Richford Branch Maps 3, Sheldon Springs

In between painting the basement walls and boxing up household goods I did manage to find enough time to draw up Sheldon Springs. Sheldon Springs is located west of Sheldon Junction (see the close up map here). Highlight of Sheldon Springs is the Missisquoi Pulp & Paper Co. plant, which is by far the largest single industrial customer on the Richford Branch. The first map is an overall view of the area and shows how the various elements fit together. (Click on the maps to enlarge).

The Missisquoi Pulp & Paper plant was located on a spur that swung northwest from the Richford Branch proper. The mill itself was located downhill from the CV tracks at the base of a fairly steep hill. The paper mill had a small switch engine (even had it's own engine house between the mill and CV main). But the CV did switch the mill, although CV engines couldn't operate past the points denoted with the red "B" on the diagram below.

Typically the Richford freight required two engines for power. George Corey provided this shot of N-5-a 2-8-0 no. 466 shoving on the rear end of the Richford-bound freight at Sheldon Springs on February 23, 1957. Within a month steam would be dead on the CV. (And yes, freight car nuts should check out the GTW rebuilt boxcar ahead of the van). 

Pulpwood delivery - Sheldon Springs

Jack Delano photo, Sheldon Springs, Vermont, Sept. 1941

I've been doing some additional research on the Missisquoi Pulp & Paper complex at Sheldon Springs. I've featured the mill complex in previous posts HERE and HERE. 

I'd gotten as far as laying the track and wiring it on my freelanced ("inspired by") version of the mill. But I've learned enough about the prototype over the last couple of years that my version simply isn't cutting it. The result has is a complete scrapping - down to the open grid benchwork - of my initial attempt. 

I'll share more about how this is shaping up in future blog posts. 

In the meantime I wanted to share this Jack Delano photo (above) from the Library of Congress website. 

This is obviously a second pulpwood handling station (a photo of the other one appeared in a Wordless Wednesday post HERE). 

The sign next to the shed reads "Engines Must Not Pass This Point".

Obviously I plan to include some version of this wood unloading station on my revised mill. But this photo actually makes me ask more questions than it answers. 

For example, while the wood is obviously being delivered by boxcars (not surprising) I'm a little puzzled by the fact that pulp logs appear to have been debarked. The pulpwood pile is on the other side of the plant from the pulp mill itself - so how did the logs get from the pile to the mill proper? 

By the way the reporting marks on the end of the boxcar are CN 511534, making this a member of a very large group of CN single sheathed boxcars. Sylvan and Steam Shack (F&C) both offered resin kits for these cars.

There's clearly an NY&OW gon in the photo linked above. Perhaps that is an ex-NYO&W gon that's being used to shuttle the pulpwood within the plant complex? 

Luckily none of these questions need to be answered before I get the basic benchwork, track, and wiring complete in the mill complex. 

And yes, that little speck in the lead photo atop the pulpwood pile is indeed an OSHA violation waiting to happen.... <g>! 

Realigning the Sheldon Springs Mill

The paper mill complex at Sheldon Springs has always a key element of my Richford Branch. I built the benchwork and installed the track and got it working "fairly well." While the track in the mill yard itself functioned fine, the curve into the mill peninsula from the mainline didn't like steam locomotives. It was simply too sharp, or had a weird kink, or the curved turnout I incorporated as part of the curve was just a little out of whack. 

My trackwork nemesis....this turnout and that curve

I reworked that turnout twice, replaced it once, and tried re-aligning the curve. But nothing helped. I actually considered removing the paper mill peninsula altogether - and even extending the Richford yard peninsula to fill that space. Such plans were greeted with much groaning and subdued laughter. After all, the prime directive of this layout is to stay with the theme - ignoring all those great "what if..." ideas that constantly derailed progress on my previous layout. 

But something had to be done with the paper mill. 

The first issue I identified is that the track arrangement had gotten too complex and crowded. I won't really take a lot of blame for that - over the last few years I've come up with some more information on the complex that I didn't have a few years back. 

But although there are still some questions remaining about the purpose of some of the buildings (like exactly what is that "bunker" in the lower right hand edge of the overall shot of the complex for? And when did it disappear?)

I do have a pretty good feel for how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and I'm fairly confident I know what the track arrangement should be. 

And of course comparing this newfound knowledge to the original track arrangement revealed a "close but no cigar" situation. Sure, I could freelance some buildings to fit the track arrangement as it was, but would I ever really be satisfied with that - especially when I'd turned up information on the real thing? 

Besides, reworking to reflect the prototype would give me a chance to really fix the operational issues with the lead into the mill. And it would reduce the amount of track and turnouts on the peninsula - I've come to the realization that the less track, the better. In fact I'm eyeing another spur (elsewhere on the layout) for possible removal.... 

The drawing shown here, which Bernie Kempinski did based on some of my sketches, shows the basic approach (although some of the specific structure footprints and track arrangements may change or evolve as the scene is constructed).  

The first step was to build a new, curved turnout for the lead into the paper mill. This replaced the original straight no. 6.

Once the turnout was finished and tested I removed the track and plywood subroadbed from the peninsula. I'll remove the fascia panels next - actually I might be able to swap the taller and lower fascia panels. But I ordered a couple of pieces of bendy board from Rockler just in case. 

While I'd love to have this scene basically looking complete in time for the open house scheduled as part of MARPM in October, I may not meet that goal. There are several other projects I want to get finished up - such as the background forest areas in a couple of other spots on the layout, and ballasting Enosburg Falls and Richford, that may be a better use of time between now and the open house. 

But on the other hand my layout progress has been somewhat paltry over the last year ... the MARPM open house (and our annual Holiday open house, which we'll be hosting this year after a couple of year hiatus, may be just that gust of wind I need to get a bunch of stuff done. 

 

http://centralvermontrailway.blogspot.com/search?q=Sheldon+Springs

"Next Stop - Stafford Mills"

This is the approximate position of the Magoun Store. 

With the Missisquoi River crossing scene completed it's time to head to the opposite side of the Junction and finish up the Stafford Mills scene. "Stafford Mills" is the name I'm using to represent Sheldon Springs. Why change the name from the prototype you ask? 

I could give you some long explanation that I was concerned that two or three operational locations on the layout named "Sheldon something" - would confuse operators. Or how I wanted to include some elements that weren't part of the prototype scene so I couldn't say I was "modeling Sheldon Springs." 

The real explanation is pretty straightforward: "Stafford Mills" is a town name I dreamt up back in high school while trying to look like I was paying attention in Father Brisette's chemistry class and I kind of like it... (the town name, not chemistry!)

For some details on how Stafford Mills got to its current state you can look at this blog post. You can also check out the two videos on "Forced Perspective" on my "CVSNE" YouTube channel. 

The impetus to work on this section of the layout was digging out the half (okay, maybe 3/4!) finished BEST Trains Trussell store kit. Long time blog followers will recall I planned to include this building in Williams Creek on my former Roxbury Sub layout. I got the building mounted to a Gatorboard base, stained the roof, and added a couple of Woodland Scenics Easy Lighting LEDs. I also created a poor man's interior using photos of General Store interiors I found online.

I made a sign for the front of the store - christening it "P. R. Magoun's General Merchandise" - named for a former NMRA president and (more to the point) fellow Navy veteran and long time friend and strong supporter of the SNE. Friends of the SNE get buildings named after them - enemies of the SNE get their names on a plaque in the SNE HQ men's room ....(!) 

The first step in getting the store in place was to find a spot that it looked right. This was a little tricky with the N scale brick mill in the background. In the end I settled on the spot shown in the photo above. 

The N scale brick mill in the background of the scene. 

I also wanted to add a road in front of the store that would ultimately run towards the paper mill complex and tie these (and some future elements) of the scene together. 

I started by removing a lot of the trees that I'd installed along the front of the background mill river. Then I carefully placed a large sheet of paper and marked the approximate location of one side of the road. Then I removed the paper and cut out the roads themselves. 

I'll use the paper road as a template to cut the road base itself out of sheet styrene. But that's for the next blog post. 

Unanswered Questions

An early photo of the Missisquoi Pulp & Paper plant in Sheldon Springs on the CV's Richford Branch. 

Researching railroad history can be a rewarding and fascinating past time. 
As a rule, historians focus primarily on "macro" examinations of their subject. And railroad histories for many years were the realm of classic economic or business historians. I remember reading the railroad books in the local library when I was a kid. You know the ones, page after page of board meetings, earnings, revenue and (mostly) losses. The one thing they all had in common were the "plates" in the middle of the book where there might be a photo or two of a train hidden among the portraits of the railroad's presidents. 
But even those type of histories seem to fall out of favor about the time the railroads were going into the toilet - basically the late 1960s. Frankly today most of the work in railroad history isn't been done by "professional" historians but by amateur historians. Whether this constitutes "real" history is a question I'm not going to touch. 
Historians who subscribe to "Cliometrics" - basically the application of statistical methods and analysis to history - tend to study industrial and transportation history. As a rule the more data, the more valid the resulting statistical analysis will be.  And large industries, such as railroads, have generated a lot of data that Cliometricians, as they call themselves, love to chew on. 
Back in my grad school days I took a business history class. My paper for that class was a look at the effect of the railroads that would eventually become part of the CV's southern division had on several "sub regions" of New England.  In doing the research I turned up some fascinating and obscure references - including a paper on the economic impact of the Amherst & Belchertown Railroad (told you it was obscure!) published in the early 1930s that Bernie Kempinski obtained for me from the Library of Congress. 
As we were packing up stuff this spring I came across my old paper and flipped through it. I realized two things: First of all, the paper really was pretty good, with a sound premise and valid research to back up my thesis.  
Second, and more to the point, there's little or anything that would be of use to a modeler attempting to duplicate those lines. 
Instead of focusing on the macro, modelers, and amateur rail historians, tend to focus on the micro. 
As I'm researching certain elements of the Richford branch I've come up with several questions I've been unable to answer such as:

1. I know the motive power used on the branch in the 1950s and later. I'm having difficulty determining which engines ran on the branch prior to that time. 
2. The Enosburg Falls station was an interesting building with some intricate trim. I can't determine when the structure was torn down. 
3. The Missisquoi Pulp & Paper Co. had it's own in-plant railroad, complete with a small engine house. I know they used a Track mobile to move cars around in the plant in later years. What, if anything, came before the Track mobile? 
4. I've located a couple of vintage images of the paper mill buildings, but would like an overall shot of the "river" side of the mill taken in the 1940s/50s - something more current than the one shown above. (see update below)
5. How was the Canadian Pacific interchange traffic at Richford handled? Did the Richford local bring those cars to the CP yard? Or did the CP come to the CV's yard to fetch them? Or is it something that changed over time? 
6. Did anyone ever take a photo of the Richford plywood plant from the CV yard during the time period I'm modeling? I've seen one photo that appeared in Ed Beaudette's book. the only other image is a quick glimpse in a "CV in Steam" DVD from A&R Productions. 

I'm noticing a trend in the information I have been able to uncover. Most of it seems to be from an earlier era than the 1950s. Does that mean an era shift is afoot? Don't know - ironically, I can't find a lot of railroad photos from earlier than that time period on the branch - a few, but not many. 
Somewhat frustrating is the fact that the vast majority of my reference material is in storage at the moment. Since I didn't start researching the branch in earnest until a few months ago it's entirely possible the answers to my questions are buried in the storage containers. 
In meantime, I'll do what I can and and keep piling up the questions.
Finding the answers is a lot of the fun of prototype modeling.

UPDATE: 

Scratch #4 off the list above. It's too cold to go out for lunch so I spent my lunch surfing - I stumbled across this photo on the UVM web site showing the Sheldon Springs paper mill. Look closely in the area of the mill in front of the hillside in the closeup image below and you can see the tower and horizontal covered walk visible in the vintage photo above:

Sheldon Junction Bridge

Richford Local crossing Missisquoi River, John Krause photo

It's been a number of years since I've bought bridge kits. The scenic highlight of the new layout, as on the prototype, will be the crossing of the Missisquoi River at Sheldon Junction. The railroad crossed the river on three through truss bridges. At least it was three until June 29, 1984. On that date the last four cars on a B&M/CP detour train derailed, and in the process destroyed one of the spans beyond repair. 

Ian Stronach photo

That derailment was really the end of the Richford branch as a railroad line - as the tracks were abandoned east of that point and the damaged span removed. 
I've seen photos of the bridge - such as John Krause's photo above and Ian Stronach's photo shown to the right. 
I figured the bridge looks close enough to the Central Valley Truss bridge that I'd simply order three of them and build them up. 
But in the years since I've bought a bridge - or seriously looked at bridge kits - Central Valley has added to their product line by offering their "classic" bridge as an Eastern Gusseted or Punch Plate bridge. Great, knowing my luck I'll pick one of the three, guess wrong and find out only after it's installed on the railroad!
Google to the rescue. 
Even the railroad tracks are long gone the Richford Branch right-of-way is still there - as a bike trail. And Google Maps

Google Street View of the Sheldon Springs bridge. 

offers a street view from the bike trail taken from the bridge. 
A few quick clicks and I was able to determine the original Central Valley Pratt Truss bridge is the closest to the prototype. I was also able to use the map

to determine the length of the span - the Central Valley bridge is 150 feet long, meaning three spans measure 450 feet. Google Maps indicates the river is about 370 feet or so across - but that's today's bike trail - as shown in the John Krause photo above, the abutments weren't located on the edge of the river, meaning 450 feet or so should be close enough, and ought to make for an impressive scene. 
Naturally, guess which version was nowhere to be found at Timomium last weekend!

Main Street, Enosburg Falls, Vermont -1941

From Shorpy, Enosburg Falls, 1941, Jack Delano photo. 

To access a larger version of the image click on this link:
https://www.shorpy.com/node/24300

In the process of googling for information on Vermont feed mills - I was hoping for Sheldon Junction but thus far other than one fuzzy distant photo in "Vermont's Covered Bridge Road" no photos have turned up. But I did come across a link to this Jack Delano photo on Shorpy (reproduced in small size above, to see an expandable version on the Shorpy site  click HERE.

I’m familiar with series of 1941 WPA photos Jack Delano took in northern Vermont as they appear on the LOC website. These photos include some images from Sheldon Springs (the paper mill), and the creamery at Enosburg Falls, but the image at the top of this blog post hasn't shown up on the LOC site and is by far the coolest. (And the fact that it hasn't appeared on the LOC site tells me an in-person visit to the Photo Room may be in order to see what else may be lurking there!)

If only Jack had turned just a little to the right so I could read the sign on the feed mill! I strongly suspect this was the LL Marsh Feeds  based on the position of the mill relative to the track and the street (see the Sanborn Map above) - which would mean XTRA 453 is crossing Main Street. 

The ice cream store, gas station, feedmill, and of course the Consol are all neat - but that popcorn stand is just too much!

Here's a closer view of the Sanborn Map - showing basically the area covered by the photo (the photographer was standing on the right side of the map, looking to the left.): 

The map dates to 1920 - the latest Enosburg Falls Sanborn Map on the LOC site.  Also note on the map: 

• The two story structure directly across the tracks from the feed mill 
• The pink outlined building, indicating a brick faced structure, at the corner of Main and Bismark Streets

Note the ice cream shop is not on the map. Not surprising as the map predates the photo by 20 years or so - but if you look to the rear of the ice cream shop in the lead photo you can just barely see a series of additions and the like along the track.  

Time to fire up Google Map Street view and see if anything recognizable is still there: 

• The Shell station is gone (there's still a Shell station north of the tracks on Main Street,  but it's a newer building - none of the character of the one Delano used to frame the left side of his photo.  
• The popcorn stand, alas, has succumbed to the siren song of progress (and microwavable popcorn...!)
• The feed mill and the tracks are also gone - the old CV line is now a bike trail visible in the center of the screen capture above
• The ice cream store, with the extensions and other small structures along the right of way, the vintage two story brick building and the bank at the corner are all still there. 

And, in this view from Bismark Street behind the bank that unlabeled two-story frame structure is still visible: 

First prize to whomever can turn up a photo showing the entire feed mill, including the lettering that's obviously on the tallest portion of the structure. Based on the spacing and the letters I can see it looks like the lower portion of lettering may read "Wirthmore" - which was a brand of feed. 
I recently turned up a group of Enosburg Falls historical society newsletters online - time to search through them. I also plan to reach out to the historical society and see if they can help. 

In the meantime, anyone else want to take a crack at figuring out the feed mill lettering? 

Crafting a Strategy

Although we’re not completely “moved in” to the new house (read: the cars are still in the driveway as the garage is plenty full of boxes) we are almost moved in – which means I’m looking forward to getting started on the new layout – hopefully at some point this summer. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking through how to approach building the layout.
The first possible approach is to build all the benchwork, lay track (even using something like Atlas code 83 track and turnouts as a temporary track), wire up the DCC system and be railroading. At that point I can go back and add more detailed track, scenery, structures and the like one scene at a time. 
One of my favorite model railroad design books is John Armstrong’s “Creative Layout Design” that I got when it was first published in 1978. While the cover

Can a valid approach to layout
 construction, be found
in one of the more
obscure plans in this classic? 

and interior layout of the book screams “1970s”!!, and some of the plans show the too-tight aisles and stacked track of many of Armstrong’s plans, the text and reasoning behind the designs is still valid – and the layout designs in this book were among John’s most creative and innovative.
One of the most unusual designs is for a large scale indoor layout based on the Maine Central’s interchange with a two-foot railroad. What was interesting and relevant to the topic of this blog post is the way John suggested approaching the project. 
He included a table in the book that showed how someone could approach this particular project that required virtually everything be scratchbuilt. First build a section of layout, then build a narrow gauge locomotive, a combine, and several flat cars… once that was done build the connecting MEC standard gauge track, followed by an MEC Ten Wheeler… that sort of thing.
So how would that look on my Richford project? 

The trackplan highlights how I’d divide the layout construction into three phases – the first would be the Richford peninsula proper, with enough benchwork on either end of the base of the peninsula to firmly secure it in place and allow for a temporary staging track on both ends. Why start with Richford? 
The answer in my case is that, with the exception of the plywood plant and perhaps the Richford depot, I have structures that I can use here. 
Phase II would continue the benchwork around the walls (not shown is there may be a Phase IIa, Phase IIb approach – where I’d complete “Enosburg Falls” before completing Sheldon Junction, or some such. 
Phase III would see the Sheldon Springs peninsula added. 

Taking some inspiration from the approach outlined in Creative Layout Design, I’d plan on completing other other projects to the list. For example, I have two CV brass N-5-a 2-8-0s. Both of them need decoders and a paint job. With my prior layout the work on the layout took priority over all else, meaning I was using “stand in” locomotives awaiting a chance to “get to” the correct locomotives. Likewise, I had a lot of unweathered, out of the box freight cars to “fill out” the trains – with unbuilt resin kits in sitting in their boxes. 

Here's a tabular view of how this might look for Phase I: 

Task	PHASE I – RICHFORD PENINSULA
	Infrastructure	Rolling Stock	Structures/Scenery
1	Install track lighting fixtures
2	Benchwork complete for peninsula, with temporary staging on both ends.
3		At least 32 “completed” freight cars appropriate for layout*
4	Track laid, feeders installed, and switch frogs powered to include: 1 custom curved turnout 7 LH no 6 turnouts 4 RH no. 6 turnouts Turntable
5	Install DCC system and wiring to include turntable controller
6			Install existing structures – freight house, warehouse, mockups for others
7			Base scenery complete
8		Paint, weather, and install decoder in one N-5-a 2-8-0

* This particular task is already complete as I have far more than 32 “completed” cars! ("Completed" means mechanically tuned, detailed including complete underbody, and weathered). The quantity of 32 is based on the total track capacity of Richford, divided by 50% - with one staged 14 car train. Thirty two cars is too many cars on the Phase I layout at once, so some of the 32 would serve to add variety to trains even at an early stage. 

Once I reach “Task 8” in the table above I can either proceed to start Phase II or refine and “tweak” Phase I perhaps by adding more details to the scenery, scratchbuilding the structures to replace the mockups, build more freight cars and the like.
Of course one could combine both approaches shown – build all the benchwork, lay temporary track, and then go through a step-by-step approach for each scene as shown above.
My goal here is not to create Gandtt charts, schedules and the like but instead to develop something of a methodical approach – otherwise it can become far too easy to either get bogged down in the constant slog of a huge undertaking, or end up jumping from one project to another in such a manner that nothing gets done. 

Wordless Wednesday #242

                           Sheldon Springs, Vt. - Ian Stronach photo

 

New siding for "Stafford Mills"

The fact that even the "first coat" of the backdrop painting stops
here is a clue that the Stafford Mills area of the layout is unresolved. 

As originally planned, Stafford Mills (essentially my freelanced version of Sheldon Springs) was the location of a major single industry - in this case a paper mill complex located at the end of a dedicated stub peninsula. But as I built the layout I realized there would be room for a siding with one or two very small industries at opposite the junction switch on the passing siding (the junction switch with the mill lead forks off from the mainline). 

In this case I didn't have to remove anything so this wasn't so much a "rework" as it was an addition or an enhancement. I could even make the argument this didn't add any additional track to the layout since I'd removed a turnout and a siding from the junction area as part of the rework of that trackage I described a few months ago. 

I was out of Micro Engineering no. 6 code 70 turnouts - as is everyone else. So I decided to handlay the necessary turnout. Although this added a couple of evenings to the project I'm glad I did - the turnout works perfectly, and cars and locomotives (even brass steam locomotives!) pass through both routes without so much as a click! I'm not wishing any additional work on myself, but if any of the Micro Engineering turnouts on the rest of the railroad fail or prove troublesome I'm simply going to replace them with handlaid ones.  

The buildings shown in the photos are strictly placeholders and may, or may not, end up in these locations permanently. I kind of like the idea of a station in between the mill lead and mainline, so that will likely stay (I may build a different station for the spot. The one shown is a model of the Richmond, Vermont station - although that perhaps the closest to a "standard" CV small depot design as the railroad had. But there are a couple of Grand Trunk (NEL) stations I've always liked and may well scratchbuild one of those for this spot. 

The freighthouse is a Walthers cheapo model that I painted and lettered in "close enough" CV colors. It's not bad .... but the weakest point is the platform - despite my best efforts it's still too bulky. I should have replaced it with a scratchbuilt wood one. I do have a BEST Trains kit that may work better in this spot, if I decide to stick with the freight house. 

The red rectangular building is simply there to fill space and see how a larger industry would look in that spot. I'm not convinced it's going to work there - especially with the freight house. The answer is looking like (1) freight house and something that isn't a large building - a coal yard for example or team track OR (2) a larger building industry with no freight house. Since there's going to be plenty of large buildings in the mill complex I'm leaning towards option #1. 

My ultimate plan for the area with inside the mainline curve (with the yellow building) is to ultimately have a mill river with one or two larger wooden mill structures over a mill stream, complete with mill falls, etc. ... But that sounds like it may take months/years to get completed. This may well simply end up as some open fields and a tree line "for now" to get a large portion of the landscape to look finished with the idea I could revisit it at some future point.