Gorre & Daphetid Combine 5 At The Zenith Chapter, NRHS

Friend and fellow blogger John R sent me a vintage Roundhouse kit for Gorre & Daphetid combine 5. This was promptly transferred to the Zenith Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, where it joined the Chapter's collection, which is stored on the private trackage of the paper mill near Malabar. It's shown with the Chapter's restored Midvale Steel Porter on a recent open day.

Here is the "prototype" of G&D 5 serving on John Allen's G&D layout some time back in the 1960s. The Zenith Chapter did a great job of restoring the one they have to an earlier paint scheme.

The Los Feliz and North Western recently donated foreman bunk car 0357 to the Zenith Chapter as well. The Chapter intends to restore it one day, but this is far back on the list of the Chapter's projects, and the car will probably remain in the collection as-is for the foreseeable future.

(I found two of these Roundhouse old-time business cars at a swap meet, both for a dollar, so I couldn't pass them up. They were so cheap because someone had literally painted them with nail polish. I was able to get the nail polish off, but some of the windows came off badly, and I blocked them off and repainted both as work cars.)

The Chapter ran both cars for a short distance on the paper mill's private trackage, but as you can see, 0357 derailed. Luckily, it was a Sunday, and the problem was fixed wsithout disrupting the mill's operation.

Thanks, John R!