Fletcher's Granite Quarry Westford, MA

Continuing with my thoughts on small locos and potential uses for them on a model, not long ago I found this video on Youtube of a 44-ton diesel operating at Fletcher's Granite Quarry in Westford, MA.

I found this thread on the Fletcher's railroad at Railroad.net. Although the quarry has had its ups and downs in recent decades, the railroad is still in operation. I found this view of the 44-tonner, two of the quarry flats, and a corner of the granite processing building via Google Earth in a link on the Railroad.net thread.

There's still a certain amount of railroad granite and marble traffic in New England. The Fletcher quarry operation looks like a good potential prototype for a micro layout, but the Vermont Railway has other industrial areas that are worth a look as well, including the switchback to the former Rock of Ages quarry in Barre, VT.

Walthers Plymouth Announcement And Very Small Locos

I noticed on a couple of forums this morning that Walthers has announced a Plymouth ML-8 in its HO Mainline brand. As I've said here before, I have more small locos than I should and the new Walthers Plymouth will not be an automatic sale. But it's interesting nonetheless. There are a couple of ML-8s extant; here's a Youtube video.

A couple of common carrier short lines had small Plymouths, including the Stewartstown Railroad in Pennsylvania with an ML-8.

Here's a different (model unknown) and even smaller Plymouth I found on the web, lettered for the Hanover Railway, which as far as I can determine ran from 1906 to 1934 from Hanover to North Hanover, IL:

The puzzling thing is that I see so few layouts that make good use of such small models. They're perfect for micros, it seems to me, but despite the late Carl Arendt's site, I can find very few that turn my crank. I need to give this more thought.

Missouri Pacific

Over at the New York Central Train Layout, John R covered some work he's been doing on a pair of Bachmann Spectrum B23-7s. He was going to strip he bodies, which the prior owner had painted to suit himself, and add his own paint -- but the stripper appears to have dissolved the bodies, and he ordered replacements from Bachmann, which happened to be painted for Missouri Pacific.

I've always liked the Spectrum B23-7s, and I have an MP stashed away somewhere. Beyond that, something has always appealed to me about the MP late diesel color scheme. I never lived in MP territory. although it served New Orleans, which I've always thought is fun to visit. But without wanting to model MP or its territory, I've always found good reason to run MP diesels and equipment. MP had run-through agreements with other railroads (including UP) in the 1970s, and in 1982 it merged with UP.

UP at the time did not have a policy of patching merged power, and unrenumbered, unrepainted MP locos were common on UP, both the "classic" network and ex-MP routes, for some years. For that matter, MP lettered freight cars are still common on UP:

John R wasn't sure what to do with his MP B23-7s. I suggested he simply leave them as MP units, and he's tentatively decided to do this. They could be either running through in power pools on his PC-inspired layout or paying off horsepower hours.

From a modeler's standpoint, MP locos are fairly common, but the road name isn't among the most popular, which means MP models can sometimes be found in closeout offers. MP locos were plain vanilla, which makes detailing fairly easy, while MP blue with red and white accents was quite attractive. Over the years I've taken advantage of MP locos on sale:

One thing to keep in mind for 1970s and 80s consists is that usually the host railroad's units had to be on the point, since the radio frequencies on foreign units couldn't be changed. Thus a PC U23B is leading MP power in the photo above.

Below is an ex-MP U23B painted for UP with an MP GP38-2 still in the old paint:

MP 2120 is an Athearn RTR that was a pretty easy detail job, given the plain vanilla of MP orders:

Athearn and Atlas units don't MU well together straight from the box. UP 865 and MP 2120 have both been equipped with DCC. I was able to adjust the starting voltage on the Athearn unit to get it to run compatibly with the Atlas U23B.

Ex MP GP38-2s have been staples in the Los Angeles basin, by the way:

Tweaks

This week I finished some tweaks to a Roundhouse boxcar I picked up a couple of years ago at a swap meet. Here it is as it was when I brought it home:

Here it is after the more or less standard things I do to get a car on the layout:

I had a bottle of Polly Scale MEC yellow and painted the bare plastic black brake wheel. I don't remember if the prior owner had equipped it with metal wheels, but I painted the wheel faces and Kadees with the former Floquil Rail Brown. Truck sideframes and underbody painted grimy black. ACI label added. Here's a prototye photo:

Clearly it needs a weathering job too.

1968 Railfan Photos

I was stuck in northern New Hampshire in the late 1960s. Only good thing about it was the ability to railfan Canadian Pacific, Boston & Maine, and Central Vermont. One day in the spring of 1968 I wandered around White River Junction, VT and the B&M facility across the Connecticut River in Westboro, NH. The photos were made on 127 film with a snapshot camera.

Here's the power for the East Deerfield-Springfield freight laying over in Westboro:

B&M Alco S-4 1271 across the river in the White River Jct yard:

CP International of Maine Division box:

B&M small crane on flatcar:

Looking north in the White River Jct yard. The passenger station is at center right in the distance. At this time, there was no passenger service. Amtrak would restore it in the next decade.

Although it was 1968 (48 years ago!), there were no ACI labels to be seen, and the freight cars mostly still had roofwalks. How things would change.