78 Miles to Yosemite

Category: Research

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 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

Merced – Track Plan and Arts & Crafts

Posted on by jkdummler

Part of my RPM Chicagoland presentation this year is showing off the track plan for Merced.  Part of getting ready to show the plan, talk to people about it, and demonstrate my design ideas has been to get a 1:1 drawing made the plan.  

Standing at the West end of the layout plan looking to the East. In the middle of the plan is the mainline. To the left, a track to serve the Ice House. On the right, the track leads to the Yosemite Valley freight house and station.

Those of you who have read my track planning posts before know I greatly prefer to plan in full size.  It’s visually easier for me to stand next to a set of turnout templates and visualize what I want the plan to look like.  One of the biggest challenges in changing scale, or in planning a layout in general, is knowing the scale of structures to layout, and making all of that approximate the visual appearance of photographs, especially when prototype modeling.

This is a mosaic of the track plan, stitched together as best I could at the moment. It features the sidings described in the top photo in the West on the left hand side. To the middle of the plan we see a yard track at the top and the YV house track along the bottom. To the East end, I’ve included a lead that will go toward the currently un-modeled roundhouse.
Drawings by Jack Burgess, which are available on yosemitevalleyrr.com from his shop, have been scaled to O scale, printed, and are now glued to foam core board. I’ll cut these out and place them on the track plan to give much more “real” view of my ideas. The feeling of size will be evident once these are sitting on the plan drawing and it’s a little more 3D.

As part of my own visual planning, and to illustrate the layout to others, I have printed drawings (or pmts of them) for structures from Merced, and a couple of pieces of YV equipment, YV26 and YV15 locomotive and caboose, to help with demonstrating locations and sizes.  I glued the drawings to sheets of foam board that will be cut out and have stands attached to allow the drawings to stand on the track plan.

One of the challenges with this plan is that it’s BIG.  It’s big enough that I have been having a challenge photographing the whole thing to share here.  When I get to the RPM, my hope is that as I post this plan on the walls to give presentations, or unroll it to share with others, I can get some better photos.  

There’s lots to do, but the visual assistance provided by these drawings for planning is immensely helpful.  I can show others what scenes will look like, and get some idea of the vision I have in my head is and see if it is coming together in 3D as I build.

-Jeremy

Going Fishing

Posted on by jkdummler

I’ve been doing research on some interesting notes from Yosemite Valley Railroad history to include in my presentation at the RPM Chicagoland event in October.  One piece that I recently ran into was some information on a “Fish Car” having been on the YV in July or 1921.  I wanted to know more about that car, the what, where, why of it all, so I started digging.  

The general use of Fish Cars cars was to haul fish eggs or fry from locations where the fish were farmed to other locations where the fish where then used to populate rivers and lakes.  The fry and eggs were shipped in modified milk cans and those cans were placed in “fish racks” inside purpose built or modified rail cars were typically lined in galvanized metal so that ice could be packed around the cans to increase the likelihood that the stock would survive the trip.

The notes on the YV hosting a fish car included a car number of SP 6263.  I needed to find out some information about that car, then, in order to understand what the SP might be doing with fish.

My research developed a description of the fish racks in SP 6235, a likely sister-car to 6263 (which might have been 6236 as 6263 was a horse car).  SP 6235 still exists at the Niles Canyon Railway, owned by the Pacific Locomotive Association.  Doug Debs provided some information on the fish racks included in that car:

“One end of SP 6235 is equipped with a “fish rack”: The floor at one end is covered with a watertight wall-to-wall sheet metal pan about 2″ deep.  The pan drains to the track. Removable heavy-duty wooden duck boards were inside the pan. The fish rack allowed wooden boxes of iced fish, iced early-season asparagus, and other high-value perishable freight to be transported by express car, and prevented these shipments from getting other items wet.”

It’s also interesting to note that these Harriman-era 60′ baggage cars, 6235 and likely 6236, were both built for the Central Pacific.

It’s likely that the car on the YV would have been very similar to 6235, and the fish racks might have been the same as the above description.  

With all that sorted out, then, and knowing some about the cars, I wanted to find out some information about the shipments and what they were doing.  A little digging produced a few documents of interest.

First, this document, which is a 1917 journal of the California State Assembly.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Kpw-AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA20-PA77&lpg=RA20-PA77&dq=southern+pacific+railroad+fish+car&source=bl&ots=CxFVYKd-iL&sig=ACfU3U0Sn16EP0A0g0AIQxQN2iCySv07Qw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIy6zy8e7jAhUB7qwKHb9mDNU4ChDoATADegQIBBAB#v=onepage&q=southern%20pacific%20railroad%20fish%20car&f=false

Starting pn page 74, this document discusses hatcheries being built in Southern California, and on page 77 and 78 it discusses that the fish will be transported by rail, specifically calling out several railroads on page 78 for thanks for free transport of the crews and state-owned distribution cars.  The Yosemite Valley Railroad is specifically mentioned on page 78.

Next, this document, from 1922, and is from the California Fish & Game:

https://books.google.com/books/about/California_Fish_and_Game.html?id=VSEM7LlsqWcC

Starting on page 114, this document discusses establishing a hatchery to restock and provide fish for rivers and lakes that were “depleted”.  My conversation with Jack included that this is likely a bit of propaganda, as many of the types of fish being shipped and put into the rivers around Yosemite National Park were not native to the area.  That aside, page 121 describes fish cars, and discusses the construction of the first fish car owned by the state, at the SP Sacramento shops.  Eventually, CA did have 2 of these cars.  Photos of them are in the CSRM collection.

Photos of the California Fish & Game Commission 01 car ca be found here:

https://calisphere.org/item/cd4489e90dd004b163e0e8205b87588a/

https://calisphere.org/item/bd10b7160ac0615b17495b5254afd791/

To bring all this together, I found this document:

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt5k4004bd&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text

Searching this document for “Yosemite”, the first hatchery that appears is cited as being built at Wawona in 1895.  While near the National Park, this is still a haul for any shipping of fish on the YV.  The note indicates this location was established by the Yosemite Raymond Stage Line, which puts it not out of the realm of possibility that this hatchery, which shut down in 1928, was being stocked via some other means other than railroad shipment on the YV.

The next entry, though, is what I think is likely the hatchery that the noted fish car is supplying.  The Yosemite Experimental Hatchery and then the Yosemite Hatchery, which operated from 1918-1956 at Happy Isles.  The first fry were raised in 1918, but the permanent site was not secured until 1926 and put into use in 1927.  

My feeling is that the 1921 shipments may have been to Yosemite Experimental Hatchery or someone in that vicinity.

It’s likely that Fish Cars were not in every train, or moved every day, on the YV by any stretch. However, building a model of a Southern Pacific baggage car equipped with fish racks, and maybe even California Fish & Game Commission 01 would be fun and would add some interest into operations occasionally.

Fascinating what one finds when you start looking at interesting loads and cars!

-Jeremy

Getting Organized

Posted on by jkdummler

Goals are good things to have.  I find that list-making and goal setting spurs me on to accomplish tasks in a realistic timeframe, and I feel that accomplishment which then spurs me onward toward the next item on the list, toward the next goal.

I’m now looking at the projects I have started, or would like to start, and thinking about how to order them properly.  In the days when I used to build HO models, I’d build 5 or 6 models all at once.  That’s likely not to happen anymore.  The fact is, the larger equipment is simply space-hungry.  

I have set for myself a goal that I think is reasonable when it comes to kits and cars.  I’m planning to work on one freight car at a time.  Shocking to think about, when many of us have started kits and set them aside and started others.  Seriously, though, one kit car at a time.  I believe it is possible to build one car in 4-6 weeks at the rate I work.  Not super fast, but yet too, enjoyable.  

Here is the list of kit cars that I am planning to build, and the order in which I plan to build them.  Please note, there are more cars in the stash than are listed here.  I only picked the next 12 because that is roughly a year’s worth of work.  Once this list is completed, I’ll prioritize the next set of 12 to build.

  1. PL&E 36’ boxcar
  2. NP 36’ fish belly boxcar
  3. UTLX Van Dyke 6500 gal tank car
  4. PRR X29 Boxcar
  5. SP B-50-15 boxcar
  6. UTLX Van Dyke 6500 gal tank car
  7. PFE R-30-12 reefer
  8. PFE R-40-2 reefer
  9. ATSF Bx-2 boxcar
  10. SP B-50-12 boxcar
  11. MKT 1925 single sheathed boxcar
  12. SP ex-EPSW USRA composite gondola

I initially started cars 1, 2, and 3 from the list.  That has proven to be OK, but I am looking forward to wrapping them up and getting the number of in-progress cars down to 1 at a time.  That isn’t to say that if I get to a spot with a project where I’m waiting on supplies of data or photos that there won’t be a chance that a 2nd project is moving forward.

If I’m building just one kit at a time, or one car at a time, it’s likely that I’m going to need other projects to occupy modeling time and interest while things dry or while I wait for parts.  To that end, I’ve also organized some non-car projects.  A number of structures are going to be needed for the layout and getting those built will fall into the project list.  I plan to only work on one structure at a time, which will make the structures available as a second ongoing project group.  Based on my plans for the layout, I need to build:

  1. Merced Ice & Cold Storage
  2. YV water tank at Merced
  3. YV oil tank at Merced
  4. YPCCo packing house at Merced
  5. Yosemite Lumber box factory at Merced Falls
  6. Yosemite Lumber dry shed at Merced Falls
  7. YV steel water tank at Merced Falls
  8. YV station at Merced Falls

There is also a huge need on this railroad for motive power and home-road cars.  None of the YV cabooses, rock cars, box cars, flat cars, stock cars, MOW cars, passenger cars, or log cars are commercially available at the moment, and few have ever been in O scale. My guess right now is that I’m going to need/want 2 locomotives, 2 cabooses, 6 rock cars, 2 flat cars, 1 stock car, 1 box car, an unknown number of MOW cars, 2 passenger cars, and 6 log cars.  That’s 20-ish cars and 2 locomotives that need to be scratch built.  This group, then comprises the third project group that will be available. 

I have selected the two locomotives that I want to build.  Yosemite Valley 4-4-0 American #23 and Yosemite Valley 2-6-0 Mogul #25 are my targets.  Should a third locomotive ever become a want, I would target YV27 or YV29.  Two locomotives, though, should keep this railroad busy at least for right now with plans for only two towns in the offing.  The rest of the equipment is fairly straight forward.  YV observation car 330 is definitely in the plans as one of the passenger cars.  

Along with these three groups, there will be layout work to complete.  That gives me four more or less separate spheres of projects to tackle.  Group 1: Kit Cars.  Group 2:  Structures.  Group 3: Scratch Builds.  Group 4:  Layout.  They can all run concurrently, but the key is going to be one item from each group at a time.

This is what I’m thinking will work for me right now.  We’ll see how it all comes together.  I used to do this kind of planning in January as a goals for the year kind of look ahead.  It may be coming on to August, but this year the scale change and getting that all under control and plans made for moving forward means I and doing this and you are seeing it here at the end of July.

I’m ready to hit the workbench this week and finish-up the NP boxcar build so it can go to paint.  The plan is to finish that by the end of August.  Books are coming in the mail on how to scratch build locomotives.  I’m excited about that.  We’ll be looking at Merced Ice & Cold Storage shortly as well, and some big plans for layout construction are also on the horizon.

Lots to do, now that I’m organized, it’s time to get it going.

-Jeremy

Ballast Choice

Posted on by jkdummler

Color plays a huge role in our modeling and setting the location of our layouts.  There are debates over the right paint color for freight cars, colors to use for structures, and just about everything else associated with modeling.  However, the colors we use in our scenery are not often debated, but are up to the modeler to decide what looks best for their location.

As I close in on it being time to lay track and get it ballasted on my layout module, I was looking for ballast appropriate to the Yosemite Valley, and I recalled a conversation that I’d had with Jack Burgess about ballast while on one of the YV historical society weekend hikes, and my recollection was that the YV had gotten a good deal of their ballast out of the Merced River as crushed river rock.  Without checking that recollection against anything, I set off and ordered a sample of crushed rock ballast from Superior Scenics of their “Western Blend” ballast in a few sizes.  The product arrived about a week later, and I really like the mixture of colors as it looks like the shales and rock that I recall from visits to the area.  Lots of browns and reds mixed into some yellow and gray.  

Then I decided to check my sources and the Yosemite Valley email group at groups.io.  Some quick searching brought me some information that contradicted my recollections of the conversation, and sent me hunting in my own photos of the area for a different set of colors.  Here’s what I found:

“Initially (but I don’t for how long), the ballast came from gravel pits on

the Merced River near Snelling/Merced Falls; I doubt that that gravel was

crushed. That would make it the typical gray of granite although it wasn’t

the high-quality crushed granite used by the Class 1s.”

The above photo is from a YV group trip several years ago along the former right of way.  In the river you can see a huge deposit of granite, which has the tones described in the documentation.  

With that, I went back to Superior Scenics and ordered their Salt & Pepper blend.  That arrived this last week, and is an excellent match to my own photo and the description of the ballast as gravel and the photo I took in the Merced River.

The Western Blend will still be put to good use.  As I said it’s a good match to the colors of the earth and shales in the area, and as I go along, I’ll mix a little of it into my scenery here and there to convey the right colors of the rocks found along the YV.

Most of the scenery materials that I want to work with at least on this first section of railroad are actually here.  I’m waiting on one delivery, a little be warmer and dryer weather, and then it’ll be time to lay track and make mud.  Scenery is not long off, which I’m excited about.  It’s time for the ground on the first module to stop being pink and start looking like earth.

What did I learn?  Don’t rush, check sources first and don’t rely on my recollection of conversations.

-Jeremy

It looks like I’m not making progress, but….

Posted on by jkdummler

Not a lot of progress to actually show has been made on any project in the last few weeks.  One, work and family commitments at the end of the school year have been flying up quickly and piling on top of one another.  Aside from those things, the process of getting ready to build things has taken some time.

Have you ever heard the old adage that moving from a city to the country brings a slower pace, and how life slows down?  The same seems to be true of moving from HO scale to O.  I’m finding that the pace of everything is much slower.  Perhaps that is because what I’ve chosen to model is still a niche within a smaller overall number of modelers, and perhaps some of that is related to learning curves associated with finding all new suppliers.

Having modeled in HO for so long, if you asked me “who should I get K brakes from” I would instantly point you to the Tichy Train Group website.  I know others like PSC parts, but for me, the Tichy brakes are fantastic.  However, in O, Tichy has a completely different line of parts, meaning that hunting down K brakes or anything else, is involved in a learning curve, and in many cases, placing small orders for parts that cam be compared to other suppliers of parts to determine which ones look best and which ones perform best in a given application.

As everything flying around is now winding down, and thankfully a myriad of parts orders are actually here or nearly here this week, it’s time to start getting to work on a couple of projects.

First, I have freight cars from my new stash of car kits selected to build.  A fantastic 36’ Northern Pacific boxcar made by Rails Unlimited will be one of the first cars to hit the workbench.  At the same time, should Spring/Summer ever decide to arrive this year, I have cork roadbed here now to add a dirt road to the YV module, so that will get done and then basic scenery will start going in.

One funny thing happened this week that is worth sharing, as it illustrates the mindset change necessary to move from HO to O.  I bought the cork for building the base of the road I am intending to install, and then found a crossing from Scale City online.  It’s a wood crossing, and while the YV crossings of unnamed dirt country roads were likely just filled earth, I wanted something to practice painting wood on, so I ordered the crossing.  When it arrived, I was shocked at how wide it is.  Then I realized that I am thinking in HO scenes still.  The crossing is just two lanes wide.  Nothing super massive, but in my HO vision, it was massive.  After realizing that it isn’t actually oversized, I determined that I should probably assemble a vehicle chassis before I install the road, so that’ll get done this week too.

Anyone following along on Facebook will also have noticed a change this week.  I’ve changed over to a group page instead of a simple page.  There are several reasons, but if anyone is there and interested, please look up Yosemite Valley Railroad in Proto 48 and come join in.

-Jeremy