Saturday 19 November 2016

WW&F Boxcar Stencil

At the Boothbay Railway Village one of the structures is kind of a museum of Maine two foot memorabilia. One interesting artifacts I viewed was an original WW&F boxcar stencil...neat to see...George Dutka

Monday 14 November 2016

3D Printing - Figures

A set of O scale station figures are 3D printed offerings.
Portland Locomotive Works had some neat looking 3D printed figures at this years NNGC. I picked up one of the moose's for my new A-frame bridge scene...stay tuned it is almost finished...George Dutka

I picked up one of these O scale moose's. They are fragile so PLW had them packed well.

Sunday 13 November 2016

Around in a circle

An interesting concept for running a rail line.
Found this module neat in the display room at this years National Narrow Gauge Convention....seen photos of this display before...I think it made it to the Schaumburg meet before...George Dutka


Saturday 12 November 2016

Maine Two Foot Railcars - Boothbay Railway Village

A short string of rail cars are under cover at Boothbay Railway Village, Sept. 2016.
On my visit to Boothbay this Sept. I photographed a string of railcars that are in the need of restoration although they are under cover. I am thinking this will help them out to some degree. Three boxcars and one combine are what one will find there...George Dutka

This W&Q car is the best looking car of the string.  It appears to have some newer sheathing with a recent paint job. This car was built in Portland, ME. in 1894 for the W&Q Ry. It's original number is #312.

This car was built in Portland, Maine in 1916.
The opposite side shows the rough condition of this car.

SR&RL #133 was built by the MEC in 1912.

This combine was built for the Franklin & Megantic Ry. in 1885. Still looks pretty good for her age.

Thursday 10 November 2016

Boxcar Construction

Looks like this car is a five man job. Boy that is a lot of sawdust under the car.
While visiting Lex Parker's great On3 DRG&W layout one of the mini scenes got me thinking of maybe I can do this also for my Maine two footer module. A partly constructed boxcar with a few workers and a load of lumber is all one needs...one might want to give this a try...George Dutka

An overview of the car under construction located right on the layout's edge.
A load of lumber is set in place to finish the project.
I really love this scene and one does not need a kit...just a good set of plans and some scale lumber. One can actually start with just the frame and as time goes by, just take it back to the workbench for a bit more construction.Visitors could follow the progress as the floors, walls and roofing are added.

Sunday 6 November 2016

The Two Foot at Randolph, Maine

An overall view of Randolph, Maine. The coal unloading facility is seen in the foreground. The prototype railroad was only 5 miles long running from Randolph to Togus. The trains normally operated 4 times a day between the two locations.
 The Sn2 Crew has included on their modular layout a model of Randolph, Maine which is still under construction. These photos gives one an idea what the Kennebec Central Ry. looked like in town. Don and I stopped by Randolph on our way to the WW&F Ry but could not find any evidence of the railway were the yard once stood, but I did locate the stairway that lead from the roadway up above down to the station...George Dutka

Operations were suspended abruptly on 29 June 1929 after the federal government awarded the coal-haul contract to a trucking firm. The locomotives were closed up in the 2-stall Randolph enginehouse and the cars waited on sidings for 3 years. Then a December 1931 an enginehouse fire in Wiscasset damaged the locomotives of the nearby WW&F Ry. The owner of the Wiscasset railroad bought the whole Kennebec Central Railroad for less than it would have cost to repair a burned locomotives. Kennebec Central engines #3 and #4 were trucked to Wiscasset, repainted, and renumbered 8 and 9. Some of the box car and passenger car bodies were sold as sheds, and the remainder floated down the Kennebec River during the 1936 flood.

The Queen Ann style station was down along the river with a long staircase up to the roadway above which was near the covered bridge that passenger would use to cross the river to Gardner, Maine's MEC station.

Another view of the yard layout.