupled to its nose. Hidden from the road by the tree and forgotten with time. She was mostly intact, stacks were capped and widows boarded up. The rep said she wasnt even on the record books anymore and it took him a couple weeks to find the ownership papers one needs to get parts from EMD. The price was a screaming deal but she had to be moved asap as the UP was planning to lift the rails and the land was being sold to a developer. He even got UP to throw in the caboose. A mechanical team came up from Logansport and got the brakes working, and prepared them to be moved. 2 weeks later, CGW F3 road number 112A was pushed into the engine house with the JD dozer. The engine crew looked with some disgust at the covered wagon.."how we supposed to run backwards?" to which they were told to suck it up till we can afford a 2nd locomotive. While the train crew was less than thrilled with the unit, the shop forces were hyped up about returning the old covered wagon to operation. The new argument was what to paint her, right now she was nearly pink in color being originally in the red CGW simplified "lucky strike" colors.
This is where my railway stands right now. The F3 is in the shop to be woke up from its long slumber, the NE caboose is shoved next to the shop and is home to a nice wasp nest up inside the cupola that needs dealt with. Steamer No1 is sitting outdoors for now since the 112A is in the shop. The shop crew got the local vo-tech school involved both in mechanical repair and body work on the 112A. The "hope" to have her on the road in time for fall grain season but its gonna be close! The body shop kids plan to respray the unit in CGW red and have petitioned the UP to allow the CGW logos to be reapplied to the unit when completed, so far no answer from the big UP on that note. If that gets shot down, she will carry the L&ER keystone on the nose and road name on the sides. .........to be continued Mike the Aspie
A couple weeks later, he was sitting in a small town diner near Oelwein, Iowa.The rep from the UP arrived and they headed over to what amounted to mostly an overgrown field with a bunch of trees toward the rear. The two started walking and only once he started tripping over rails hidden in the tall grass did he realize they were walking thru an old rail yard. But yet he saw nothing engine wise here, so he was puzzled. As they came around the end of the grove of trees, they came to the rear end of a old CGW covered wagon with a NE style caboose coupled to its nose. Hidden from the road by the tree and forgotten with time. She was mostly intact, stacks were capped and widows boarded up. The rep said she wasnt even on the record books anymore and it took him a couple weeks to find the ownership papers one needs to get parts from EMD. The price was a screaming deal but she had to be moved asap as the UP was planning to lift the rails and the land was being sold to a developer. He even got UP to throw in the caboose. A mechanical team came up from Logansport and got the brakes working, and prepared them to be moved. 2 weeks later, CGW F3 road number 112A was pushed into the engine house with the JD dozer. The engine crew looked with some disgust at the covered wagon.."how we supposed to run backwards?" to which they were told to suck it up till we can afford a 2nd locomotive. While the train crew was less than thrilled with the unit, the shop forces were hyped up about returning the old covered wagon to operation. The new argument was what to paint her, right now she was nearly pink in color being originally in the red CGW simplified "lucky strike" colors.
This is where my railway stands right now. The F3 is in the shop to be woke up from its long slumber, the NE caboose is shoved next to the shop and is home to a nice wasp nest up inside the cupola that needs dealt with. Steamer No1 is sitting outdoors for now since the 112A is in the shop. The shop crew got the local vo-tech school involved both in mechanical repair and body work on the 112A. The "hope" to have her on the road in time for fall grain season but its gonna be close! The body shop kids plan to respray the unit in CGW red and have petitioned the UP to allow the CGW logos to be reapplied to the unit when completed, so far no answer from the big UP on that note. If that gets shot down, she will carry the L&ER keystone on the nose and road name on the sides. .........to be continued Mike the Aspie