Fictional N-scale Model RR News? inspired by The HO guys...

okay the M&CRS does exsist. but only in HO scale (one perhaps N)

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Theres no such thing as having to many coal hoppers or GP40-2 when you model Chessie System
LONG LIVE THE KITTEN!!!
LONG LIVE BIG BLUE!!!

 

The M&CRS exists, the MRS exists; scale doesn't matter!

I think the "fictional road" forum should move out from under a scale forum and onto its own string!

The MRS had two terrific excursion consists.

The first was a heavyweight combine with a grafted bay window as a photo car companion for the 1985 NMRA convention car. The two were seen on a display track behind a 4-6-2 in the same paint scheme.

There was also a streamline consist with a photo car (RPO w/bay windows grafted on); tavern car, the "Bay View Pub," and the dome/observation car "Maumee Bay" pulled by an FP 45.

The fortunes of the MRS changed for the worse on the same day the stock market crashed, October 19, 1987.

HO consists were liquidated and HO modeling activity was suspended indefinitely when MRS management visited an NTRAK display at Galesburg RR days '96.

Please advise of M&CRS route; consider an interchange with Erie-Lackawanna at Cleveland and TTRR at Toledo. Got decals?

 

I sent a message to support, suggesting the fictitious RR topics on HO and N move out onto their own forum.

I've seen some of the same personnel on both HO and N forums, demonstrating that "home road" history and imagination are great, scale doesn't matter.

I don't know 'bout you, but I'd look forward to a "Fictitious RR Hysterical Society" forum.

 

Thom I like that Idea!
more stores of the M&CRS and othe fictionous roads.

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Theres no such thing as having to many coal hoppers or GP40-2 when you model Chessie System
LONG LIVE THE KITTEN!!!
LONG LIVE BIG BLUE!!!

 

I'm intrigued by some of the M&CRS stories. Was the business at the "west end" grain hauling to the Andersons in Maumee? Was it a coal interchange for Detroit Edison or Toledo Edison? Did your operation intersect the Big Four around Fremont? Did you haul sheet metal to Clyde?

Were you on leased trackage or did M&CRS own its own ROW?

Did you prefer yards at Lime City or Oregon?

Does your road run on a home layout or N-Trak?

Got decals?

 

Well the RR is in VERY early devlopment. I currently have only 3 units with M&CRS marks on them and some cars. in a about 5-10 years when I start work on the "new and impoved" M&CRS (basically when I am out of school and have a good job) I will have it set up to serve the Andersons and Ford in Maumee, some places in Cleveland and some made up places in my home town of Cuyahoga Falls. Trackage is (or will be) Maumee-Toledo (trackage rights NS)to some made up point or possibly a yard that is unused (rossford? that will tie in with my current (small might I add) layout of a modern Chessie System )then some trackage to Akron (W&LE is planed on being part of M&CRS)then north to Cuyahoga Falls (W&LE and more Chessie (B&O line)) then up to cleveland from Cuyahoga Falls via CR and Cuyahoga Valley. the layout will be made in sections over the many years when I start. The distance betwen Toldeo and Akron will be shortened by useing differnt scenes and a line that "diseapers" in a forest like scene. (that will make for some 110 mile long trains but oh well.) also distances beteen cleveland and akron will be sortened for space. I am going for the smallest I can do.

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Theres no such thing as having to many coal hoppers or GP40-2 when you model Chessie System
LONG LIVE THE KITTEN!!!
LONG LIVE BIG BLUE!!!

 

I also have a Idea for a logo. Its a EL like logo with a MC in the middle but I dont have it online. Also M&CRS is going to be based in the 1990s-current and onward. My Modern Chessie will also have a big part in this.

Do your do a modern EL?

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Theres no such thing as having to many coal hoppers or GP40-2 when you model Chessie System
LONG LIVE THE KITTEN!!!
LONG LIVE BIG BLUE!!!

 

EL existed in a narrow time slot, 1960-1976.

Your CR in Cleveland may have included old EL trackage.

The merged EL inherited an Erie RR industrial account, the Sherwin-Williams Linseed Oil Mill in Cleveland.

SWP processed their own linseed oil at this site, off West 6th St. on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River. For decades, Sherwin-williams took the seed by rail or ship, processed the oil, and shipped tank cars to the (SWP) Canal Rd. Paint Plant, or another SWP plant in South Holland, a gritty town in the crescent between Gary and Chicago. Erie (later, E-L) had the route to fit Sherwin-Williams's traffic.

By-products of the oil included Flaxoap, a pomade-like linseed soap that was similar to the Murphy's Oil Soap brand still sold today; also meal, processed and shipped to Nabisco in Buffalo.

Drivers along I-71 could look down and see the SWP "Cover the Earth" logo on Big Bertha, an outsized grain bin visable to inbound traffic before the bridge across the flats on the way downtown.

Rail access to the LOM was by a spur off the old Erie passenger coach yards.

By the late 60's, latex paint had taken over the domestic coatings market and the "Flats" along the Cuyahoga River were losing their respectability as an industrial area. A generation later, the Flats are a nice place to party.

Not so in '69. The river burned in Cleveland and "the mistake on the lake" was earning its place as a notch on the Rust Belt. The places to drink were like the Harbor Inn, off W. 25 near Whiskey Island.

I worked at the LOM for college money, in '70 and '71, the last two summers of operation.

Grain came in on hoppers or lake boats. The elevator was at the south end of one of the three tracks at the LOM, the track closest to the river. Just north of the elevator was the oil dock, where empty single dome tank cars took their load from storage tanks. Oil was tested for purity, viscosity, and color.

An alley ran from the river, between the tank dock and the oil refinery, to the main "street" of the LOM, where the other two tracks ran paralell, one on either side of the LOM's street. On the longest track at the LOM, meal left in bulk loads aboard new grey/maroon EL hoppers, or insulated DL&W plug door boxcars. The nasty loads were the bag loads in servicable Phoebe Snow boxcars: 50 lb bags, eight to a row, stacked nine rows high, twelve stacks in a carload. 8x9x12=6 gross, 864 bags; @ 50 lbs, 21.6 tons of meal. We hoped for bulk loads but I don't seem to remember the bulk jobs like the bag loads. Bulk jobs were easy. In hoppers, check and seal the bay doors shut, then climb up and open the hatch to stick in the grain hose; every 20 minutes or so check the load and move the hose to another hatch, until the scale boss says she's full. Use the winch and pulley to hook onto the empty, pull the next car into position, then load up again.

CBS, Cleveland Builders Supply, was next to the LOM on the SWP spur. Hoppers with cement or gypsum were spotted at CBS during the SWP job. The switching was usually about 6:00 to 8:30 in the evening.

The third track still used - - but not much, took an occasional carload of boxed goods or drums from the LOM long building; cases of oil in pint cans, Flaxoap, or 55 gallon drums.

There was a fourth track, leading into the weeds behind the long building. This was a spur to an outbuilding that was gone before the '60s. Once in a while, the switch job would spot a caboose there, or stash the outbound cars out of the way so they could spot the empties.

Mos tof the time, the caboose was up the track and off SWP's land, guarding the turnout from the track back to the coach yard.

Anyway, by '72, SWP was dismantling the LOM; I worked at SWP's Brooklyn Heights warehouse.

I went back to BGSU to finish my degree, returning to Cleveland on a visit in '83; the LOM was gone, just a gravel lot with some rails in the mud.

The operation is too good to pass up! I'm planning an N-Trak module for the traffic.

As a result, I'm in the second generation diesel days. I've got a GYM paint scheme GP7 for the switch jobs but I might cheat and use a U25b II. I've got two U boats, one to run to the yard from the LOM, while the other can switch in the LOM with the consist it's getting from the yard.

If you take the EL logo and turn it 90 degrees clockwise, you get an "M."

If I took the old MR & MRS roads from the '50s into the '90s I'd have to change the name, too. Maumee System

Miss Phoebe Snow, meet MS.

p.s. I retired my previous User ID in favor of E-Lack & N-Trak, which does a great job of describing my main rail interests.

Thom Joyce

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You can always tell a model railroader; you just can't tell him much.

 

WELL This is why i love this list so much , Thanks Alan , you have given me a new idea !! i was wondering ? can another railroad lease loco's from"Curtis locomotive Leasing" ? as we here at the "Plum-A-Nearly " Railroad need all lot more motive power and we are thinking of leasing a few new units !is it very profitable?


Kevin
C.E.O.
P.A.N. R.R. INC. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/River/8880/plumrrincindex.html

"The best Little Gulf Coast Railroad !"

 

GRIDLEY, TX.
Three months after the devastating F-5 twister in Gridley, TX., life is almost back to normal. After a major rail line rebuild to repair storm dammaged Railway properties and also a rebuilding of Downtown Gridley, the repair crews have gone home and the trains run again. Just a few days later, the wrecking ball came back to town. This time at the BNSF/AOW-Thrall Railcar, rebuild and repair shops, on the west side of town.

"The shops are really dated and BNSF/AOW decided it was time for an update." said Maxwell Plant, VP in charge of operations, SE Texas for BNSF/AOW. "Our Box Car rebuilding program is almost complete and the rest of the work will move to the shops in Port Aransas while the ugrades are being done. We hope to be back in operation by August 26, this year. The old shop building has been razed and so have the tracks. New tracks will be laid this month and the new building in place by the 26th (of August). Our Locomotive service area may get a minor facelift with new paint and other minor changes, however, this will not disrupt service."

Union Pacific may have an upturn in traffic on their Gridley Secondary Mainline. A source at UP said, "The Gridley Grain COOP is expecting a big crop this year so we may run more trains this season. We'll see if this will continue after Harvest."

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BNSF RAILFAN-TO-THE-MAX!
Brent Tidaback, Member #234 and a N-Scaler to boot!

 

MWS (Modeler's Wire Service) Announcement ---
The Enfield and Eastern Railroad has purchased the right of way for their line from Ipswich Jct. to Newbury Jct, including all ROW within the city of Enfield. The laying of roadbed and track will commence shortly.

 

Gridley, TX.

The facelift at the BNSF/AOW Gridley Car Shops is almost complete. The new tarmack and track is down and Shop Buildings are near completion. A separate "Paint Booth" is being installed so the cars can now be repainted out of the main shop area, this added an additional track. Room was made by moving the Yard offices to the North side of the shops and caboose track closer to the locomotive service area. The whole area was lowered five feet to bring the tracks and offices level with the Locomotive Service area. This eliminated a sharp grade into the car shop area. A "view block" metal fence is being installed along Texas FM39 so motorists will not have to see the plies of scrap car and locomotive parts that are in the shop area. The shop buildings should be complete and ready for use on the 14th of August, 2000.

Safety Inspectors found sever structrual dammage to the Headhouse at Gridley Grain COOP, probably the result of the recent Tornado. A new Headhouse and elevator is being constructed and sould be completed in time for this years harvest. UP still plans for an increase in car-loads this year.

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BNSF RAILFAN-TO-THE-MAX!
Brent Tidaback, Member #234 and a N-Scaler to boot!