Water Column

The signature scene is really New Britain Yard itself. This includes the station area, and the structures around it. There are a number of photos I'd like to replicate as closely as possible, and it's the combination of these photos and additional research that goes into building the model itself.

Here are some additional photos highlighting some of the details around New Britain Yard. You can easily see the reduction in crossarms on the line poles in these two photographs. Once again these shots also show the track and the mix of ballast and dirt quite well. The second photo shows the front of the speed limit sign and the Ring post just past the end of the platform.

The Water Column is an eBay find that was the closest I could get to what was located in New Britain. It's an old soft metal (probably lead) kit from Apag Hobbies. Never heard of them.

It's tough to tell because I have exactly two pictures that provide any view of it at all:

K-1-d #404 with World of Mirth train in New Britain Yard.
Kent Cochrane (?). August, 1940.

The K-1-d was produced by NERS. The NE-4 caboose was produced by Custom Brass/NJ International and Challenger. The Challenger model is more accurate. The only commercial circus train flats that I'm aware of are the old Walthers cars.

L-1-a #3228 with 80 cars at New Britain Station.
Kent Cochrane. August, 1946.

The L-1 was produced by Custom Brass and Precision Scale. I can't figure out what the herald is on the reefer. The single-sheathed box car in the background looks like a MP 90000-90499-series with the inverted Murphy ends and wood door, previously available from Sunshine. The care immediately behind the locomotive looks like a Soo "sawtooth" single-sheathed box car, a version of which is available from Speedwitch Media.

So the Apag water column is not a bad match. But it looks like the New Britain one has a bell-shaped top instead of a ball. So I'll eventually modify that.

Modeling from a Photo: Rare or Not?

I've talked a bit about the trackwork and ballast in earlier posts, and focused a bit on a set of photos taken in 1949. The first photo was published in an early NHRHTA calendar, which I don't have, but the photographer was credited there. I still need to dig that up. The second photo is a slide that was obviously taken moments before. This time I'll take a closer look at the equipment in the photos.

You may recall an earlier post asking about that gondola in this picture by Jim Karl:

Jerry Stewart identified it as a Litchfield and Madison gondola, to which he said any midwest railfan/modeler would be able to identify. Apparently he's the only one that reads my blog! I found a couple of photos which don't appear to be available online anymore, but I do have a plan that looks pretty darn close.

A kitbash using an Intermountain USRA composite gondola seems the obvious starting point. I've considered the Detail Associates end, but the horizontal ribs are in the wrong location, so I'll either modify them or find a different solution. Decals are also an issue, in part because I haven't found any, and also because I haven't located a better photo in this paint scheme.

On the far yard track is Mather reefer leased to Morrell, once available as a Sunshine kit (which I have). The Red Caboose model could be a stand in, but has wood instead of steel ends. The kit has the large, red, rectangular "Morrell" lettering instead of the simpler lettering seen here, so I'm still working on that detail as it's not as simple as just leaving it off.

Note that there are two baggage cars on the station stub track for the storage mail to the left and Ted Culotta noticed the clerestory roof behind the gondola, which was revealed in the slide we found later to be another baggage car.

The car in the yard, and the one farther away on the station track are both wood baggage cars, released by Bethlehem Car Works. The model used an early set of plans, so the doors are in the wrong location, and there are a few other missing details, such as the way the bolsters wrap around the side, but it's easy enough to fix. The steel baggage car is a long out-of-production F&C/NHRHTA kit that Steve keeps threatening to redo as a one-piece body. I have several of those in progress as well.

Perhaps 5 baggage cars were dropped at the yard on Monday, and moved into position through the week. If so, then this picture is a Wednesday, or a Thursday if they started with 6 cars to include Saturday. As I've noted, these were for storage mail, to be forwarded to Hartford on passenger train #463. An interesting operating opportunity, and one that might also give a visual hint as to which day of the week it is on the layout at a given point in time. But I don't have any other pictures with this many baggage cars in the yard. In most cases there is only one at the station.

The N&W #52136 is a B-3 auto car. These were essentially exact copies of the PRR X32A box cars. Well, the final 50 X32A cars with a 14' 6" door opening, meaning the side sheathing pattern is three panels to the left of the door, and five to the right. Naturally, all of the released models are of the earlier X32A cars, with a 12' 1-1/2" door opening and four panels to the left and five to the right. I have an old NKP brass model that I'm modifying. The Bowser underframe fits perfectly, so it's a matter of figuring out how to shave off the rivets. I'll need to find the right doors and use Archer rivets for the new panels. Not sure if there are appropriate decals yet.

The Milwaukee rib-side car is #20945, the series represented by the Exactrail model. Sunshine and Rib-Side cars also released models of this series. Of course none of these are still in production, but I have one of the Exactrail models. I gave an Exactrail kit to Chris years ago because we see lots of the rib-side cars in photos of the Valley Line.

If you look closely at the steel box car in the consist, it has the Pullman-Standard proprietary end used on the so-called "PS-0" cars.  The only cars I know of that used that type of end with a Youngstown door rather than Superior is the B&O M-55A class. They were a 1937 AAR standard boxcar with the Pullman-Standard end and Duryea underframe along with a flat riveted roof. An Intermountain kit with new ends and roof would work, but the F&C end is too short to use as is and is lacking the rivet line separating the upper and lower panels. Scratchbuilding may be the best option. The Speedwitch Duryea underframe for the M-26D/E conversion would work well here, although I don't know if the layout was identical to those classes. Sylvan makes a flat panel roof that might be appropriate, part DP-0046.

The remaining cars are as-yet-unidentified: a single-sheathed box car (the bracing pattern along with the door will help narrow the field); a tank car (looks like a fairly fat tank, an the ladder and frame may give some more clues); and a covered hopper. The scheme on the covered hopper is a light color, so it very well could be one of the 15 cars that the NH rostered in 1949. It was almost certainly for cement. The Intermountain kit is the go-to kit for these cars with Speedwitch decals for the earlier NH scheme.

The 44-tonner is a phase Ic, I'm using a W&R brass body on a Bachmann chassis.

All in all, an interesting collection of freight cars in a small yard on a branch line in CT in 1949, and a signature scene to be recreated on the layout.

A common comment I've heard is that you have to be careful when selecting freight cars from photos, because people tend to take pictures of the unusual and rare cars. While I think that there are times that this is the case, looking at the "whole picture" is important. Looking at this series of photos, while there are a number of what would be considered "rare" cars, none of them are featured. The L&M gondola is certainly a rarity (in 1950 they rostered 559 cars with two classes of composite gondolas with 98 and 144 cars in each), but it's not the focus of the photographs. The other rare cars would only be identified as such by somebody familiar with freight car construction and rosters overall. These photos are clearly of the train working on a given day, with whatever cars are there.

That's not to say that an L&M gondola appeared in New Britain daily. Statistically, there's a high likelihood this is the only day it ever appeared here. Another example is a photograph that's published in Trackside Alongside the New Haven 1950-1956 with Arthur E. Mitchell. Arthur worked for the New Haven as a brakeman and a conductor during this period, and took photos regularly. On pg. 47 is a photo of a car that they knocked off the track and cost him 3 days off with no pay. The photo is one that documents a particular point in time. The fact that it happens to be a CN&L single sheathed box car in the mid-'50s is just a bonus for us. The entire roster for the Columbia, Newberry & Laurens in 1950 was 49 box cars, 25 with steel underframes, and 24 single-sheathed with steel underframes and steel ends like the one in the picture. The photo is undated, but he didn't start working for the New Haven until 1952.

I'm lucky in that prolific New Haven photographers Kent Cochrane and Tom McNamara happened to live in New Britain. Their criteria was based on the weather and time of day. They were looking for good shooting conditions, and then would work a series of locations, or often follow a train taking a roll of pictures along the way. Again, these are random days and the subject is whatever happened to be on the rails that day. They had an opportunity to take photos, and they didn't go to see whether there was anything interesting and go home if it was the same old thing.

Just for fun here's another rarity sitting on Track #5 in New Britain. The date is unknown but it's a screen grab from a color video taken by Paul Wales from his office in the Stanley Tools building.   The L-1s were replaced by FA-1/FB-1/FA-1 sets in 1947, so I'm guessing c1946. But anytime in the '40s would make the Southern SU box car with the older "T"-braced end rare.

There are more captures from this Paul Wales video in this post for those who care to start the process of narrowing the era based on the freight cars in the video for me!

Freight House Part II

A bit of a preview about some other things I'll be posting soon, but the main reason for this picture was to test out a new mock-up for the freight house.

The freight house was located at the Whiting Street Yard on the Berlin Line, and is quite large.

This is the north end of the freight house, truck side.

The south end, also truck side.

And this is the track side.

There were three tracks servicing the freight house, although the specific layout means that only the back half of the tracks could be bridged by plates. It appears that there were 17 spotting locations per track, not including the open platform at the far end. The track closest to the Freight House is 845 ft. long, or enough for about 20 to 21 40-foot cars.

The single track that is between the yard and the freight house appears to be the scale track for a 42 foot, 100-ton scale. I'm assuming this was used to weigh cars loaded at the bulk tracks. 

The bulk tracks swing behind the yard, and include a 15-ton pillar crane and a concrete unloading (undoubtedly used for cars among other loads). One of the bulk tracks continues across Whiting Street as a siding for Stanley Tools, the third of three Stanley plants in the city.

So after realizing how many spotting locations I'll need at a minimum, I was considering whether I would have that much space. As it turns out, if I stick with a prototype layout of three tracks, I can. I might have to space the tracks closer than the usual 2" on center that I've been using, but that's actually more prototypical and looks better too.

I also figured that 1947 (or 1946) would be the busiest, and that the traffic would decline as we operate in future years. So here's a compiled listing of the arranged service from New Britain for several more years. 

April, 1949 (11 spots):

Alexandria via PRR-SOU (YN-1 to BG-3)

Chicago via ERIE (AO-5) (Tue, Thu, Sat)

Cincinnati via L&H-CNJ-RDG-WMD-B&O (AO-5) (Tue, Thu, Sat)

East St. Louis via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1) (Tue, Thu, Fri)

Philadelphia Transfer via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1)

Pittsburgh 11th St. via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

St. Albans via CV (YN-1 to NM-4)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Utica via NYC (AO-5 to RI-2)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Cedar Hill Transfer (YN-1)

Inbound from Cedar Hill Transfer (Daily), and Maybrook (Tue, The, Sat)

April, 1950 (8 spots):

Hornell via ERIE (YN-1 to BO-1)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Philadelphia Transfer via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1)

Pittsburgh 11th St via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Springfield via B&A (YN-1 to 1/NS-2)

Cedar Hill Transfer (YN-1)

Inbound from Cedar Hill Transfer (daily), Hartford (Mon, Wed, Fri) and Maybrook (Tue, The, Sat).

The Springfield move is interesting, it goes south to Cedar Hill to then go north up the Springfield line.

April, 1951 (8 spots):

Hornell via ERIE (YN-1 to BO-1)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Philadelphia Transfer via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1)

Pittsburgh 11th St via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Springfield via B&A (YN-1 to 1/NS-2)

Cedar Hill Transfer (YN-1)

Inbound from Cedar Hill Transfer (daily), Hartford (Mon, Wed, Fri) and Maybrook (Tue, The, Sat).

Jumping ahead a bit to Oct, 1956 (11 spots):

Baltimore via PRR (YN-1 to BG-1)

Cleveland via L&H-DL&W (YN-1 to BO-1)

Hornell via ERIE (YN-1 to BO-1)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Newport, VT via B&M-CP (YN-1 to NS-4)

Philadelphia Federal St. via PRR (YN01 to BG-1)

Pittsburgh 11th St via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Scranton via L&H-DL&W (YN-1 to BO-1)

Springfield, MS via NYC (YN-1 to NS-4)(Tue, Thu, Sat)

Spencer, NC via PRR-SOU (YN-1 to BG-1)

Cedar Hill Transfer (YN-1)

Inbound from Cedar Hill Transfer

The busiest in my era for some reason is actually from September, 1952 (24 spots):

Baltimore via PRR (YN-1 to BG-1)

Cumberland, MD via L&HR-CRP-RDG-WM-B&O (AO-5)(Mon, Wed, Fri)

Holyoke via B&M (Extra, NS-4)(Mon, Wed, Fri)

Hornell via ERIE (YN-1 to BO-1)

Philadelphia Federal St. via PRR (YN01 to BG-1)

Pittsburgh 11th St via PRR (YN-1 to NE-1)

Scranton via L&H-DL&W (YN-1 to BO-1)(Mon, Wed, Fri)

Spencer, NC via PRR-SOU (YN-1 to BG-1)(Mon, Wed, Fri)

Springfield, MA via B&A (Extra to NS-4)

Cedar Hill Transfer (YN-1)

East Hampton, MA (NY-2, Extra)

Hartford (Extra)

Holyoke (NY-2)

Northampton - Williamsburg, MA (NY-2, Extra)

Westfield, MA (NY-2)

Inbound from Cedar Hill Transfer, Easthampton, Hartford (Mon, Wed, Fri), Maybrook Transfer (Tue, Thu, Sat), Meriden, New York (Harlem Station), Northampton, Westfield, Williamsburg, plus truck from Berlin and East Berlin.

Not sure why Holyoke is listed twice.

No way I'll be able to accomodate the 1952 schedule. I just don't have the space for that. But with the triple track I can manage 18 spots, or 15 loading, 3 unloading spots. The crews will just have to switch out cars as they are unloaded.

However it pans out, it appears that the freight house will be a more significant industry in operations than I thought. Each morning it will need 5 to 10 empties, plus the incoming loads. Outbound will be anything between 3 cars to clearing out all of the house tracks.

It's also entirely possible, and perhaps probable, the the cars that are loaded only 3 days a week are spotted only on those days. Since the railroad pays a per diem, they wouldn't want a car just sitting there, but a New Haven owned box car could. Otherwise they probably staged the load in the freight house the first day, and loaded it the second day once the empty was spotted.

Freight House Traffic

I'm a bit away from having the freight house operational, as I haven't actually built the Whiting Street Yard yet. But as I was going through some paperwork I realized that I have everything I need to set up the freight house properly.

In the Freight Train and Package Car Schedules, there is a section in the back for Arranged Package Cars. This section tells you exactly what cars are inbound, and what is outbound at the freight house, including what train picks them up.

For example, for New Britain there are cars for the following destinations in September 1947:

Picked up on ANE-1

• Chicago via the PRR
• Philadelphia Transfer via PRR
• Pittsburgh 11th St. via PRR

Picked up by AO-5 (All Tue-Thu-Sat except Waterbury which is daily)

• Cincinnati via L&H-CNJ-RDG-WMD-B&O
• East St. Louis via NYC (OA-5 to Bridgeport then EI-2 to State Line)
• Hornell Transfer via ERIE
• Scranton via L&H-DL&W
• Utica via NYC (OA-5 to Bridgeport then EI-2 to State Line)
• Waterbury

Picked up by YN-1

• St. Albans via CV (YN-1 to Cedar Hill then NM-4 to New London) (Tue-Thu-Sat)
• Cedar Hill Transfer 

Picked up by HDX-5 (Tue-Thu-Sat)

• Middletown, CT - the car is from Harlem River, transferred via HDX-5 to Hartford, then HDX-7 (the Valley Local) to Middletown. So I could actually coordinate this with Chris for his sessions if we wanted to.

Inbound cars are from:
Cedar Hill Transfer on NY-2
Maybrook on OA-2 (Tue-Thu-Sat only)
New York (Harlem Sta.) on NY-2

So I'll need 3 unloading spots and 12 loading spots at the freight house, which always for the same destinations. Cincinnati, E. St. Louis, Hornell Transfer, Scranton, Utica, St. Albans, and Middletown be at the rear of the tracks, because they are pulled only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Because the freight house is double-tracked and they would use bridge plates to access all of the cars, the house tracks will need to accommodate 8 cars each. This is perfect to know right now because I'm working on the layout of the yard.

Note that it's possible to have more volume than one car per destination or origination, the crew would just need to switch out cars when there is a surplus. I doubt there will be a surplus for the cars pulled only 3 times a week, because they would be daily jobs if the traffic warranted.

This information is also helpful when I get around to creating waybills for the through freights, because I have the information for all of the freight houses that are feeding those freights.

But wait! There's more!
As a bonus, here's the information for Middletown, CT which Chris will need for his layout:

No outbound destinations are arranged. Inbound traffic is from New Britain as noted (which would arrive the next day, or Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), and Cedar Hill Transfer daily (on the Airline local). All of the other freight houses on the Valley or Air Line aren't listed.

LCL by Truck
This doesn't mean that the freight house or bulk tracks don't ship out. Just that there aren't arranged destinations. So if an industry not served by the railroad needed to ship out, they would have to have the freight agent order a car. However, unless the load will nearly fill the car, it wouldn't be terribly cost effective. Instead, it would go via truck service (which is in the following section in the schedules) to a centralized freight house to be loaded in that direction.

• From New Britain that would be truck route A-11 to Hartford.
• From Cromwell, Middletown and Portland, A-6 to Hartford.
• Wethersfield to Cromwell is A-4 to Hartford. Middletown to Amston and Colchester would be N-1 to New Haven
• The rest of the Air Line and the lower Valley, N-13 to New Haven.
• Deep River to Saybrook would be trucked to New London on route M-1. 

These trucking routes also brought in LCL to the same freight houses that weren't served directly by arranged freight service.

These smaller LCL loads that are handled by truck would be added to the trains that have arranged routes where possible, including those that would then be transferred to truck.

"Peddler Cars"
The other option is for an industry that has several small loads to multiple destinations. As long as they can fill the car enough to make it economical, the industry would ship from the freight house via a single car to multiple destinations. I have some O&W freight house that shows that this was a regular approach for several of the industries there.

Switch Hardware

So here's a little more on the switch hardware, what I know and what I don't.

It started with this photo by Jim Karl, in August 1949. 

One of the things that jumped out at me, pretty much from the beginning, is the track and switch hardware, and the trackwork itself. Part of this probably has to do with how much track, and how few trains you see nowadays railfanning. But it's also in the forefront of photos like this, just as model trackwork often is in layout photos.

Later on, we came across this slide from moments earlier.

What's front and center is the switch hardware for two crossovers.

We can clearly see the small signal box (with the rounded cover) in front of the rear switch stand, along with the junction box where the signal line goes underground. On the front ties is the rodding that uses a crank and a connecting rod that is as large as the connecting rod from the switch stand itself. When you zoom in on the first picture (I need a better scan, but you can see it on the original), there is a small curved metal connection at a right angle at the end of the point closest to the signal box. This is where that connecting rod is attached to the points, and is much smaller than the connecting rod from the switch stand and the rod that runs along the tracks. Just to the right of the switch stands, on the adjacent track, is a small cylinder with wires apparently welded to the tracks. Part of a signal circuit? The crossing gates at this time were still controlled manually so it couldn't have been for those.

The following picture shows the rodding coming from a signal box on another switch at an unknown location on the New Haven. It's much smaller, and you can also see the strap steel brace that keeps the two ties in alignment (this is also visible on the first picture, next to the signal box that is on the left side of the tracks since the switch rodding is taking up too much space on the right side.

I will also note that the rodding that runs alongside the track is only on the crossover that connects the Berlin Line to the Highland Line. None of the other crossovers have them. At this point I'm not entirely sure what they are for, but I do expect that I can model their appearance.

Although Alexander Models has a signal box, it's the wrong one. Details West has a switch stand set that has the signal box (SS-914, although I think SS-915 also has the details). For the switch stands themselves, the Rapido ones are a no-brainer for me because they were modeled after the New Haven switch stands, starting with the tall stand that's in Bill Schneider's front yard.

For the point rodding, the British modelers seem to have an edge. Here's a great page with more detail. Here's another using Model Signal Engineering parts. Here's an excellent post about using the Wills (Peco) rodding.

For those who enjoy fiddling, here's an installation in 4mm (slightly larger than HO at 3.5mm) with functioning rodding. It doesn't actually throw the turnout, but moves when the points are moved, which is the approach I'll take if I decide to make it "operational." Check out the video at the bottom of his page.

You can find the brass etched details at Brassmasters and the Wills (Peco) point rodding kit is a popular non-working plastic option, available at Model Railways Direct or via Walthers. There is also an extension kit.

C&L Finescale has working point rodding for 7mm (O) scale.

For other track details, I've been using a mix of parts from the Microengineering turnouts themselves, joint bars from Precision Design Company and Proto87 Stores.

I have the Proto87 stores tieplates and spikes as well, for scenic elements. You'll want to click on this to see a larger version to find them...