Wordless Wednesday #257

 

Dick Nelson photo, St. Albans, Vt., c. 1957

Wordless Wednesday #255

 

Enosburg Falls Condensery

I don't think I'll be able to get an actual model of the Enosburg Falls condensery before the MARPM Open House (before the end of the year is more likely!) but that doesn't mean I don't want to think through what the building might look like. 

Here's a couple of views of the same side of the building (obviously the trackside of the building) from two different eras. 

Obviously the building has seem some changes - I'd like to be able to determine the era these photos were taken - it may help refine what my model for the ~1941 era model should look like. 

The shot with the GTW reefer is the later image of these two. I think the car barely visible to the extreme left is a showing the large "wiggle worm" CV logo of the post-1963 era. 

The two freight cars in the earlier picture should be able to help set a baseline to come up with a range of years for that photo. I suspect it's sometime in the first 30 years of the 20th century but would like to narrow down the date. 

Wordless Wednesday #245

 

Wordless Wednesday #238

 

Wordless Wednesday #237

Library of Congress

 

Milk Car Quandry

 One of the dogs has been a little under the weather this week, and she's really not supposed to go up and down stairs - and if I go downstairs and she doesn't, well, let's just say I hear all about it - the constant baying of an angry basset hound is not conducive to getting work done on the layout. 

So I've been spending my hobby time this week upstairs working on a couple of article drafts and finalizing a clinic I'd started putting together back in the pre-Covid days. 

One of the things I've been researching are the creameries, and associated milk cars, along the Richford branch. 

To start with every town along the branch had at least one active creamery. 

Most milk cars were either railroad owned (CV, B&M, etc...) or were private owner cars (GPEX perhaps the most numerous but there were others) leased to various dairy companies (Borden's, Hood, Whiting, etc ...). The leasee names were stenciled on the sides of the car, and, for obvious reasons, you wouldn't find a Hood car spotted at a Whiting creamery (or vice versa). Complicating matters, the specific car number may have been lettered for Whiting one year and Borden's the next! 

My research, using a variety of sources, has led me to:

1. The Richford creamery was an H. P. Hood Creamery at the time I'm modeling. 

2. Enosburg Falls had a creamery (Paul Dolkos has built the model of it for me), New England Dairies that shipped cans of milk in a CV car, so that's covered. 

4. There was also a condensary in Enosburg Falls, but frankly that deserves its own blog post. 

5. Which leads to East Berkshire. I know there was a creamery in East Berkshire, and I know it was a United Farmers Co-Op, since it said so on the side in huge lettering, and it's listed in the CV list of customers for East Berkshire. (Just beneath another creamery!).  

Which leads to the question - what kind of milk cars would be delivered to this creamery? 

And what how would they be lettered? 

I know United Farmers had a couple of cars lettered for them - the 53-foot wood cars that are identical to express reefers without ice bunkers and roof hatches. 

But all the references I can find inidcate these United Farmers cars were in dedicated service on the B&M between Boston and Morrisville, Vt. Walthers even made a two-pack of them - 

https://www.walthers.com/general-american-pfaudler-53-wood-milk-tank-car-asembled-2-pack-limited-run-united-farmers. 

Any help/thoughts/references, etc... would be appreciated. At this point I'd settle for a couple of prototype photos showing the United Farmers cars in something other than the round logo scheme on the Walthers models. Tichy makes decals for United Farmers that are more typical of the later era plain green cars with Deluxe lettering - but I can't find a picture of a United Farmers car painted in that scheme!

Wordless Wednesday #233

East Berkshire, Vermont. Sept 1940. J Delano Photo, Library of Congress

 

Wordless Wednesday #221

J. Delano photo, Library of Congress

Images from videos

Back 20 or more years ago an outfit called A&R Productions produced a series of VHS tapes titled "Central Vermont Railway in Steam." I bought the video tapes, and then, several years later the same footage was re-released on DVD. These were essentially 8mm and "Super 8" movies shot in the last couple of years of steam on the CV - primarily on the Southern Division. As such, they're not terribly clear - there's lots of handheld camera work and quick cuts, but they often show things that I've never been able to locate anywhere else. Which brings us to the topic for today. 
Video #3 is actually two parts - the majority of the first half of the video shows lots of switching in Palmer and Willimantic, and then shifts to a ride in the caboose up the Richford Branch. (The second half of volume #3 is a cab ride on the Willimantic sub in Connecticut). 
I was going through some boxes a couple of weeks ago and came across the DVD - which I haven't looked at in a number of years. I went ahead and popped it into the DVD player to see if there was anything useful to me. In short, there was. I did a few "screen captures" with my iphone - they actually turned out fairly decent - considering this was a DVD remastered from a VHS that was sourced from 8mm home movie shot with a handheld camera on a caboose that was bouncing around quite a bit. I've mentioned the Richford plywood plant (which burned in 1954) before - this is the only color image (and one of only a few views of any type!) of that plant I've seen, ever... 

Atlas Plywood in Richford, shortly before it burned to the ground in October 1954. 

Approach into the CV's Richford Yard

Another "only time I've seen a photo of ..." - the HP Hood Creamery in Richford.

In Enosburg Falls, that's a coal dealer shed in the right foreground. 

Enosburg Falls - note how tight this area was. Basically east of Main Street, West of Plesant Street. Feed mill, with a "Wirthmore Feeds" sign atop the roof barely visible to the left. 

Video features switching the Condensed Milk Plant at Enosburg (the gray building with all the windows). Pulling (above) and setting out new cars (below). Interesting this sequence shows CV milk cars - and B&M cars. 

Wordless Wednesday #216

Jack Delano,1941, Library of Congress

Wordless Wednesday #211

Jack Delano, Sept. 1941

Wordless Wednesday #209

J. Delano, Enosburg Falls, VT., Sep 1941

Wordless Wednesday #120

Richmond Creamery - A few words (and more pics) from Wordless Wednesday #115

I received this note from a blog reader early this morning - 

"Marty,

 One or two words on the blog concerning the latest Wordless Wednesday (115?) model might be in order.  Like what is it, where is it going, etc…"

 The building in the picture in Wordless Wednesday #115 is the Richmond, Vermont creamery. 

The model was built by Rich Cobb. Rich has built several structures for me, including the White River Junction and Randolph stations.

On the layout it's going in the corner at the north end of Everett (which I might rename Richmond - especially when one considers that Rich also included a model of the Richmond depot!). I still have to weather the building and add a few additional details. In fact, I've been working on "planting" the building this weekend.  

Here are a few prototype photos of the building - the color shots on the structure in more recent times are from George Dutka - thanks for sharing these George!

Wordless Wednesday #115

Central Vermont stenciling diagrams

An ongoing discussion on the Steam Era Freight Cars Yahoo Group started as a discussion of various railroad rolling stock lettering types/styles. This naturally morphed into a discussion of "stenciling diagrams"  - full size diagrams that shop crews would use when lettering equipment. 
Some railroads called these "heralds," many called them "emblems" - on the CN family, including the Central Vermont, the diagrams were most often referred to as "wafers." 
Here is the CV stenciling diagram for the familiar steam locomotive tender lettering (also used on one of the milk car schemes), the familiar CV "tilted wafer":

And here is the diagram for the Maple Leaf monogram applied to the ends of the diesel locomotives and sides of some passenger cars:

I also have the maple leaf used on the vans, but haven't scanned it yet. 

Wordless Wednesday #100

Wordless Wednesday #99

Wordless Wednesday #95