East Broad Top Locomotive Fueling Station - White Ground Model Works

[Bernd]

Bernd, thanks for all the pics, and I'm so glad you've been able to visit and become a fan of the EBT.  Looking at some of those drone shots, I guess I'll have to plant a lot more clump foliage on the boney pile! 

But, actually, I'm old enough to remember what it looked like back there at the south end of the yard before the tie timber retaining wall rotted away and allowed the boney fill to cover the rest of that siding track.  I first rode an EBT train in August 1960, at age 4, and not a year went by while I was still in school, that my family didn't go over the mountain to ride the train at least once.  I've been an active member of Friends of the EBT since 1987.  I never in my wildest imagination thought the day would come when it would be restored - but that day is now not far in the future now that the EBT Foundation has come along.

The credit line on the drone shots belongs to Lance Myers, a resident of the Rockhill/Orbisonia area and an employee of the RR, who is also a real fan of the EBT.

Vagel

Well, I guess I'm not telling you anything new. <lol> Thanks for identifing the photographer.

I thought your name looked familiar. I'm a memeber of the Friends of the EBT also.

I'l be following along on this project.

Bernd

[ReadingBob]

Ohh.. I'm in as well. I've been there a couple of times and have a DVD on the EBT.  

[VagelK]

Will you be running track up to the top of the coal station, so that'll be a operations car spot on your railroad?

dave

This is a static display, with a car, or cars, posed at the dump.  Its approach track angles into the backdrop and goes to the coal-to-coke ovens transfer facility, "imagineered" (a term borrowed from Walt Disney) inside the backdrop.  I should make up a diagram & include an overview panoramic view of how all that "works."

[VagelK]

Great job so far. It's definitely a different modeling world now.

Thanks, Curt.  I guess this build is as much an homage to the "old days" as it is a needed facility for a steam servicing terminal!

[deemery]

Will you be running track up to the top of the coal station, so that'll be a operations car spot on your railroad?

dave

This is a static display, with a car, or cars, posed at the dump.  Its approach track angles into the backdrop and goes to the coal-to-coke ovens transfer facility, "imagineered" (a term borrowed from Walt Disney) inside the backdrop.  I should make up a diagram & include an overview panoramic view of how all that "works."

Maybe spot cars there using the 0-5-0   

dave

[VagelK]

[/quote]
Maybe spot cars there using the 0-5-0   

dave

[/quote]

  LOL.  That's what the unpowered yard goat is for.  It was left on my doorstep, so to speak, by the late-Don Reed.

[Michael Hohn]

Interesting project, Vagel. 

Having dealt with castings like those, I can sympathize.

Mike

[friscomike]

Howdy, Vagel. This unique structure looks good. I'm looking forward to your excellent modeling on this one.  Have fun, mike

[ACL1504]

Vagel,

This will definitely look good on the layout. Great job as well, looks good.

Tom

[VagelK]

Thanks for all the kind words!  Dave asked layout operations question re: supplying coal to the dump track, and I replied it will be a static display for the reason that space didn't allow for an active spur to be built.  The composite image below attempts to illustrate the problem at Richmond Furnace.  Coal for the fueling station (shown in embryonic form in the left-hand picture) is reached by a tram from the coal transfer tipple at coke ovens that fuel the Blast Furnace - which, afterall, is the centerpiece of the hole operation - and, because said blast furnace took a lot of space, those ovens are inside the backdrop that longitudinally divides the peninsula.

I won't go into the "beyond the basement" interchanges involved, but, as far as operations go for this kit-build thread, coal loads from a two-track interchange yard on the other side of the backdrop arrive at Richmond Furnace and get shifted into the same two-tracks on this side of the backdrop representing the delivery yard serving the transfer tipple at the coke ovens.  The yard tracks pass under a covered bridge laminated onto 1/4" foamboard.  That bridge carries the tram from the transfer tipple (a picture glued to the backdrop in the right-hand picture) to the locomotive fueling station, and it also disguises the hole in the wall to allow the empties in-loads out arrangement for layout operations without having to deal with loading and unloading hopper cars between ops sessions.  If you're standing on the other side of the backdrop where that hole is, you see a thru-truss bridge that carries that interchanging RR over and a small yard office for the RR that exchanges loads and empties with my B&SGE.



Phew!  As much as I've tried, that's about as uncomplicated an explanation as I can come up with.

Now, to conclude the build:

As some of you might have suspected, disaster struck on the very next attempt to re-bore an .060 hole to .080, and repeat. 



I was thankful to be able to salvage enough to build up the main chute assembly.

I followed the recommendation in the instructions to glue one chute bearing bracket to the wall and use it as a fixed mount for lining up and gluing the chute and other bracket in place.  I used Hobby Express 30-45 second ACC for all metal parts. The hinge castings were actually pretty good, but their mounting surfaces had to be filed smooth.  The chute lifting cables were nipped to fit from the provided brass wire and ACC'd in place after the chute sub-assembly had been ACC'd to the wall and allowed to set overnight (I needed a break, anyway!).  Being too long to fit in the box, the wire was curved along its entire length and had to be straightened by gently pulling between two fingers applying enough pressure to remove the curvature but not induce a kink.  And all without the aid of Scotch.



The vertical lifting cables didn't want to hang realistically - those styrene counter-weights just didn't do the trick - so I ACC'd the wire to the axle brackets on either side.

As far as the two smaller openings were concerned, the disaster with the axle brackets, together with the earlier discovery of the broken-off chute axle and experience with brittle shelf brackets that defied attempts to gently sand their bearing surfaces flat without having them snap in two, now led my decision to make this fueling facility an "homage" to, rather than a scale replica of, the original. 

I plugged the two smaller openings by putting some Aileen's Tacky Glue on the chute stops and "nailing" pieces of the unused Campbell's corrugated metal foil provided in the kit to them.  Then, "thinking quickly" - like Ralphy after almost shooting his eye out in "A Christmas Story" - I made up a story about the layout being set in 1938 and the smaller chutes not being added by the E.B.T. until a couple years later, so the B&SGE was ready but still waiting for the parts ...



At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

A piece of the 2x12 scale lumber from the kit was Aileen's tacked on the two least boogered-up of the shelf brackets, ACC'd to the wall beneath the chute opening.  It will later get a layer of HO-scale coal (real Broad Top coal dust from Rockhill Mine No. 1) when the ground cover around the base of the fueling station gets done.

Then, all that remained to be done was to finish the ground cover with Woodland Scenics fine cinders, dusted with WS Late Fall Grass and Blended fine turf ...



... brush on some Bragdon's Grimy Black powder, and place it on the layout.   


My version of the water stand pipe is pretty close to the original, but not so much at ground level.  It is one of a pair of clunky one-piece metal castings from a model train show somewhere and sometime in the past. If anyone recognizes it and remembers the manufacturer, please share.  A light over-brushing of TruColor Grimy Black and a lighter dry-brushing of Model Masters Steel, paint the base with Glidden paint from Home Despot mixed to match Floquil Polly-S Old Concrete, Bragdon's Dark Rust in a few spots, and I think the results are pretty good.

So, that brings my build, or adaptation, of White Ground Model Works' East Broad Top Coal Dock kit to a close.  Thanks for following along and for commenting.  If you would like to follow a step-by-step build as the manufacturer intended, I commend you to a blog by Russ Norris, MMR at

https://blacklogvalleyrailroad.blogspot.com/2019/07/building-ebt-coal-dock.html

I am indebted to Russ for sharing two pictures of his final result, which helped me a lot.

One last thing ... B&SGE No. 14 is one of a trio of MDC kitbashes by George Pierson, model railroader extraordinaire and author of "the book" on the Tuscarora Valley RR, Tommy Varner's Red Rooster, published by the Juniata County Historical Society.  Our two model railroads "interchanged, and he modeled the fictitious scene in a corner of his HOn3 TVRR.  Sadly, he had to dismantle his layout last year when moving to smaller quarters, but the trio lives on my B&SGE.

[Bernd]

Turned out real nice Vagel.

Bernd

[PRR Modeler]

Excellent job on the chute along with the structure.

[deemery]

Here's how I've done "hanging by a (stiff) thread":  I make a 'fork' by cutting the eye from an embroidery needle and sticking the result into a dowel.  I use that to pick up thin CA, capillary action holds the CA in the open eye of the needle.  I put a hemostat clamp on the bottom of the thread, then apply CA up the thread (being careful to keep the CA away from the hemostat. 

dave

[Zephyrus52246]

Great work on the chute (and the whole structure).  Putting the chute together looks very finicky.  

Jeff

[VagelK]

Many thanks for the compliments.  "Finicky" is an apt description!  Even the basic wood slats required a lot of careful sanding for a "tight, but not too tight, and not too loose, either" fit in the openings.  And then there was the gentle nudging of each board slat to get the angle and spacing eyeball-even.  Lots of fiddling around with tweezers.

Dave, thanks for the tip about ACC on thread!  I used Hobby Express Extra Thick 15-25 sec ACC (a correction from what I wrote earlier), and I'm guessing the ACC you use for making stiff, straight thread is a less viscous, slower drying ACC.