N Scale Layout at Gilbert's Hobbies in Gettysburg, PA

Hanging out at Tommy Gilbert's Hobby Shop, 346 East Water Street, in Gettysburg, PA is a lot of fun - and it can be an education, too.  Some of the most knowledgeable modelers in south central Pennsylvania come to share their ideas and talk about their love of railroads.

Their passion often evolves into very interesting debates about the history of railroads and the technical details of modeling.  For example, "What color was Pennsylvania Railroad boxcar red on new cars in the 1920s".  That's important if you model that era.  The consensus was that a new boxcar would have been darker than the boxcar red colors offered by most model paint manufacturers.  It seems that a few drops of tuscan red are needed to create the darker color used by the PRR.  Of course, that color blending isn't necessary if you model a ten year old car in the 1930s that has been significantly sun-faded.

These discussion forums at Tommy Gilbert's are a lot more fun when they are live - and not just on a bulletin board on the web.  You get to meet the real people behind the modeling - including some of those authors whose bylines are found in model magazines and books.

Tommy has a couple of layouts in the shop.  One of them that came in about a month ago is for sale.  It is an N-Scale layout that has a good running start and could be finished into a nice layout.  So, there's lots of room for modeling fun when someone buys the layout.  But, in the meantime, the layout is set up for operation at Tommy's and people can run N-Scale trains through the mountains and around a town and yards.  Here are some photos.

There is a good start on the town with lots of opportunity for adding more.

This sure looks a lot like Colorado.

A Rio Grand waits for the Wabash freight to pass.

There are some industries - and even a Burger King.

Twin tunnels go through a huge mountain.

This shows the depth of the flatland area with the town in the distance.

A Wabash freight pulls out of the yards in the early morning light.

Remember - this layout is for sale.  Hurry on in to see it - and go ahead and ask if you can run it.

Blackstone Models New C-70 D&RG Consolidation

Yesterday, I got the phone call from Tommy Gilbert of Gilbert's Hobbies - http://www.gettysburghobbies.com - that the Blackstone Models D&RG C-70 Consolidation came in. I have been waiting for this model since it was announced.

The version that Blackstone produced is a model of a WWI era narrow gauge locomotive of the type that dominated Colorado narrow gauge from the 1880s until well into the twentieth century. The 2-8-0 locomotive hustled freight and passenger trains out of Salida, Colorado in all directions, including the Monarch Branch, which is the center point of the model railroad that I am building.

When I came in the shop, Tommy had it ready for me. He's changing the configuration of the shop, so his narrow gauge test track is being moved. But, that's okay. Blackstone packs in the locomotive so well that once it is out of the box, it's easier for it to stay out.

I picked out some Polly Scale Paints, a new palette knife, some styrene strips and a Woodland Scenics styrofoam block and I was ready to take a much needed venture into model railroad land at my home - even if only for a little while. 

Unpacking the locomotive carefully, I set it up on some BK Enterprises' ties that I had glued down, but hadn't gotten a chance to ballast and lay rails on. You can see the scratch built trestle to the right of the locomotive starting to come to life. Behind the C-70, the tiny town of Garfield, Colorado is going through an experimental arrangement. On the left is an auxiliary building from the Grandt Line 10 Stamp Mill kit - East Terrible Mill and Mining, customized to be a blacksmith's shop. To the right is the Campbell Scale Models Bunk House "B" which should be on everyone's HO layout.

Here are views of D&RG 401 and D&RGW 347, to give a comparison of the C-70 to the previously released C-19. In the 1920s, there were some phases of reorganization, rebuilding and reclassification. The C-70s became classified C-19 and were renumbered in the process. So, these two photo's represent two sequential eras. It is quite likely that in the mid-1920s, one could see mixed paint schemes as the Denver and Rio Grande was reorganized into the Denver and Rio Grande Western.

I am very pleased with the level of detail on the 401. I have a Westside 1903 K-27 that Tommy will be painting for me. We talked about what scheme that the 1903 K-27 Mikado (2-8-2) should have. Should it match the 401?

There has been a great deal of discussion on the internet about what color that boiler jackets were during this era. There are no color photographs of what the early twentieth century locomotives looked like on the Denver and Rio Grande. So, most discussion centers on a few lines of references in shop instructions and letters from the early twentieth century. Tommy and I think that the boiler jacket would have been a lighter color - maybe green or greenish blue. That assumption comes from the use of Russian Iron.

Russian Iron was imported from Russia and was a high-quality iron that surpassed American technology at the time. American iron before 1900 had varying degrees of quality. But, the Russians had developed a special sheet iron that worked well on boiler jackets. The color was probably lighter than black. Tommy believes that the color was a little lighter than the Pennsylvania Railroad Brunswick Green.

In a posting on UtahRails, the author talks about "Dark Green Locomotive Enamel" that could have been used as late as 1940 to paint D&RGW boilers. This posting is interesting as it gives a lot of detail about the possible green coloring of Rio Grande boiler jackets.

It makes me wonder if the 401 should have a dark green boiler jacket, also. Blackstone Models is located in Durango, Colorado. Since they are at one of the centers of the narrow gauge universe, I have to give them a degree of trust for their color choice for the 401.

But, I think Tommy will be putting a dark green color on the boiler jacket of the 1903 K-27, which will look good - and has a good chance of being very accurate. After the weathering is applied, it should be a star model. Tommy Gilbert is one of the best professional model railroad painters in America.

If you want to read a detailed discussion of sheet iron - and a detailed history of the iron industry in these United States, I highly recommend Robert B. Gordon's book, "American Iron 1607-1900". For anyone interested in the iron side of the railroad industry, this is a fundamental book. It's part of the Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology series.

Patch Town Days at Eckley Miners' Village

PATCH TOWN DAYS

Saturday & Sunday - 

June 15 & 16

10am - 5pm both days

Eckley Miners' Village should have been a ghost town in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, but a series of miracles happened.

Movie Town

In the late 1960s, Paramount Pictures thought this would be a great location to film "The Molly Maquires" starring Sean Connery, Richard Harris and Samantha Eggar.

Eckley had hardly changed since the mid-1800s. The buildings represented a typical "company town" of the Anthracite Mining region of Pennsylvania. It looked the part that was needed for the movie's era and locale, where families really lived.

With an 11 million dollar budget, Paramount was able to restore Eckley, Pennsylvania, including moving the electric wiring underground and pulling off post 1870s features, such as TV antennas.

Paramount constructed a large coal breaker near the middle of the town to provide a background that established the town's mining status.  They also constructed a series of mining cars. They are four-wheeled cars with link and pin couplers and hand brakes. Many of these cars still exist, though some of them are badly deteriorated.

Preservation

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission took this treasure town and preserved it by turning it into a large living history mining museum. Creative financing has helped to preserve this wonderful town. Living historians - and other residents - can actually live here by paying rent and agreeing to a strict set of rules that preserves the historical character of the village. The cars that you see on the streets are antiques. The facades present a company town appearance.

An Annual Event

Patch Town Days are held annually on the third weekend in June. In 2013, the event will be on the 15th and 16th of June.

Kent Courtney Live

Kent Courtney will be making personal appearances with performances of historical music on both days of the event. He will be singing a mix of union organizing songs, railroad songs, mining songs and Irish songs.

His stories will include the struggles that lead to the formation of the United Mine Workers - including some interesting facts about the fabrication of events surrounding the Molly Maguires. In his research, he has discovered a connection between the mine owners' persecution of their own workers in Pennsylvania and the mine owners in Colorado. Their tactics - and the pawns of the mine owners - were the same.

Living Historians

There are a lot of things to do during Patch Town Days at Eckley Miners' Village. Many different occupations are represented by knowledgeable actors who portray the lifestyles of people in the anthracite patch in the 1800s and early 1900s.

You can watch girls washing clothes and see food being cooked over a campfire. There's a policeman, fancy gentlemen, ladies and many mine workers are portrayed.  Eckley Miners' Village truly comes to life.

Blacksmithing

Two working blacksmiths will provide continuing demonstrations at the Blacksmith shop where visitors can watch the fabrication of iron tools in a forge typical of the type used in mining areas. Specialized tools were required to drill holes for blasting in the mines with the hand-powered drilling methods used to create the holes where dynamite would be inserted to open up coal seams.

Single and Double Jacking


Small hand drills looked like chisels when driven and hammered by one person - single jacking.  Double jacking drills were longer, being used by a two person team.  In double jacking one person would hold a bit and twist it as another used a large sledge-like hammer to create the holes for the dynamite.  Both of these styles of bits wore out quickly while being hammered into the coal and rock. So, the blacksmiths were constantly busy sharpening bits and creating new ones.

Railroads

Without the railroads, the coal business could not have developed the industry associated with the nearly smokeless anthracite. In the 1870s, the four-wheeled train cars used to haul coal were called "jimmies". These short cars are represented by the left-over props from Paramount's movie, "The Molly Maquires".

Modeling the Miners' Village

There are many details to be found in this living history village that offer model railroaders a chance to look at an earlier period's lifestyle that can be translated into accurate scenes on a train layout.  The Molly Maguires was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, so the source for this look has won critical acclaim. It's always good to look for "best examples" when choosing prototype scenery.