Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Rising From the Ashes

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Okay, a bit melodramatic, but I’m happy and relieved to announce that the re-construction effort has finally started on the Louisiana Central Railroad physical plant (in other words, the building housing the railroad). For those of you that are relatively new readers of this blog, my town suffered a horrific flood on August 13, 2016. You can read the post detailing the flooding event here, and the aftermath (with photos) is reported here.

It took about 15 months to get my home restored and to move back in, then another year to get the place refurnished and back to somewhat the way it was before the flood. Then one thing after another stood in the way of working on the train building. But mostly, it was because I’ve had significant trouble mustering the will and energy to get out in the train building to do the work. But I’ve started the process, and hope to continue on a regular basis with the work.

Fortunately the building has been remediated, that is, the flooded areas of the building were removed right after the flood, including flooring, drywall, insulation, cabinets, etc. The building was cleaned up, sprayed for mold, and is thoroughly dried out. I’ve taken advantage of the walls being open below that level to add several new electrical receptacles (about ten in all) in places where I had wished I had some. I’ve also covered the entire layout with plastic to protect it from drywall dust. The work that I’m doing now is a little more demolition. I know that demolition doesn’t sound like re-construction, but what I’m doing is removing a bit more drywall to get it up to a joint at the four foot level. This should help ease the task of hanging the new drywall.

Progress may be erratic at times because I’ll be hoping to procure some volunteer labor to do some things that I won’t be able to handle alone (hanging the drywall is one of those things).

I’m still debating what flooring to use now. The original flooring was a commercial grade, short pile carpet glued to the floor. I really liked that flooring, but won’t be able to replace it, as there are now 46 legs supporting a layout in the way of installing another roll of carpeting. One option I’m considering is LVT flooring planks, installed as a “floating” floor. This, I think, would be doable, as I believe I could temporarily remove individual legs in order to install the plank below it.

Wish me luck!

-Jack

The Louisiana Eastern Railroad

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In a recent post, A Mini-Reunion at Covington, I had mentioned visiting Matt Hardey’s Louisiana Eastern Railroad layout.  Well, I didn’t get that exactly right.  Matt started his dream with the New Orleans Great Northern Railroad.  The prototype eventually was acquired by the Gulf, Mobile and Northern, which itself later became the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad.  Matt has come up with several operating schemes for his layout.  By using equipment and such for different eras, he can operate the road as the NOGN, or a later era of the GM&O.  Another variant is a “what if” scenario, running steam powered Louisiana Eastern trains over the GM&O via trackage rights in the Covington, Louisiana area during the early 1950s.  Matt has a collection of LE rolling stock, which is what I was fixated on during my visit.

Most of the readers of my ramblings are from this area and are likely to be familiar with the Louisiana Eastern Railroad.  However a few of you may be scratching your head and thinking “never heard of it”.  The Louisiana Eastern was the vision of Paulsen Spence.  An excellent piece about Mr. Spence and the Louisiana Eastern has been written by noted author and local historian Louis Saillard, and can be found here on Chris Palmieri’s website.  I’ll touch on a few of the highlights of the LE gleaned from Louis’ treatise here.

Born in Baton Rouge, Mr. Spence had made his fortune with his Spence Engineering Company and his considerable number of patents for various steam regulating valves.  Eventually he turned his interest to the sand and gravel business, starting a gravel operation in the late 1940s.  He utilized steam locomotives (that he had recently acquired) to move the cars of gravel from the pit to the interchange with the nearby Illinois Central.  The Comite Southern Railroad was born.  In 1950 Mr. Spence acquired a larger gravel pit operation a short distance away.  Included with that sale was the one mile Gulf & Eastern Railroad.  In late 1950 the Louisiana Eastern Railroad was chartered and that’s where the dream began.

Now, the gravel business was good for Mr. Spence, with well over 200 cars of commodity eventually emerging from the pits each week.  But he had a larger vision.  Mr. Spence had been purchasing recently retired steamers from various roads beginning in the mid 1940s and throughout the 1950s, and he eventually had about three dozen of the breed on the property.  The reason for these purchases?  Mr. Spence had conceived the idea of creating a railroad that would run from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Pearl River, Louisiana near the Mississippi border, a distance of nearly 100 miles.  In Baton Rouge, he would have access to the Illinois Central, the Kansas City Southern and the Missouri Pacific.  Near Pearl River he would interchange with the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio and the Southern Railway.  With these connections he could effectively create a bypass around the rail traffic congestion in New Orleans.  The steamers were the power for that railroad.  Buying these locomotives at bargain basement prices just made good business sense to Mr. Spence.

Grand plans to be sure, but things came to an abrupt halt in late 1961 when Mr. Spence died suddenly from a heart attack while on a business trip to New York.  The dream was dead.  Everything was sold off and most of the steamers were soon scrapped.  I believe four of the locomotives survived and can be found in various parts of the country.  One of the most interesting locomotives was one of several 4-4-0 types that Mr. Spence had acquired.  Locomotive No. 98 was purchased new by the Mississippi Central Railroad in 1909 and eventually sold to Mr. Spence in 1946.  She still survives and is in operation on the Wilmington & Western Railroad, where she still carries her number of 98.  There are a number of YouTube videos showing her in service; see her during the Wilmington & Western’s Springtime Steam Spectacular in 2014.

A few other links for information about the Louisiana Eastern can be found at the HawkinsRails website, and on Wikipedia.  But if you want the very interesting and detailed story, be sure to read Louis’ piece linked to above.

-Jack

New Cars, New Overpass

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I’ve rambled about assembling a big mess of car kits in the last couple posts here and here, and I’ve mentioned something about assembling a Rix Rural Timber Overpass kit.  Here’s the manufacturer’s photo of that structure:

RIX Timber Overpass

I’ve finished building the kit and it is waiting for paint.  I’ve also been working on the supporting benchwork for the bridge and I’m close to fitting it into it’s final resting spot.  The section of mainline where this will reside is just a bit west of Willis.  I’m hoping to catch the feel of the Canadian National (formerly Illinois Central) mainline in south Brookhaven, Mississippi.  There the mainline enters a stretch where it’s running in a cut in the terrain.  At the middle of this stretch is an old timber roadway overpass, not unlike the Rix kit.  The prototype bridge is a bit longer than the model, as it crosses what was once a double mainline, but the kit still captures the flavor of the structure.  I’ve always liked that bridge and hope to make this one of the signature scenes on the layout.

As for the car kits, I’ve slowed down a bit on that.  I’ve completed about 30 kits, which sounds like quite a few, but is small relative to the number of kits remaining (something approaching 300).

I’ve got all the material on hand to commence conversion work on all those code 70 Shinohara switches.  I’ve just got to muster up the motivation to get started with all those re-buildings (one of the few things that I don’t particularly want to do).  Unfortunately, the local folks around here haven’t recognized that this is potentially one of the next great model railroads.  As such, no one is beating a path to the door for the chance to become involved in its construction (a sorry state of affairs).

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Oh, I’d like to acknowledge the superior customer service that I’ve received from Accurail.  While assembling a large stack of their kits, I came across a couple that had significantly rusted up screws (used for attaching the trucks and draft gear box covers).  I contacted Accurail and they immediately sent replacement screws . . . not the eight that I’d requested, but a bag of 100.  Within a few days of my initial contact, I had product in hand.  Now that’s service!  And those extra screws have come in handy for some of the older kits.  Those older kits utilize a molded pin on the draft gear box cover which holds the cover on by friction.  I’ve modified several of these kits by cutting off the pin and drilling a hole at that location.  I then used a screw to attach the cover, greatly increasing accessibility in the event maintenance is required.

As always, comments are welcome and visits are allowed (just drop a line).

-Jack