Factory painted Southern New England power (sort of ...)

 As I've mentioned in the past, I've been pleased that model locomotive manufacturers (Atlas, Rapido, and Athearn) have all introduced factory painted models of Central Vermont diesels. (Although I wish one of them would do something in the post-1963 tapeworm scheme - on both the Battle Creek Blue and Red and Black variations!). 

But I never thought I'd see anyone do a locomotive factory painted in my prototype freelance Southern New England Railway. 

Let me clarify - this isn't some sort of freelanced roadname deal like Homeshops is doing. 

These are legit prototype locomotives that run on the Battinkill Railroad in New York. Here's a picture of SNEX 5012 - the D&H paint scheme heritage is pretty obvious:

You can find the story of the Battinkill Railroad, as well as more photos, in the October 2022 issue of Railfan and Railroad

But the plot thickens. 

Way back when I was still working on SNE #1 (see Model Railroad Planning 2000) I got lots of requests from various folks who modeled a more current era than I did regarding what a SNE diesel paint scheme may look like in the late 1990s. I came up with two possibilities that never made it past the sketch stage - 

One of these two was based on reversing the Maine Central's paint scheme, the other on the D&H scheme - although I changed the main color from Avon Blue to SNE Green. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but perhaps someone over in New York stumbled across my blog and thought "Hey, that's neat!"

To round all this out, Atlas is taking pre-orders for two SNEX painted locomotives - I may have to get them for the display case if nothing else!  

Sprague Coal

I've always thought this would make a neat scene from Providence, RI. There's a lot of background and (potential) history here - essentially centered on the connection between the proposed Southern New England and the C&O. (Hint: There's a reason the book on the Southern New England has a jacket painting featuring a coal train). I could go into more detail on that at some future date if there is any interest. 

Southern New England Train

I was digging through the boxes of rolling stock the other day in an effort to fully populate the layout with cars. Just for the heck of it I posed an all Southern New England train and snapped some photos. 

Sharing them here:

The first two cars are from a special run of PS-1s Kadee did a few years ago. In both the older square herald scheme (above) and the maple leaf scheme (below). There was a LOT of debate on my old SNE Yahoo (now Groups.io) mailing list about which scheme was the most appropriate. Personally I prefer the square herald since it doesn't read like a CN car. But I sent the North Shore club (that actually commissioned and sold the cars) both sets of art work. Perhaps they couldn't decide and went with both?!!

The next three cars show how most of the SNE cars are decorated ("decorated" may be too fancy a term!) in accordance with Central Vermont practices. Cars are one color - CN Red #11, with plain white lettering. All three of these (Accurail) cars (the gondola, hopper, and single sheathed boxcar) are painted the same color. In fact I painted them at the same time. Guess I really need to weather that single sheathed boxcar!

Not in the train in the lead photo (it was already out on the layout!) is one of the SNE's 50-foot boxcars. Central Vermont didn't have any 50 footers until the early 1960s, but that's the magic of freelancing. This is either a Proto 2000 or Branchline 50 foot boxcar (I honestly don't remember which but suspect it's a Proto 2000) car. I got some feedback years ago (again, on the SNE Groups.io chat list) that I should have used the square herald. I didn't since I didn't have decals for that herald, so I went with the maple leaf. I also opted not to spell out the roadname to the left of the door since the spelled out Southern New England lettering looked a little small on vast expanse of car side! Note the embarrassing obvious decal film showing around the reporting marks....

Walthers did a Grand Trunk three window caboose that I quickly adopted as the SNE standard long caboose. To make it look a little more like a CV van I replaced the Walthers cupola with one from Funaro resin CV caboose kits (each kit included a couple of styles of cupola) 

As I said before some days I really miss the ole' SNE stuff.... they're not necessarily the best models I've ever built but it's like seeing old friends. 

Farewell to the "northern" SNE

I'll never understand some model railroaders and their myopic view of things. Jason and Pam had their layout open for the New England RPM meet, but had very few meet attendees who bothered to come look at the railroad. I suspect the fact that it's a freelanced railroad turned a lot of RPM attendees off? Their loss. With the exception of two visitors in this photo, these visitors are contractors who saw the layout during previous week and thought it was so neat they brought their parents, wives, and kids by to see the SNE! 

I've mentioned Jason Fontaine's excellent Southern New England in this blog before, most recently reviewing a visit to see Jason's layout back before Covid. I refer to Jason's railroad as the "northern SNE" since he's using the same basic fiction - that the "Titanic Railroad" was actually completed - as I do for my proto-freelanced line. We came up with this theme independently - and he (and his wife Pam!) tell me the fact that my SNE appeared in print before his was a bitter disappointment for him at the time. In the years since he's become one of those model railroaders who I consider a friend I don't get to visit with half as often as I'd like. 

Here's an overall view of one side of Jason's version of the SNE. 

Sadly, that pervious trip (see a report HERE) was also the last time we'd have a chance to visit with Dick Elwell and his amazing Hoosac Valley. 

Walking down the aisle and turning back toward the layout entrance Mt. Fenton dominants one end of the layout - and nicely screens the stairs and entry to the staging yard area. 

I was surprised when I heard from Jason a couple of weeks ago that he and Pam are moving to Florida and would be taking some, but not all, of his SNE RR with them. He was wondering if I might be interested in any rolling stock, structures, etc... 

Charlton is at the end of a branch. Jason tells me that Dick Elwell always enjoyed switching this area whenever he visited. The structures here (and across the entire layout) are extremely nicely built, painted and weathered craftsman kits. 

Luckily the timing actually worked for once and I was already planning to be in his neck of the woods for the New England RPM meet. 

Although I didn't have a chance to obtain any of Dick Elwell's models from the  Hoosac Valley I'll spill the beans a bit and mention that I have made arrangements to obtain this mill complex from Jason. Dick was involved in constructing this model. 

Long story short, I came home from the RPM meet with a nicely lettered and weathered SNE passenger train. We've also made arrangements for me to salvage some other elements once Jason begins the painful process (and I know how painful it is to take a sledgehammer to a model railroad having done it plenty of times!) of dismantling his version of the SNE. 

I've already given the SNE passenger train a couple of test laps around my layout - I think it looks great rounding the big curve between Williams Creek and the Junction. 

I'll hold off on describing what elements of the layout I'm planning to take off Jason's hands until we (1) work through some of the logistics and (2) actually get things out of his house and into mine in one piece. 

At that point I may offer some thoughts on saving pieces of other layouts, incorporating them into our own layouts, and whether the whole process is worth the time and effort. 

Some old Slides - and good memories!

 First of all, Happy Easter to everyone!

Work was absolutely crazy for the last six weeks or so. Not only have I been busy with testing of a system I'm working on, the main contract for my company came up for re-compete, and as the proposal manager I really had to ignore everything else until the proposal was completed! 

All that means I got way behind on a bunch of hobby related stuff! My Model Railroad Hobbyist Getting Real column barely made it in on time, and even our Federal and State income tax  returns were filed using the same "just in time" approach. 

I have two things remaining on my hobby "must do" list. The first is an article for the NMRA British Region magazine. I've got the thing written, I just need to take a few additional photos! 

But before I do that I need to finish my keynote address for the Railway Modellers Meet in British Columbia. That meet will be combined virtual and in-person this year, and my presentation will be virtual - you can find out more about the meet HERE. 

One thing I needed to do was dig out a couple of photos of the original Southern New England layout to illustrate a couple of points for my talk. That meant diving into the slide boxes. 

Two things caught my attention and I thought it would be fun to share them here:

The first were these two maps of the SNE. 

The first shows what we eventually called "The Greater SNE". As I recall, Iain Rice, Matt Gaundynski and a few others figured the SNE won control of the Central New England instead of the New Haven, which gave the SNE a line through northwestern corner of Connecticut and across the Hudson deep into New York. It also shifted the modeled portion of the line away from the proposed actual SNE route and into Connecticut. 

After some discussions with Iain, Matt, Jack Ozanich and a couple of others I narrowed the scope of the SNE to reflect the railroad that was actually proposed and started in the first two decades of the 20th century. The map above shows that version. I was struggling with trying to design paint schemes and logos when Jim Hediger suggested I simply adopt the CN family "look."  This map shows the first use of my Southern New England tilted wafer logo that I can recall. 

The second pair of images show a couple of Iain's sketches for the "large New England mill town" on the original SNE layout. I don't think I've ever published these, but if you're familiar with some of Iain's layout design books you've seen variations on this particular layout segment. 

The town was loosely (very!) inspired by Willimantic, Conn., and ignoring the annoying various crossing New Haven lines allowed us to focus on the CV station area and have a fighting chance of fitting it into the space. Iain called it "Okehampton" at but I never took to that name - on the actual layout it was called Mohassuck Springs (see Model Railroad Planning 2000 for that layout, and to compare the track as we laid it with Iain's initial sketch!). 

Unfortunately the mill town only got as far as the track stage. But these sketches were kind of fun to stumble across. I had a lot of fun developing the concept behind the SNE and most days I kind of miss it. 

But in the meantime I need to get back to these other projects...

Happy Thanksgiving 2021!!!

More backdrop and Kempinski Curve

I got some more backdrop painted yesterday - the image below (please excuse the mess on the peninsula!) shows a view of the backdrop from the main "viewing aisle" in front of the layout. 

This shot shows an aerial view of Kempinski's Curve (for the record there's been a "Kempinski's Curve" on SNE #3 and now #4....!) 

Longtime SNE fans may recall this tale of the design and construction of the famed helical tunnel on SNE #2:

"As you recall, last year the Company contracted with Colonel Niezgrabny Inzynier Kempinski to survey the route of the Southern New England from Tidewater to the Mashantucket Valley. This is, by all measures, considered easy country to accommodate a railroad line – with numerous watercourses and relatively low gradients – none exceeding 300 feet in a mile.
Therefore, I was as shocked as you were to learn that the Company had undertaken the construction of a major tunneling project. I was especially shocked to find Colonel Kempinski, lately of the Polish Army Corps of Engineers and a recent immigrant to our land, had commenced, with nothing more than a rough sketch on the back of a napkin, construction of a tunnel only slightly shorter than the famed Hoosac Tunnel with a constant circular curve. The net result is a linear run of mainline approaching 1.5 miles with the two portals within sight of each other on the same side of a low ridge separated by approximately 150 feet in the vertical plane.
My initial reaction was to sever all ties with the Colonel and send him back to his native Poland. Apparently the Polish Navy would like him to speak with him directly regarding his unique submarine door design (intended to improve air circulation, but at great cost).
However, after speaking briefly with the Colonel (through a translater as no one can understand his Polish or broken English) I believe more than a fair share of the confusion for this debacle lies squarely with our own Chief Engineer's failure to provide the Colonel with detailed surveys of the intended route. According to witnesses, the Colonel kept inquiring of the Chief Engineer "Gdzie jest mapa?, "Gdzie jest mapa?." Unbeknown to any Southern New England employee this means "Where is the map?" Our men thought he was looking for directions to the facility since he was frantically jumping up and down.
When one our younger employees said something to the effect "The Company is going around in circles" – apparently the Colonel's English is just good enough to take that statement as an indication of the intended route. So, we ended up with a tunnel that takes a lot of time to traverse and goes nowhere but up.

You'll also likely receive a communication from the Colonel regarding a tremendous personal injury he suffered when a large tunnel boring drill fell on his foot. His constitution is quite remarkable- I know of few men who can withstand the force of a 100+-foot long drill hitting their foot and continue working. But I assure you the Company bears no responsibility for loss or damages . . . what do you expect when you hire a guy to build a railroad who shows up wearing open toed shoes and who's name, roughly translated, means "clumsy engineer."

 

All kidding aside, I took a couple of quick snap shots of the curve area to see where and how many trees and other elements I need to position to effectively screen the view of the two staging tracks.  Here's an overhead shot (you can see the condensary building in place to the left) as well as eye level and track level views of the same spot. 

*(The quote above is one of a series of emails from my SNE Mailing List. But it's firmly rooted in fact - Bernie Kempinski and I did indeed build a helix without any complex drawings - or even measurements. And he did wear open toed shoes and dropped a rather large drill bit right on his foot. Luckily, it wasn't on the carpeted floor! And if the email above seems silly it's nothing compared to the Schneider's Row series of reports....)

Wordless Wednesday #169

Wordless Wednesday #167

Wordless Wednesday #164

Wordless Wednesday #163

SNE Wiggle Worm

Over the years I've had folks who model a later era that I've never really modeled ask what the lettering for my Southern New England would have looked like post-1961. 

A few months back, Bernie Kempinski and Otto Vondrak worked with me to develop the initial concepts for a “new image” SNE “wiggly worm” logo. The graphic challenge was how does one “link” the letters “S,” “N”, and “E” - try it - it’s not as easy as linking two letters like “CN” or even “CV.”
The answer lay in the approach the DWP took - the graphic designers for CN way back in 1961 obviously had the same issue linking the letters together. The solution was to not even bother trying!
I have to give Mike C credit for suggesting the DWP possibility - and all the credit (or blame if you don’t like it) for the logo goes to Otto. 
Thanks to all, here, for the first time, is a poor color rendering of what this scheme might look like on one of the SNE’s GP9s after repainting in the North Providence shops in 1965….

Appreciate any and all thoughts - 

Here's a version of the lettering scheme in the later green/yellow:

What If?

With all the neat new stuff coming out in what one friend of mine described once as "designer plastic" - especially in HO scale - it's easy to feel like a kid in a candy store.

Impulse buying is not necessarily a bad thing - after all this is a hobby and as long as you're not taking food away from the table for indulges like model railroading no harm no foul.

One of my favorite prototype locomotives because they're just cool is the Union Pacific's turbines. Besides, what railroad other than the UP could get away with calling a locomotive the "Big Blow." (I actually prefer the N&W's "Jawn Henry" - but come on, no one will EVER make that in plastic, will they???).

Enter the Scale Trains Union Pacific Turbine. I saw these announced a few months ago and immediately passed since well, you know they aren't really a "fit" for the Central Vermont.  

What if, just maybe, my prototype freelanced subsidiary of the CV, the Southern New England, acquired a few turbine sets???? I mean, someone made GG-1's painted for the SP Daylight and I've even seen an RGS Galloping Goose painted in a Santa Fe Warbonnet!
Imagine if you will a set of Big Blows painted green and yellow ... what a wonderful sight they would make winding (and screaming!) their way through my depiction of the tranquil New England countryside.

There might be some, uh, "operational challenges" to overcome. Consider the wood overpasses and covered bridge over the tracks just south of Everett....the equivalent of jet exhaust might take it's toll on the century+ old wood?  

On second thought, maybe not. Perhaps Bernie should get a set to switch the LAPT?

Southern New England Railway Maps

A few years ago at one of the CVRHS conventions (in Palmer, if I recall correctly) Jim Murphy displayed a series of original, color Southern New England plat maps. Jim (and another volunteer) were kind enough to hold them up and let me photograph the series of maps. I had them on my old computer back up hard drive and ran across them a couple of weeks ago. Thought it would fun to share them here. 
These are one of the few sets of originals we know about - and are more than 100 years old. 
Obviously there's some overlap between the photos of the maps - these things were big! 

Southern New England PS-1 boxcars - a little background

I recently received this email:

Marty, At Christmas my wife gave me a Kadee box car from the SNE, #48010. I model 1957 so I have a few questions about this. What reweigh stenciling should there be? Would the roof paint be peeling at this point in time? And finally, were these cars used in any specialized service?

TIA,

Phil

SNE 48010 represents one of a class of 200 cars delivered new to the SNE in 1951.



SNE 41912 is from a smaller group of 50 cars ordered from Pullman-Standard in 1954 and were the first cars delivered in the Maple Leaf paint scheme.

Here's my response:

Phil,
First of all, let me congratulate your wife for her exceptionally outstanding taste when it comes to Christmas gifts!

SNE 48010 would be part of number series 48000-48199 - a group of 200 boxcars ordered in 1947 and delivered in May 1948. Like the CN and CV, the SNE doesn't have specific classes assigned to boxcars, so there were simply "48000-series" cars, and you'll find them referred to as such in company correspondence. They were all delivered with the square herald, green with "Southern New England" monogram to the right of the door with "Southern New England" spelled out to the left of the door above the reporting marks. Kadee did an exceptionally good job on these, and they are quite accurate when compared to photos and paint samples from the prototype cars.
About 50 of these cars are in assigned paper/pulp service - transporting market pulp from integrated and pulp mills in the northern sections of New England to the finishing mills located along the SNE. Considering the nature of the cargo we try to keep them in that service and they're labeled "Clean Lading Only" to the left of the door. They are regularly spotted at mills along the Atlantic Great Eastern - although I've heard rumors they may have been spotted on the Allagash RR as well.
The remaining 150 cars are in general pool service - and can be seen anywhere.
As far as reweigh dates, I use "XA" (St Albans, VT) for many of the cars, but use "XP" (North Providence, the SNE's shops) for most. Of course, some of the cars have been weighed off line at various other points.
Very few of these cars were repainted into their original scheme prior to the introduction of the maple leaf herald in 1954. So, in your 1957 era the cars with the square heralds have been in service for seven years, and the paint on the roofs would certainly have failed in some cases. I'd also say at the very least the cars roofs would be quite dirty.
The maple leaf cars are from one of two groups - the original 48000-series cars repainted into the maple leaf scheme starting in late 1954, or they are from the series of 50 additional PS-1s (41900-41949) delivered new to the SNE in 1954 with the maple leaf monogram.