78 Miles to Yosemite

Author: jkdummler

Achievable Layouts – The Watsonville Branch (Shelf)

Posted on by jkdummler
A Southern Pacific Mogul like this one would be perfect motive power for either version of the Watsonville Branch in O scale.

So, the idea of fully removing his HO scale layout has been a roadblock for my friend and his dreams of modeling the area around Watsonville, CA in O scale.  However, a shelf in his layout space that was originally intended to be used as a second deck to the layout that never really fully materialized is available and continuing to draw inspiration from the same location, I sketched out a plan to fit that space.

The plan was roughly drawn, and then refined a bit.  It’s by no means as “whole” as the previous plan, but still offers some interesting challenges to a crew working at this location.

The beginnings of a shelf layout in O scale

The main focus here is the moving of reefers into and out of packing houses along with other equipment that would serve those, like boxcars full of crates, gondolas of scrap lumber, possibly inbound ice to the ice house and reefers for icing. There is room for another small industry to the lower-right hand side (near the front edge of the shelf) possibly a team track, and a larger industry on a switchback near the back.  As I drew this, I envisioned a town along a branch that has a train coming in, working, moving left to right and leaving or interchanging with another railroad on the right hand side where additional cars could come from or go to connect to the outside world.

Where things stand as of this writing. This is drawn with Atlas O scale (Ow5) track components)

Once he saw this plan, Bill excitedly named a couple of changes.  The large industry with the switchback was deemed to be a good location for yet more packing houses, and the track I had envisioned as an interchange was deemed to be perfect as a lead to a not-modeled sugar beet processor.  

If I was to continue working on this plan, it would certainly get some adjusting to the tracks for Sunkist.  The curves there are wonky and I was having trouble with the CAD to straighten them out.  A few other adjustments could be made, but this plan has a good deal of operation potential in a single town, and could easily keep a crew of two or three people busy for an evening.

-Jeremy

Achievable Layout Plan – The Watsonville Branch

Posted on by jkdummler

How big is your layout?  Do you have a monster empire?  Probably not.  Most folks, if they can manage it, probably are dreaming about building a layout in a spare bedroom, or for those truly lucky to live in a place where the weather allows, maybe a garage.  Not all of us have room for the basement empire that takes over vast expanses of space.  Some of us, like me, even live in spaces where the layouts must be portable and share space when in use with other functions of the house, meaning that they’re less than permanent, be it a temporary or long-term arrangement.

Trevor Marshall has a whole blog dedicated to what he terms “Achievable Layouts”.  I would encourage anyone interested in the concept to visit and read the posts there. http://themodelrailwayshow.com/LayoutDesign/  Trevor’s own Port Rowan layout in S scale is, in my opinion, a fantastic look at what can be done, and the kind of modeling that can be done, in a relatively small space.

From time to time I try and help friends with layout designs.  Within the last few months, I was chatting with one of my friends named Bill, (I have lots of friends named Bill suddenly these days which isn’t bad).  Bill has an HO scale layout but my switch to Proto48 last year made him think about tearing down his layout and making a scale change as well.  The first argument against doing so was that he’d have to rebuild his benchwork.  My statement to him was, send me your dimensions and let me see what I can draw in O scale for you.  He then said that the layout would have to be based on the area around Watsonville, CA, and I quickly found some resources for the area (being a fan of pre-depression modeling, the resources that I focused on are primarily 1920’s and earlier).  A few days later, I emerald him the track plan and information shared here. You can click on the photos and get larger versions of these.

The layout is designed for probably two crews of two and an agent who is acting as the industry managers and statin agent / dispatcher.  If operated at scale speeds and time for pumping air into brakes, filling out paperwork, and making switching moves, this layout likely would take those two crews multiple hours to switch the industries.  Movers would include things like getting reefers to the ice house, moving cars into and out of the packing houses, and some of the other industries along the way.  The plan is drawn for Ow5 using Atlas track components, and it includes s spot to park locomotives (likely a SP 2-6-0 and because my friend models slightly later than I do, some early diesel switchers).  

I think that sharing layout plans like this is important. I would consider this to be an “achievable layout” because it’s already known that a more complicated HO scale layout fits in the space, and that prior layout could provide what is essentially a quick-start by donating it’s existing benchwork to the new plan. 

Once I’d shared this plan with Bill, he informed me that he may or may not decide to exit HO, but above the existing HO scale layout, there is a shelf that could be used for an O scale switching layout.  I’ll share that plan in another post soon.

-Jeremy

The Ice House – Part 4

Posted on by jkdummler

I have made a couple of adjustments to plans for 2020 that will affect which projects that are started, and planned, so it’s important to document those changes and plans.

First, I’m not changing what is being built first.  I still plan to work from the furthest West on the YV and head to the East.  That plan I’ve been comfortable with for a long time, and it makes the most sense to me, starting with where the railroad connects to the outside world.  That means the first structure is still the Merced Ice & Cold Storage facility.  I had hoped to be well into building that by this point, but illness intervened and I was out of commission for almost two months and am just now getting the energy back to return to modeling work.  

What is changing is the positioning of the facility on the layout.  It’s been bothering me that in my plan the Ice House was directly across from the YV Merced station and freight house.  I understand compression for modeling, but I’m also coming to grips still with planning for Proto48, and when it feels wrong, it’s wrong, and if I’m unhappy with things, I’ll always be unhappy and I do this kind of thing to have fun and enjoy the results, so a change is necessary.

Looking at the maps of the YV in Merced and the area around the SP interchange and the Ice House (my friend Jack Burgess has drawn fantastic maps of the area that can be found here: http://yosemitevalleyrr.com/prototype/tracing  or the maps are also in his book, “Trains to Yosemite” on pages 96 and 97) the general track arrangement shows what I have roughly redrawn roughly here.

The YV / SP interchange is slightly North of the SP station.  The interchange track leads to a YV track that somewhat parallels the SP North/South direction.  To the North, the YV track curves to the East and enters the main yard facilities.  To the South, the YV line takes a switch that again parallels the SP, and then there is a second switch that diverts to the East and reaches the Ice House.

I pondered what the track between the Ice House and the SP station was for.  Not being able to sort that out myself, I asked Jack.  At one time that track was used for YV passengers to board trains headed for the National Park, but the spur was out of service and removed by 1935.  

I made the decision to move the Ice House from across the tracks from the YV station to a more prototypical location, and also to create more of the right location for the SP Interchange.  I am still going to keep the same slim 18” deep by 6’ layout section for the interchange area, which means I’ll have to compromise and locate the ice House on the wrong side of its spur.  That compromise is less offensive to me than having it directly opposite from the YV station, and is just part of layout planning and space considerations when compressing real world locations to the confines of benchwork.

I will be omitting the unused passenger track and it’s connection to the YV line.  It’s fortunate for me that it would mostly have been unused in 1928 so I feel justified in compressing it out to fit the space.  If it had been in regular use, I would have wanted to include it on the layout.

Here is the track plan for the Ice House and Interchange section.  This plan feels right to me.  When it’s right, put it on paper, stop working on replanning that, and move to the next item.

With the plan now ready, what you’re looking at in this track plan is my layout construction goal for 2020.  Finish the interchange and the Ice House.  I still plan to build the freight equipment associated with the ice and cold storage going on here, and now that I’m feeling better and have resolved my planning problem and visual problem with location for things, it’s time to get building.

I did learn an important lesson from this exercise.  Put the things on the layout where they belong as close to the prototype as possible and it will feel right.  Overly compressing things, especially in Proto48, does not feel right.  That lesson will help when it comes to the next steps.

-Jeremy

Thinking Things Out

Posted on by jkdummler

Tony Koester’s recent first installment in Model Railroader about his Proto48 layout has inspired some interesting review and rethinking of my layout plans.  I find this kind of thing to be important in the Fall and Winter allowing me to improve my plans for “construction season” when the weather improves.

In March, I made the decision to change scale because of my vision.  I hope you can tell from what I have been building how much I’ve enjoyed that change.  Now, closing in on a year later, with the experience of building the section of layout that I worked on last summer under my belt, I’m evaluating and making sure that my plans are solid and that I’ll be able to enjoy this layout plan for years to come.

My plans last summer set the layout height at 56” high.  That’s roughly shoulder height for me, and puts the trains right at eye level when viewing them.  That’s not uncommon in model railroading these days.  This height implies that the operator or viewer of the layout needs to be standing, and likely needs to be about my height (roughly in the 5’6-5’8” range) to be comfortable viewing the layout.  Not really a terrible issue, but I’ll come to why I’m rethinking this.

Last summer I designed a leg system that provided strength, light weight, and stability.  The catch was I hadn’t sorted completely out how to get the layout section onto the legs without assistance.  Setting up without the help of our oldest son was difficult to impossible.  It brought back not so fond memories of the rolling layout section of the N&W I had built the summer before that required 4 people to get upright, and even then, needed some adjusting.  On a good note, the triangle formed when the legs were attached provided stability.

As the winter set in here (and it was winter early, we barely had a fall), I moved the layout section into the house and into the closet where the layout will live.  Moving the layout section alines not easy.  The 3/4” plywood of the supports and deck mean that instead of being the sturdy and light weight layout I had hoped to be creating, I find that I’ve created a sturdy, but heavy layout section.  The overall weight for 6’ by 18” of this section is close to 70 lbs.  Maneuvering that by myself is not super easy as the section can be awkward (it’s bigger than I am).  

I had figured out late in the summer that the section of layout was heavy as I was moving it around the garage for painting and testing the mud.  To address that, I ordered a layout section of the same rough dimensions from Model Railway Solutions Ltd in England.  (https://modelrailwaysolutions.co.uk).  The layout section is much lighter, and I’m looking forward to test-building this section soon.  It arrived just as my preparations for RPM were really ramping up and I didn’t get a chance to do the construction before that event.  

This brings me to the whole reason I’m thinking about these things.  Tony Koester’s article about his P48 layout includes some really interesting tidbits of information .  He discusses how he planned to build his layout to be light, which will be discussed in a future article (looks like the MR that arrives at the end of December) and built out of foam and aluminum channel.  That would create a very light weight layout section indeed.  Those sections would be manageable by one person for sure.  Additionally, near the end of the article, there is some discussion about layout height.  Tony had planned to make pieces of PVC to increase the layout height because his plan was to display it on folding tables at train shows and events that he attends, and getting the layout higher was, he thought desirable.  Then he had an experience with a differently able individual who appreciated the fact that the PVC had not been made and the layout was at table height.

Funny how things percolate up at opportune times.  We have recently been discussing in our house the fact that standing for long periods is not desirable for some ongoing medical issues, and that the ability to sit next to a layout is something that might be an improvement, either in a rolling task chair or on a rolling stool.  That would make it easier to have longer operating sessions without causing pain and discomfort.  It also would be good for displaying a layout at RPM’s and elsewhere.  In reality, displaying this layout at those kinds of venues is going to be important. 

About the same time, I was moving some modeling books around and chanced again on Lance Mindheim’s “How To Build A Switching Layout”.  In the opening chapters there is a discussion about using hollow core doors as the benchwork for smaller layouts.  This got me thinking about my plans and materials.

There is a lot swirling above, so let me try and coalesce a coherent line of thinking from that.

  1. My testbed layout section is perfect for using as a photography or static display, but the weight of the construction, the difficulty in moving it and setting it up with one person, makes it less desireable to me because my layout is going to nave to be able to move often and be set up by one person most of the time.
  2. My chosen layout height of 56” from the ground, while providing excellent viewing for the equipment, does not provide comfort for some operators and viewers who may need to sit through an operating session due to joint or back issues.
  3. Resolving the height issue and the setup issue is easily accomplished if folding tables are used to set the layout on, which also solves one person setup issue.
  4. Resolving the weight issue can be done by using lighter, imported, model railroad “baseboards” or by using hollow core door benchwork.

The fact that I’m likely to have to move this layout around often, take it to train shows and set it up, and do that with little assistance is weighing heavily on me at the moment.  Getting that sorted out this winter will make achieving progress in layout building come Spring and better weather much easier and faster.

-Jeremy

Patience Pays Off

Posted on by jkdummler

Hunting for materials and models is part of the fun of prototype modeling.  While we’re now entering the early winter “holiday dead zone” for work in my workshop as family and other events surrounding the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year holidays transpire and take time and energy, I am using this time to hunt for and plan for projects that will start once the Christmas tree retreats to storage again and the cold winter sets in and I once again begin construction projects.

One of the most exciting finds from recent hunting includes a kit I have been seeking since last March.  A Mullet River Model Works kit for Yosemite Valley Railroad caboose 15 was recently put up for auction and I was fortunate enough to be able to acquire the kit.  This will get slotted in early next year for construction.  It’s definitely time to have a YV piece of O scale equipment built.

My ongoing project to create car routings for industries on the layout and beyond the layout on the YV has lead me to some choice points in my hunting for kits and rolling stock in general.  I’ve been collecting information about kits that have been made in O scale that would be appropriate for the pre-depression era modeler.  My rough starting list will be a future post here.  I’m working through identifying cars that would be appropriate for me to hunt for, as the holidays usually bring listings online for cars, and the March Meet in Lombard, IL, will be taking place in the next few months.  Knowing what I’m looking for there will be important.

Hunting for a San Juan Car Co kit of this WP car is higher on my list than a SOO line saw tooth boxcar, even though the SOO car is a fantastic model, making choices in rolling stock that are plausible and justifiable in my modeling date and location is important to me.

The rest of the projects are waiting for parts.  I’m hunting for brick to use for the Merced Ice & Cold Storage project, brake wheels and grab iron bolt castings for car projects, and other details are in the process of being sourced, so come January (or maybe later this month) I’ll be ready to get going on the ongoing projects.  The punch list of things I want to do is long.  I’ll be looking forward to sharing projects with you as I get progress made.

In the mean time, there is an exciting (to me) new series starting in Model Railroader magazine with the January, 2020 issue.  Tony Koester’s P48 layout is being featured as the new MR Project Layout for the year.  It’s going to be really interesting to read these articles.  If you read MR, or if you might think about changing scales, or model in P48 or O scale, these will be worth reading.

-Jeremy

Playing With Operation Planning – Initial Thoughts

Posted on by jkdummler

Size of freight car fleets gets quite a lot of attention from people.  Some railroads require more than others, numbering into the thousands of cars sometimes depending on the size.  One of the things I really wanted to do when I converted to P48 from HO in the earlier part of the year was to shrink the number of cars that I need to build from about 200-250 to what I’ve quoted at various times as a guess of about 40 or 50” cars.  To finally start to figure out if my guess numbers were realistic, I thought it was time to start doing some operation planning.

As elsewhere I’m working on the Merced Ice & Cold Storage along with cars to service that industry on the layout, that made the logical place to start working.  I created a spreadsheet version of an On-Line Industry Planning form that Model Railroader Video Plus published a few years ago on their website when they did a series on operating their expanded Milwaukee Road Beer Line.  I started sorting out what would come into the ice house, and what would go out, and then realized that the answer was somewhat different than I was assuming.

The size of the Merced Ice & Cold Storage facility is rather limiting.  I could create a scenario where fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy are all coming into the facility for distribution in Merced and for reloading for transit up the Yosemite Valley to points along the line but especially to El Portal for the hotel there and for use in the National Park.  Additionally the consumers ice would be shipped in other reefers.  Sounds fantastic, right?

Then I look at the size of the building.  The cold storage portion of the facility does not warrant all that traffic.  Fruits, vegetables, meats if they’re coming in, and all those other things have to be almost LCL service.  California having lots of agriculture and farming, I’m guessing that quite a lot of what I could send to the ice house didn’t go there.  

So, I decided to approach operational planning somewhat differently.  I decided that I would approach setting up operating by determine a “where” cars were on the layout, and a destination for those cars.  What this gave me was a chance to envision the moves, and to retain the idea that a car may only be moved by a train crew once, (but a second crew might move a car again if the required number of hours had passed between spotting and pulling moves for the car to unload.  I’ll demonstrate this in a moment.

What I wound up with is a car routing plan that sometimes leaves the facility empty, sometimes leaves it full, sometimes leaves the door to the ice storage occupied and sometimes leaves the cold storage and other goods door occupied.  The plan I created covers a 10 session cycle, meaning that even if I operated weekly, it would be more than two months before a repeat routing happened.

To make things interesting, I created one day where a car isn’t left at the ice house.  The directions for that day will include to spot a loaded reefer at the facility, which should be done early by the Merced crew.  Later in the day, as the El Portal Local arrives and switches their train, they’ll check the clock, and if 6 hours have passed between spotting and the current time, they’ll be instructed to pull the empty car and return it to the SP.  

With this idea now, I can work along through other industries in Merced, Merced Falls, and other points on the YV, to determine car routings.  Some industries might get the same 10 session cycle, but I could start them a different points in the cycle, so the ice house is on cycle 1, while the Freight House is on cycle 5 and the house track is on cycle 6.  This way I can vary the traffic.  The benefit here, too, is that I can determine if my construction plans for rolling stock are on-par with my needs, or if I should be adjusting my plans for rolling stock.

I’m also avoiding using car cards or other routing software.  When filling out the waybills for operating, I’ll be able to have some fun with what I fill in as the items shipped, and I get to find out where things were being shipped from in 1928, which will also be great fun to research and learn about.

-Jeremy

The Ice House – Part 3

Posted on by jkdummler

In part 2 of this series, I said it was now time to get building.  So, let’s get a start!

My first step with the Merced Ice & Cold Storage facility was to determine the footprint.  Using the foam core mockup, I placed it on the drawing of the layout track plan, and adjusted it so that a freight car can just peek out from the side, like in the photo snippet seen in part 2.  Then I marked points on the drawing, and drew in the footprint of the main building.  If you look back to part 1, you’ll see that this rear portion of the facility is ice storage.  However, also looking at my rendition of the plant, we see that the cold storage space is attached to the ice storage, and to the loading platform, but that section of the facility will make the rear of the building larger than the drawing I have, by about a third.

I then drew in what I think is a representative size tor the cold storage area of the facility, and then connected the sections to the edge of the layout.

The overall drawing then gives me an idea of how much styrene I need to order, and logically, I think there would be a door into the ice storage and a separate door into the cold storage, so I need to sort out two sets of dock doors.

I don’t think the facility needs windows on the rear of the building.  The one photo of the side of the building that I know of shows what might be faux window openings on the sides of the building for aesthetic purposes, but the rear wouldn’t likely even have those.  This is the “all business” side, and just plain brick is what I would imagine we would see.  

With graph paper, I now started drawing the building sections.  The main section of the building as taken from the drawings by Jack Burgess works out to 16 1/8” long on paper.  The front of the building has some ornamental brickwork at the top of the walls, but being the back of the building, facing the company property, I decided to dispense with that ornamentation on this side and save the company some money during construction.  The height of the building I set at 7”.  Essentially, my giant graph paper had a big rectangle on it that needed additional details.

I then looked at the photos of the building, and it appears to have a foundation sill of formed concrete that the brickwork is standing on.  This makes some sense to me as the ice storage room is noted in the Sanborn drawings as having a concrete floor.  The drawings show a curb about 2’ hight at the front.  I thought about wrapping that to the rear, but that left me with a problem in look, and a problem for, I assume, the people constructing the original building as well.

Standing next to a freight car, the door height winds up being about 4’ from the ground.  Most loading docks and platforms are aiming to be right about that same height to roll on and roll off.  If anything, the dock can be slitty lower than the door, but not half the height.  I also figured that the doors into the facility would not be super high, so I wanted to set the door sills at about 3’.

That kind of setting would put the building sill, and the dock, somewhat out of wack.  I decided to set the sill at 3’ tall on the rear of the building, as it will form a lip for the brick and a location to rest the loading platform.  This may be a compromise for building, but I have no drawings or photos of the back of the building, and I’m comfortable with the decision as it’s likely to be unseen under the platform.

With that decided, I then located an opening for a double door, using the dimensions of a set of Tichy doors for the dimensions.  This still leaves the building very plain on the rear, but I highly doubt there would have been big windows into the ice storage room at the rear here, and photos of the building show this area had false windows that were bricked in along the public street.

The full size mockup of the building front at the top, and my drawings for the rear at the bottom.

 I then moved on and drew another rectangle, this one 5 1/2” wide and 6” high, to begin to flesh in the cold storage space for food products.  While this isn’t a huge space, and with doors that match the doors on the main ice building, it’s even a little smaller than one might think, judging from the Sanborm map drawings of the facility, the measurements work out to be about right.  I made the structure lower, 6” instead of 7”, as it’s what I imagine being an addition, added to keep food cold, and the buildings like this that I have seen usually are slightly smaller than the building they are attached to.  This will also provide some visual interest as the roofline will drop and change instead of having one giant brick rectangle on the layout.

From here, it was time to place a materials order for at least the core of the building.  I’ve ordered some black Evergreen styrene sheets, .080” thick, that will form the core of the structure.  When those arrive, it’ll be time to get cutting and gluing.

Next time we’ll look at the detail changes to a stock Red Caboose R-30-12-9 PFE reefer, and get the first car started.

-JD

The Ice House – Part 2

Posted on by jkdummler

In Part one of “The Ice House” we looked at some of the history associated with the small ice plant at N and 17th street in Merced, CA. In the early 1900’s.  

History in hand (and I’m still occasionally digging into some of the information about the plant and National Ice & Cold Storage), it’s time to look at what I can model of this important location on the YV, and the equipment to operate it on the layout.

I know of only two photos of the Merced Ice & Cold Storage plant.  One is a “corner on” shot, likely a company photo, taken of the front of the building, and a second front view, that shows more of the grounds of the facility.  Both photos are available in a PDF along with drawings of the two visible sides of the building from Jack Burgess on the information CD’s that can be purchased through his shop on yosemitevalleyrr.com.  Those photos are helpful, but do not inform on the rear of the building that faces the tracks…. Much.

A freight car peaks out from behind Merced Ice & Cold Storage.

One little snippet that informs what I should model is visible on the company photo of the rear of the building.  Just the very end of a freight car, poking out from the rear of the building, can be seen.  This car is nearly impossible to identify.  It could be a boxcar or a reefer, though no ice hatches appear to be open on the visible “B” end of the car.  With that said, it’s interesting to note that the car does not appear to be positioned to be iced.  As seen in my drawing that I included in Part 1, the facility has a platform around the rear of the building, but I don’t see any evidence of a high platform that would access the ice bunkers.

This fits with my belief that the facility is not prepared to ice any bunkers, but is simply a consumers ice facility, equipped to provide ice as the loaded commodity, in the car for shipping.  The size of the facility doesn’t much indicate that it would be receiving much ice either via “ICE SERVICE’ reefers that PFE was operating in the period.  I suppose that’s possible occasionally though.

On the layout, there really isn’t a huge amount of space for any industry, even though I believe this industry is important enough to include in the plan for Merced.  In Proto:48, the freight cars are the majority of the “scenery” on the layout, however, I do want as much of an indication of this shipper as possible.

In the plan, there is a spur that comes off the mainline, and serves the plant.  That spur is 32” long, with room for just about 3 of 40’ cars to be spotted on the siding.  The space for a structure and dock is somewhat limited by the “as drawn” configuration.  The space is really indicated to be a triangle shaped structure with the platform.  While there is room for just one car really at the platform, the original map indicates that there was an oil tank, and a coal pile, on the property as well.  Equipment for those commodities is something I’ll deal with later.  Right now the focus is the building and the ice and food related equipment.

I used the drawing from Jack and enlarged it to O scale, printed it, glued it to foamcoare, and cut it out to make a stand-up to see what fits.  This gives some idea of what size the structure will wind up being.

My plan for the construction of this first building is to combine a couple of tips I’ve seen recently on, and over the years, from Model Railroader Video Plus.  In one video on Perry Squire’s Shawmut line, he talks about painting the styrene he uses as the building core for his structures black.  I like that idea, but painting the structures cores black can be eliminated if I use black styrene as the core to build with.  The other series that I plan to do some emulation of is a recent one with Mrs. Renee Grosser.  She’s shown some excellent tips on structure building in O scale, including building the cores out of .080” styrene.  As the structure takes shape, we’ll see how some of these ideas and techniques work for me.

Now we come to the rolling stock, the freight cars that I plan to build to service the plant.  It seems reasonable to me to work on those at the same time I am working on the structure.  That way when the structure is done and ready for photographs, it has some appropriate rolling stock to be photographed with.  At the very least I’d like to make a dent in the cars.

My plan is to have a number of reefers that will come onto the YV, iced, and ready to be loaded with block ice to take up the railroad toward El Portal.  When the day comes and I build Merced Falls, it’ll be interesting to include the ice storage building that I noted in Part 1, so there will be a spot to send cars online there.  

To build this small fleet, I plan to backdate a pair of Red Caboose R-30-12-9 cars/kits to R-30-12 appearance (prior to rebuilding).  The most notable items will be the replacement of the brake details, the removal of one of the grabs on the left end of the car sides, and proper paint for 1928, more yellow than Daylight Orange in the body color.  These cars will then get Protcraft trucks and couplers.  The cars are plastic, so the changes should be relatively easy.  

To bring in fruits and vegetables to Merced, I can use the same R-30-12’s, or I can also add some ventilated boxcars.  I have a Mullet River ACL ventilated car that would be fun to deliver watermelons in for sale in Merced and for transport to the hotels at the National Park.  That car could be captured by the YV and sent to Merced Falls for loading of lumber.  I have a number of photos of ventilated cars being used for lumber hauling.  I might also use that ACL car for carrying live bees as I have seen in photos.  The short, 36’, car should be an interesting addition.

Two reefers likely won’t cut the fleet, though.  I have a Chooch R40-2 kit that I would like to build.  This is an older kit, and the resin has warped.  My plan is to try and rescue this car, as I have a number of other, older, Chooch kits to build.  I can’t really hurt it.  If I can rescue it, so much the better.  The R40-2’s were brand new in July of 1928, so one occasionally bringing fresh produce would be a good addition.

I will need to sort out at least one meat reefer as well.  There are several options, but I haven’t yet decided which direction to head there.

Ice wasn’t only carried by rail car into Merced. The facility there at N and 17th appears to have been servicing the local area with ice for refrigeration, and likely making some food deliveries too on occasion.

One of the photos of the plant shows some vehicles on the property, and I am going to try and replicate the delivery vehicle with another kit.

I believe his is a delivery vehicle for ice from the plant into Merced.

I believe that I can build something similar to the vehicle in the above photo by using a High Wheel delivery vehicle kit from Berkshire Valley Models.

This kit from Berkshire Valley Models should make a nice ice delivery vehicle at the model of the facility.

So, the construction list is:

  • Merced Ice & Cold Storage building
  • R-30-12 for PFE
  • R-30-12 for PFE
  • R-40-2 for PFE
  • Undecided Reefer kit
  • ACL Ventilated Boxcar
  • High wheel delivery truck

There we go, that’s what I’m aiming to build at a minimum.  It’s likely that there will eventually be a meat reefer and possibly some ATSF equipment as well down the road.

Now the fun starts.  It’s time to actually build something.

-Jeremy

The Ice House – Part 1

Posted on by jkdummler

With another RPM Chicagoland in the books it’s time to settle in for some winter projects.  The first snow hit the ground here on Halloween, 2019, so the cold is most certainly here.

With a myriad of projects to choose from, I’ve decided to build a couple of related things first this modeling-season, and tackle the first of the industries on the YV that one encounters when coming onto the railroad in Merced from the Southern Pacific, the ice and cold storage plant along with it’s associated rolling stock.

This is my redrawing of the basic Sunburn map from 1922. The facility has a powerhouse for providing the necessary power to make ice, a room for ice tanks, an ice storage room that is noted as having a concrete floor, a separate cold storage room, and a platform that wraps around the building. Other structures on site included an oil tank, likely for making the power, offices, tool sheds, and truck scales.

Located at N and 17th street in Merced, a small brick and block building (by the standards of most ice facilities) stood with access to both railroad service via the Yosemite Valley and the local area by road.  

I started researching this location as the idea of “ice facilities” is something that not many of us in our modern world with refrigerators and ice makers in our houses are aware of.  In the early 1900’s ice delivery was something people needed and little plants like the one in Merced were not uncommon across the country.  

The earliest map I have access to, a Sunburn map of Merced from 1922, calls this particular plant “Merced Ice & Cold Storage”.  Storing perishable foods at a plant like this makes sense as well.  Fresh produce and sometimes meats would need to be kept cold, and thus places where there was ice being made would be the logical place to keep those products.  

A later Sanborn map indicates that the name of the facility, same location, later map, is the “Fresno Consumers Ice”.  That peaked my curiosity, so I started digging into the history of ice shipping in California.  

One of the first things that comes up when looking for Fresno Consumers Ice is this link.  http://historicfresno.org/lrhr/003a.htm

The facility in question there is actually in Fresno, CA, so it’s not directly relevant, but the photos give some idea of the size, in color, of what these small ice plants looked like in the early 1900’s.  There is a tower for evaporation cooling, which matches with the few known photos of the plant in Merced.  The date of 1903 for the structure in Fresno makes it contemporary with the structure in Merced that I’d place around the construction of the YV, so right around 1907. (More digging to be done on exact dates is warranted).

Digging further, some documentation starts to come up.

http://historicfresno.org/lrhr/003a.htm

This is a nice state document from California that lists some of the Fresno Consumers Ice information, and confirms the location of the Fresno plant.  

Then we start finding Merced Ice & Cold Storage in this kind of document, a trade journal for ice companies.

https://books.google.com/books?id=f6A28fPBheUC&pg=RA4-PA54&lpg=RA4-PA54&dq=merced+ice+and+cold+storage+company&source=bl&ots=FHvWBwt2oV&sig=ACfU3U2ahA-Axfb6Uza6YOIZc1lKJnG-WA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxj5GBnoDkAhXLG80KHV4vCNgQ6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

This indicates that there is now a location at Merced Falls for storing ice.   The date is May, 1912.  I remembered that my friend, Jack Burgess, had noted that there was an ice storage house at El Portal in some of his notes, and shared this information with him.  The facility at Merced Falls is different than what he had in his notes, so more research again is needed on the point, but it establishes that ice as a commodity is being hauled up the YV to at least two locations, to supply consumers ice.

I kept digging, and started to find some information from the 1920’s, which is fascinating (to me).  In this issue of “Ice and Refrigeration Illustrated” I located an interesting connection.  

https://books.google.com/books?id=u24xAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA209&lpg=RA1-PA209&dq=j.t.+donahue+ice&source=bl&ots=fIrtDeUk9A&sig=ACfU3U0iS7OlXwknZZnewlieKO9PcXuHsQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQw-r3roDkAhX8B50JHVQNCzkQ6AEwAnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

On page 209, a listing for a gentleman associated with the ice association in California, and a company called “National Ice Co.”, listed with a San Francisco address, of the name J.T. Donahue popped up.  I knew I’d seen some information on Mr. Donahue before, so I went back to some previous material that I had ignored.

This information starts to bring things together in my mind.

https://books.google.com/books?id=FgJGAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA852&lpg=PA852&dq=merced+ice+and+cold+storage+fresno+consumers+ice&source=bl&ots=DsLZBoTliC&sig=ACfU3U14BFvZ2VSkZ49ZnHo0VVTcA17wnQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi73em94oDkAhVXZc0KHWnUADgQ6AEwBHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

On page 851 of Moodys Manual of Railroads and Corporate Securities, from 1922, near the bottom, the National Ice & Cold Storage Co of Cal(ifornia) is listed.  The document discusses how this company operates, and that they run a diversified business for storing different types of meats, vegetables, and fruits along with selling wholesale and retail ice.  The tie to Fresno Consumers Ice and Merced Ice & Cold Storage is on page 852.  The top paragraph is listing where the company has built or acquired ice making capability, and Merced is listed.  Just below the listing of ice making capacity, the page also lists the names of subsidiaries that the company does business through, and Fresno Consumers Ice is listed there.  On page 853, Mr Donohue’s name is listed as a Vice President of the company, and the company address is in San Francisco.

Coming full circle, the report of the California Railroad Commission, the very first link I shared above, shows the name “Merced Ice & Cold Storage” on page 812, and it lists Mr J.T. Donahue as the Secretary, with the same 22 Battery Street, San Francisco, California address as National ice & Cold Storage Company of California, and the same location and person as the contact, Mr. Donahue, as Fresno Consumers Ice.

So, in my head, I’ve now drawn a line.  The business in Merced that comes about in the early 1900’s is known as Merced Ice & Cold Storage Co.  This company, like Fresno Consumers Ice, is a small ice producing plant that makes product for delivery around Merced, and also is shipping ice via the Yosemite Valley Railroad to locations, at least in Merced Falls and El Portal, for consumer demand.  They are also storing various meats, vegetables, and fruits for consumers, likely coming in via the railroad.  At some point in the space between being established and the 1920’s, the plant becomes part of the holdings of National Ice & Cold Storage Company of California, which also operates the Fresno Consumers Ice facility in Fresno.  At a yet to be determined date, the plant’s name is rolled into the Fresno Consumers Ice subsidiary of National, and the plant becomes known for the insurance maps as Fresno Consumers Ice.  

In discussing all this information with Jack, I wanted to know if I was calling the location the right thing.  That’s at the heart of what I found myself driving at.  When making out paperwork, was I calling the facility the right name.  Funny enough, Jack’s recollection of what the actual YV men called this industry was “The Ice House”, no location name involved.  So, paperwork might list Merced Ice & Cold Storage or the National name, but when talking about it with crews, it’s just “the ice house”.

That’s it for today.  In Part 2, we’ll look at what I plan to model, and the equipment I plan to build to operate this one location.

-Jeremy