San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

Some good news for the preservation of whatever remains of the Mount Lowe Railway. According to this U. S. Forest Service post,

“On Oct. 10, 2014, President Barack Obama designated 346,177 acres of existing federal lands as the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, the eighth national monument under Forest Service management.” And in particular, “The monument holds evidence of more than 8,000 years of human history, including more than 600 archeological sites, three of which are on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as ruins of old cabins and the Mount Lowe Railway.”

EVRR: N scale beginnings

I’m going to build a 'sort of' replica of E. L. Moore’s Elizabeth Valley Railroad Road in N scale over the winter. At a leisurely pace of course :-) Hopefully it'll be a winter-long project.

[Some holes were drilled in the centre strut for wiring.]

I've been thinking about how to approach this project for awhile. The EVRR isn’t about simulating railroad business operations. In fact there’s very little about it that deals with any sort of business or industry. It’s leisurely. It’s laid-back. It’s mellow. The trains run just to run; to take passengers here and there; to see the sights; to go fishing. It’s a nostalgic look at a time past in America. It’s set around the turn of the 19^th century into the 20^th century. Before world wars and the great depression. Even before the automobile took over and airships seemed like the future of flight. But at the same time it’s not historically accurate. It’s not cynical, ironic, steam-punky or arch. There’s good natured ribbing. As a model railroad, it isn’t modular; it’s complete unto itself; it’s loop-based; it doesn’t model a specific prototype; it isn’t finescale, but it’s highly scratchbuilt.

[I had to screw the centre strut into the perimeter frame.]

On the other hand, I’m a hobbyist. A model builder. I’m not an archeologist or historian or archivist or restorer. I don’t even play one on tv :-) I’ll be respecting the original EVRR, but this project won’t be a 100% replication. First of all, I don’t have complete information about it, just bits and pieces I’ve harvested from old magazines. I don’t think a complete published record exists. So, based on that alone, this project can’t claim to be a complete and fully accurate replication. Then there’s constraints I bring to the table. I can’t house or pay for a full-size HO-scale replica: hence going to N-scale. I have an interest in electric trolleys and trams, especially the Lowe Mountain railway that opened in 1893 – right in the EVRR timeframe. By his own admission, E. L. Moore wasn’t a trolley man. I am. So, just as Mr. Moore superimposed the Eagleroost & Koontree on the EVRR, I’m likely to superimpose a small, touristy electric railway in place of the narrow gauge E&K.

Which is all a very longwinded way of saying I drilled some holes for wiring in the centre strut and screwed it into the perimeter frame.

Ok, well, I let the frame sit in the house for a longtime without doing anything to it to see if it would warp as the humidity of the house changed in response to going from summer to winter conditions. It turns out the centre strut separated a little from the perimeter frame, so I added a pair of screws.

The next step will be to add some sort of sound deadening layer - either cork or foam - to the frame and transfer the trackplan to the surface. Once that's done I'll be able to determine what size of switches to buy. I plan to go with Peco switches, but there's various sizes, so some preparation is needed.

A Purity Flour Mill

I have a number of photos taken by my uncle, William Henry Wood, that have no notes indicating when or where they were taken. With these I've had to make some guesses based on where they appear in his collection, and from what little I know of his travels as an auditor with Purity Flour.

My guess about this Purity Flour facility is that it was located somewhere between Winnipeg and Calgary, and these photos were taken sometime between September 1943 and September 1944.

Needless to say, this is a huge operation.

Wheels on

I didn't get as much done over the last two weeks on the Anti Pesto van as I'd hoped to, but now that I'm back maybe this will move along a little faster. At least it's up on its wheels. That's always a milestone with a car model.

I'm not a big fan of chrome, although the quality of chroming on the parts is quite good.

I soaked the two trees of chromed parts in Super Clean. After an overnight dip, they were chrome free. My Super Clean bath is looking pretty dark in this photo since I've been using the same stuff for about a year to do the odd bit of chrome removal.

After stripping the chrome, the trees were washed with warm water and a mild dish soap to prep them for spray painting. One of the bumpers had a little bit of chrome still attached where it wasn't submerged in the bath. No problem, if it survives the spray paint I'll just chalk it up to being the only place where Wallace polished the bumpers :-)

The trees were sprayed with Krylon Nickel-Silver.

The wheels were sprayed with Krylon White, and when dry, the Nickel-Silver hub caps were glued in place.

The chassis was painted with flat black and once the various parts were glued in place, loose washes of muddy and rusty coloured painted were slopped on. It's a very simple build and the steel axles allow the wheels to turn so kids can push it along. It's more of a fancy toy than a 'model', but it's fun to build and I'm impressed with the quality of the parts: they're crisp and well moulded. And no, the wheels aren't on crooked as the photo suggests. I held the camera too close and the perspective is distorted.

And this instalment wouldn't be complete without a gratuitous veg photo. 

Hastings Ontario tool shed, 1975

This tool shed - complete with a stub of track for a speeder - was located somewhere nearby the Hastings station whose photo I posted last week. I likely took these pictures on the same day within minutes of each other even though the less than perfect condition of this photo might not make it seem that way. The image correction software I have on hand couldn't fix the colours in this badly faded photo without distorting it too much, so I left it more-or-less as is so the basic shape and some details can be seen. That black thingie on the left is the camera's strap. There was no image preview on the Instamatic, so it's preserved for posterity :-)