Your golden-era model railroads!

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Some crossing and no trespassing signs are going up all over, in response to frayed war nerves about the recent German spy team caught with plans to blow up key infrastructure points in the US!

 

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On the 12th of this month, I had my layout open for "Oly Ops," a charity event where people come from all over to run two op sessions in one day on local layouts.
Here are Toby Loftus and Eric Bessey from the Portland, Oregon area, taking a short photo break from running trains on the layout. Good guys, both!

 

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A sailor heading back to the USS Indianapolis waits for the westbound train to Johnson City, at Buladeen, Tennessee:

On the other side the depot, a soldier lost looking for his unit for the 1943 Tennessee Maneuvers (note the empty M1919A4 machine gun on the mount) asks for directions:

 

[p51]

Along with the layout, I also have a related hobby of trying to find original items from the RR I model.
I just got this original ticket from the Linville River Railroad, a subsidiary of the ET&WNC, from the pre-war era. These are almost impossible to find, especially in unused condition as they were printed on very thin paper:

Here it is framed facing the door to the room, underneath pages taken from some of the magazines that have featured my layout:

And around the corner, the bottom three frames are two original timetables, and between them is an original train order for 1943 and a freight claim check from 1945 from the ET&WNC:

 

[EngProf]

A sailor heading back to the USS Indianapolis waits for the westbound train to Johnson City, at Buladeen, Tennessee:

On the other side the depot, a soldier lost looking for his unit for the 1943 Tennessee Maneuvers (note the empty M1919A4 machine gun on the mount) asks for directions:

That must be Private Snafu in that jeep. He's about 200 miles to the east of the eastern edge of the Tennessee Maneuvers area.

 

[p51]

That must be Private Snafu in that jeep. He's about 200 miles to the east of the eastern edge of the Tennessee Maneuvers area.

There was a airborne landing for the 1943 wargame, and there were at least a couple of gliders landing substantially short of the LZ...

 

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Just adding more no trespassing signs...

"Y'all git on outta h'yar!"

 

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I swore I saw the scale ghosts of ET&WNC conductor Cy Crumley and engineer Sherman Pippin. I snapped some shots, thinking when I looked later, they'd just be of empty track. Halloween came early for the ET&WNC!

They just walked out of the cornfield at the Ensor farm, looked around, and Cy walked down the tracks to near the grade crossing at Sadie. Sherman went directly for # 11, which was sitting cold at the time. A chill came over the air...
As these two were gentlemen in life, I expect no evil from them now. As the locals said after I showed them the photos (taken from my Speed Graphic box camera), "Them ain't haints, they's wouldn't do nary a bit of evil h'yar!"
In other words, such distinguished men wouldn't come back as bad spirits. At the worst, I was told I might get spectral letters of admonishment over some of the working conditions on the layout.

 

[EngProf]

There was a airborne landing for the 1943 wargame, and there were at least a couple of gliders landing substantially short of the LZ...

You could take the jeep driver out of the "Private Snafu" category if he is part of the security detail for the Holston Ordnance Works [HOW], located just a short distance east of Kingsport. That would be just about 20 miles from Johnson City - right in your railroad's area.

HOW was established in July 1942 and stopped production in 1945.

During World War II, it manufactured Composition B, a very powerful explosive mixture of RDX and TNT.

As for the jeep driver, getting lost on the mountain roads, especially at night would be almost normal procedure - not a Private Snafu situation. (I wouldn't want to drive from Kingsport to Johnson City at night on the back roads even today.)

(The 101st did a combined glider and parachute landing on the northern edge of the TN Maneuvers area in 1943. The Division Commander (General Bill Lee) broke several ribs when his glider had a hard landing.)

 

[GHT]

Today's British press have all covered the story of Rod Stewart's lifelong passion as a model railway enthusiast — even though, at times, he didn't want to talk about it. But now his legendary layout — 26 years in the making — can be seen for the first time in all its finished glory.

It's astonishingly detailed 124ft long x 23ft wide model depicting an American city and its industrial hinterland in the 1940s contains hundreds of buildings, from trackside switchman's shanties, to vast factories and skyscrapers.

Called Grand Street And Three Rivers City, it also features a railway station crossed by numerous bridges at rush hour. There are period cars and trucks as well as trains, and it is all surrounded by lush landscape and dramatically lit in the colours of late afternoon sunshine.

 

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The 4X4 inch negatives were marked for July 1943 in the old, dusty box.
Sid Richardson, photographer/artist for the Elizabethton Star, was taking shots of the ET&WNC Stoney Creek branch, a rare doubleheader passing through Winner, Tennessee.
Exact date is unknown:

 

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Five years to the day when the first train was run to each end of the layout, onto the powered turntables.
This is the very last of my "five years to the day" series showing the progress of my layout.
So much has changed, you can't even see the same coach is tacked onto the locomotive (which was changed from 12 to 9 after the original shot was taken)...

The funny thing is, you can't get the exact original shot anymore, as there are trees in the way of where the camera was in the original shot!

 

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Random shots, mostly around Hunter, Sadie and Winner, Tennessee...

 

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Another random cell shot, of # 9 rounding the curve before crossing Stoney Creek Road at Sadie, TN:

 

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On Friday, I got a diecast/plastic 1/43 scale model I'd ordered from Estonia of all places. It's a Chevy WW2 1.5 ton truck, a model that is nor marketed anywhere in the US or Western Europe (I assume because they didn't get the rights to make it with the brand name). It wasn't cheap, but it was way cheaper than the few I've seen on eBay. I immediately stripped the Russian markings off it, put on mid-war US markings (and butchered two decals when I masked off the windows, but managed to cover that with weathering), then weathered it for a hard service life stateside. I know I weathered it a little too much, but I like how it turned out.

 

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last night, I got my brand new Bachmann On30 gauge Baldwin Class 10 2-6-2T 'trench' locomotive. This one will eventually wear the markings similar to the Davenport copies wore during WW2 at Fort Benning (which were black, not OD green as the incorrectly painted one at the museum at Benning wears today).
I'll be doing a review of this for O Gauge Railroading magazine very soon. Until then, see how good the sound system is on this tiny little locomotive:

 

[Robieman]

Too cool!! Looks and sounds good.

 

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Yesterday, I did the weathering on my Army 2-6-2T and put a couple of GI figures into the cab of my Baldwin 1917 'trench' locomotive.
Notice the number plate, I created that myself on my computer.

If you look along the forward part of side water tank, you can see where I tried to re-create the look of recently added H2O to the tank, spilling over the side somewhat.
So, why a road number of 5069? Well, I just turned 50 and was born in 1969. This was a delayed birthday present to myself, and 5069 was a road number carried by one of these engines as-delivered from Baldwin, so why not? If not that, it would have been 5044, for my Jeep's deliver year of 1944...
The decals were one character at a time. That took a while with magnifying tools to get that right (keep in mind, this engine was just about the size of a GMC 2.5-ton truck, so even in O scale it's very small).
A few days before, returning to Atlanta airport from visiting my parents in Florida for Christmas, I swung through Fort Benning to take several photos of their Davenport locomotive. These were made as copies of the Baldwin design and most stayed here in the states. This is one of the few left:

I just wish they hadn't painted it in OD green (to include the running gear!), as none were painted like this in service.

 

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Two updates over the weekend...
First, I got some paints (mostly washes from a company called 'AK', made for military modelers), as I'd read one made to show fuel stains makes an excellent finish for greased side rods on a steam locomotive. Others were for rain streaking and other grime effects. They worked great, and was worth the long drive to a hobby shop to get them!

Long ago, I wanted to make a fictional insignia for the railroad operating Battalion. Last night I decided to draw it out on paper, as someone would have done in real life.
Originally, I was going to do it with a ET&WNC locomotive, but I realized that would be very complex and hard to put on an Insignia. An Army 'trench' locomotive made a lot more sense to me. I drew the stump underneath the locomotive, alluding maybe to something that it happened to one of their engines in the past. Somehow the motto 'stump jumpers' popped into my head as I was drawing it.

I'm going to put it on signs on the layout and paperwork. I wish I still knew someone who could make a short run of patches, as I'd love to have some made of this.

 

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I created a RR unit sign on Photoshop, using the Insignia I just created.

I used a background photo of boards painted in white, then ran ghost lines through the lettering and the Insignia where the board lines would be.
I think it worked pretty well, and could possibly fool the eye of anybody looking at it in person.
The back has the same white board graphic with no lettering.
One thing's for sure, it doesn't look like your normal model railroad sign where someone just printed it out on white paper. I made the frame out of scale lumber, just needs another hit of dull coat.
Now, I just need to figure out exactly where I want to place it.