Not-So-Wordless Wednesday #142 - Train Movement Sheet - Update

Interesting train movements along the Ohio River appear from deciphering a Dispatcher's sheet for the Toledo Mainline and all Branch lines east of Brewster.

I'm still slowly working through Mike Mathie's NKP Dispatcher's Record of Train Movements sheet I scanned last year converting the data into a couple of spreadsheets. This time sheet covered Brewster to the Ohio River including my modeling area of Adena for the date of 5/25/1950. This kind of data is nothing short of invaluable for recreating traffic and planning for future operating sessions. 

A unfortunate side effect of this data is the desire to purchase a Broadway Limited PRR I1sa 2-10-0 as seen in the Pennsy movement on NKP tracks to the Y&O Dorthy #1 Mine. The PRR and NKP traded working the mine every other year, apparently the PRR had the even years. Coincidentally I have a Bowser PRR Cabin #477188, just a few numbers off the protoype that worked out of the Pennsy's Mingo Junction Yard. I don't have plans (space) to model this interesting movement but maybe a basement (house) upgrade in the future will allow me to recreate this traffic up and down the NKP's Ohio River tracks.

Update:

I could've sworn I had posted sometime in November or December 2016 about scanning NKP/W&LE Dispatcher's Record of Train Movements sheets. Fellow NKP modeler Mike Mathie was gracious enough to lend me two of his Dispatchers sheets, one for Brewster to the Ohio River lines and the other for the Cleveland to Zanesville lines. Both date to May 1950 and are a fascinating detailed look into a single day of operations on the NKP's new Wheeling District.

Below are a few quick photos I took before I scanned both sheets and stitched them together in Photoshop.

Brewster East sheet

Cleveland sheet, Carrolton Branch

Brewster East sheet, Adena and AC&NA Branches Eastbound

Some Observations...

By the mid 1950's all W&LE engines and caboose still have their original numbers, although the engines would have begun to have their W&LE lettering replaced with the Nickel Plate Road script.
On these sheets no W&LE cabooses had been repainted yet. The P&WV is still running steam and diesels in the Brewster - Rook pool. The only NKP influence that can be seen is H-6 Mikados 633, 643 and 647 have been assigned to duty on the Wheeling.

Adena Water Tank Mystery Solved

Recently the JJ Young Flickr page has been updated with a ton of new W&LE and NKP photos, definitely check them out when you have a moment. One of these new photos helped me solve a mystery of what kind of steel water tank was at Adena.

One of the problems with trying to recreate the past is simply the passage of time. Structures can change as they are remodeled, added on to or vanish when they are torn down. The Adena area did not seem to be well photographed in the past, probably due to it being in a more remote area of southeastern Ohio. Luckily the release of a few hundred W&LE/NKP JJ Young photographs has greatly improved the "visibility" into the past in that area of Ohio. Nothing remains of the steel tank today but I was hopeful some photographic evidence was out there.

The earliest photos of the Adena water tank show it being located inside the east end of the wye tracks. Below is a photo from the CSU W&LE Collection showing the water tank just inside the east wye switch next to the start of the Adena Branch on 10-19-1925. This tank was replaced in 1946 with a 195,000 gallon steel tank according to a 1954 Physical Data booklet on NKPHTS.org, and was put in a new location by the south end of the wye.

Adena Water Tower, replaced 1946 with 195k gal. steel tank, Adena, OH 10-19-25 CSU W&LE Collection

The new steel tank was a bit of a mystery, I knew where it was located (just south of the south wye switch) and how big it was (195,000 gal) but not what kind of steel tank it was. When the Wheeling started upgrading to steel water tanks after World War II they used a few different shapes. Most seemed to be either elevated on stilts or full silo-like tanks. Below is a picture of the 50,000 gal. steel tower type tank at Jewett, Ohio.

925 an ex-Clover Leaf engine next to the 50k gal. water tank at Jewett, OH, JJ Young photo flickr.com

Here's a photo below of a 195,000 gal. silo type tank at Pine Valley Yard in Dillonvale, OH.

969 H-5 class near the 195,000 gal water tank at Pine Valley Yard in Dillonvale, OH.

I always assumed the new Adena steel water tank was probably like the Pine Valley tank since they both had a capacity of 195,000 gallons, but I know what can happen when you assume things. At Vermillion, OH on the NKP there is a rather larger 100,000 water tank which was elevated like the Jewett tank (it's actually is a dead ringer for the Tichy Water Tank), so I couldn't be too sure what the Adena tank looked like without some photographic proof.

While browsing the new JJ Young Photos on flickr.com yesterday, one picture showed a NKP 2-6-6-2 coming off the Adena Branch at Adena. Knowing this angle was a bit more southward than other similar shots I was hopeful that the water tank would appear. Sure enough there it was at the far left side of the photo.

An NKP 2-6-6-2 rounds the wye coming off the Adena Branch at Adena. At the far left can be seen the new steel water tank installed in 1946. JJ Young Jr photo flickr.com

Here it is with an arrow pointing out the tank.

Water tank at Adena, OH. JJ Young Jr photo flickr.com

Just what I suspected, a match to the Pine Valley water tank. The long white stripe of the water level line and a light coat of snow on the domed top help give it's shape away. The feather of smoke from a heater in the water treatment building just to the right is a neat surprise. I planned on using a Rix Products silo model for my Pine Valley tank and it now looks like I have one more to buy!

Wordless Wednesday #105

Hanna Coal Co.'s Tipple "D" was a truck dump tipple on the AC&NA Branch. This is a quick photo of a huge track valuation map of the entire AC&NA Branch I found while doing some research.  CSU Michael Schwartz Library NKP Collection

Wordless Wednesday #102

NKP W&LE District Adena to Pine Valley CTC Study Plan 4-7-52 CSU Michael Schwartz Library, Special Collections, NKP Collection

CTC signals controlled Brewster to Adena and beyond that was "dark" train order territory. The proposed signaling extension eastward never happened but it was a fascinating find among the boxes of old papers in the Special Collections at the CSU Michael Schwartz Library.

Now and Then, Hanna Coal Offices

As a companion to Wordless Wedneday #96 and inspired by a comment from Jeff S, here's what the Hanna Coal Co's Office & Maintenance complex looks like in 2012.

Remains of the Hanna Coal Office and Maintenance buildings, looking north. 12-12-2012 Chris Ellis Photo.

Remains of the Hanna Coal Office and Maintenance buildings, looking south. 12-12-2012 Chris Ellis Photo.

There's not much of anything left now, just a few piles of rubble and empty pads of concrete.

Here's another view from past looking south.

Hanna Coal Co. Offices and Maintenance Buildings, looking south. Gem of Egypt fan page Facebook.com

Kenwood - Milepost 189.4

After posting Wordless Wednesday #84 I was surprised to have a few people express interest in the little Kenwood depot. This got me digging through my collection for more info and photos to share regarding this obscure spot on the Wheeling.

For starters the Nickel Plate Road's 1954 Databook on their W&LE District contains only the following on Kenwood.

Kenwood (M.P. 189.4)

• Controlled passing siding - capacity 57 cars.
• Storage sidings (2) - capacity 82 cars.
• Main lead to Heil Coal Co. tipple. Tipple not in operation in 1953. Turnout has been removed.

Not even a mention of the little depot but it was certainly still there up until the mid 1970's as seen in Wordless Wednesday #84.

I would bet the area once had a small mining community that gave this location the name of Kenwood, much like the long gone villages of Herrick or Robyville that once dotted the valley along the Short Creek. Areas that are only marked by a unused siding near a "gob" pile or small yards that once served the nearby mines.

Here's a track diagram of the area circa 1960.

NKP 1963 W&LE Toledo Division Track Diagrams from RailsandTrails.com http://www.railsandtrails.com/TC/W&LE/index.htm

The Heil Coal spur would've started off the mainline and just to the right of the Public Road in the middle of the map. There the spur crossed the Short Creek where you can still see the bridge mark on the map and extended to the tipple near mile post 190. In fact the USGS aerial image of that area from April 18 1958 still shows the Heil Coal tipple standing (see my "How to use the USGS EarthExplorer website" post for more info) but the track is long gone.

While the only tipple at Kenwood ended production before 1953 there was still plenty of coal mining nearby during that time period according to the NKP 1954 Databook. For easy reference I consolidated all the mining info in the Databook into a spreadsheet named the NKP Wheeling District Coal Production in 1953 that can be found in the upper left under Useful Links.

To the north was the large strip mining operation of Hanna Coal's Kenvale Mine responsible for 16,000 car loads and the Y&O Nelms Mine also pulling 16,000 car loads of coal from its deep mining operation. Nearby to the south was the short Hurford Branch supporting the Fremont Mine, a small strip mine run by Tasa Coal that dug up over 700 hopper loads of coal in 1953. Because of all the nearby activity, Kenwood still had use as a place for hopper storage.

In the below photo (possibly a JJ Young Jr. photo) Berkshire 712 pulls a cut of hoppers out of the storage tracks while its caboose waits on the siding.

712 works the storage tracks at Kenwood, Ohio 1950's. Photo is looking SE toward Adena.

For another photo of the Kenwood station in the 1950's check out page 10 of the 1984 Fall edition of the Nickel Plate Road Magazine by the NKPHTS. If you are a member of the NKPHTS you can access past magazines for free at http://www.nkphts.org/members/

At one time however, Kenwood did host to two maybe three mines in the 1920's. Close examination of the next two photos reveals three potential coal mines. Two mine spurs, one in front of and one behind the depot and a hilltop mine in the distance that might lead to a third tipple (This also seems to be where the Heil Coal tipple is located). Let's not also overlook the great views of the Kenwood Depot in its heyday!

Kenwood Depot, Kenwood, OH 10-19-1925 (CSU Archives,W&LE Collection) Photo is looking NW to Brewster/Toldeo.

Kenwood Depot, Right of Way and Mine Branches at Kenwood, OH possibly late 1920's - early 1930's(CSU Archives W&LE Collection) Photo is looking SE toward Adena.

Fifty years later in 1975 the small depot has fallen into disrepair as seen in the Wordless Wednesday post. I haven't discovered when it was torn down.

Kenwood Depot 1975. Photo from http://www.west2k.com/ohstations/harrison.shtml

Recently while browsing a railfan group following the modern W&LE on Facebook, I ran across a photo taken at Kenwood in the years before the Norfolk & Western would sell off the old W&LE.  The photo looks westbound (NW toward Brewster) and the CTC signals still guard the tracks. Based on the other photos in this post I figure the photographer is standing right next to the depot or where it once stood.

W&LE Signals Kenwood Siding 1980s, Gene P. Schaffer Photo, W&LE Facebook Group

The new Wheeling & Lake Erie's Valley line now ends just a few hundred feet north of the old Kenwood Depot where Unionvale-Kenwood Road crosses the tracks. A gravel facility has been built next to the track but a unloading ramp now buries the mainline severing from Adena and points east.

I've made a link in Google Maps to near the spot where the depot once stood. If you explore the maps link, notice also all the natural gas pipeline construction in the area. Perhaps the gravel facility built on the mainline supports this operation. Once coal mining ruled this area, now Natural Gas from fracking has stepped in to fill the economic void.

I hope you enjoyed this look at Kenwood, one of many spots on the Wheeling now slowing being reclaimed by nature.

Eastbound looking toward Kenwood at the Unionvale-Kenwood Rd crossing. 4-9-2014 Chris Ellis Photo

Wordless Wednesday #84

Long abandoned in this 1975 photo is the W&LE's Kenwood depot at MP 189, three miles west of Adena. At this location was a CTC controlled siding and a couple yard tracks for the nearby mines that have come and gone such as the Y&O Nelms Mine and Hanna Coal's Kenvale Mine. Photo from http://www.west2k.com/ohstations/harrison.shtml

For a photo of the Kenwood station in better days check out page 10 of the 1984 Fall edition of the Nickel Plate Road Magazine by the NKPHTS. If you are a Member of the NKPHTS you can access past magazines for free at http://www.nkphts.org/members/

Updates on JJ Young Jr's Flickr Page

If you haven't been over to JJ Young Jr.'s Flickr page lately, get on over there and check out all the NKP Wheeling District Steam action that's been uploaded over the last week or so.

There are some really fantastic views of the places I will be modeling and others I hope to one day given a larger basement! Sadly leaving comments have been disabled on his photos now, as it was nice to identify the places for other viewers. Many photos are from Martins Ferry/Terminal Junction, Mingo Junction, Dillonvale/Pine Valley Yard, Adena (wye bridge!), Kenwood, Warrenton, and Yorkville. Shoot me a email or message if you want to know where a certain photo was located.

One of my favorites so far is this view of Adena Yard. It looks to be a cool, rainy early/late winter day. The smoke and mist obscure even the hills that rise from the valley. The Maintenance building on the left doesn't yet have it's addition that possibly replaced the small train order office to the right. I've never seen a photo before of this building minus the office addition that will take up the spot where the truck is parked. The Safety sign hung on the side of the building is news to me as well. I knew of the "Thinking Prevents Accidents" sign propped up against the old depot as seen on my Blog Title Photo, but not this second sign.  I wonder what it says beyond the obvious "Safety" at the top?

Another favorite is the two photos of Berkshire 712 heading out westbound on a mine run. The first picture has the 712 crossing bridge 192.13 which happens to look like this today.

Toledo Division Bridge 192.13 Adena, OH 4-09-2014 Chris Ellis Photo

What's neat to me is that signal in the background, I didn't know there was one at that location. A closer read of the 1956 NKP Wheeling Division Timetable would've revealed it's existence on it's list of ABS signals. This makes two signals at either end of the Adena wye which will introduce me into the complex world of engineering a model railroad signaling system! Yay?

That second photo of Berkshire 712 is the going away shot from bridge 192.13 as it heads westbound into the Adena Tunnel. Cool stuff!

There are so many others I could mention but take a look and find your own favorites!

Also mixed into the middle of the most recent NKP stuff are some great photos on very late PRR/early Penn Central action on the Horseshoe Curve and other Pennsy areas.

Don't forget there's more NKP after the Pennsy photos!

Update 5/25: 6 more photos of NKP action posted sometime today. More shots in Yorkville at the Mill, Mingo Jct Yard taken from the P&WV bridge, the 943 probably at Dillonvale and a Berk getting orders at Warrenton. 

NKP Wheeling District Coal Production in 1953

A vast majority of my railroad research is on my computer, which is backed up to a network attached storage device and one other location(back up your data!). I do have a small pile of the real important stuff printed out and clipped together for easy access and portability. 

The one thing I tend to look at the most is the mine data. The best source of this information comes from the Nickel Plate Road's own book, "1954 Physical Data and Other Information of Interest: Wheeling & Lake Erie District and the Lorain & West Virginia Railway Company". This is more than just a good source for the mines but also bridges, online facilities, rail weight, grades, curves, interchange data with other railroads and other info. I found this on the Nickel Plate Road Historical & Technical Society's great website at http://nkphts.org/databooks/

Instead of constantly paging through my copy of the NKP Physical Data book looking for a particular mine, I decided to compile all the mine info in one nice spreadsheet.

Here's the link for spreadsheet below, I also added it to the left on my blog's front page under Useful Links.

Nickel Plate Road - Wheeling District Coal Production, Brewster to the Ohio River in 1953

As you can see the from the spreadsheet, this small chunk of the Wheeling District had an output of almost 195,000 hopper cars of coal in 1953. The tiny 10 mile long AC&NA Branch accounted for almost half that production alone!

Hanna Coal Co.'s Georgetown Preparation Plant on the AC&NA Branch. Nearing completion in this photo it will be responsible for loading almost 72,000 cars of coal for the NKP and PRR in 1953.

Now I need to figure out how many days a year a typical mine was in operation to figure out how many cars per day on average would've been produced. My hope is to get a close representation of how many cars the different mine runs would handle and help plan for each mine's track work for car capacity.

If you can offer any insight into that area feel feel to contact me or leave a comment!

Using this data I can see how much coal was being produced and where some of it was going. Coupling that information with other aspects of I've read about operations, I can begin to construct the larger operational picture without having all the needed details from station books, train order forms and stories from real railroaders all of which I'm sorely lacking. Although these would still be extremely useful if anybody has anything to share, stories, paper, etc!

The Must See Photo Collection of J.J. Young Jr.

When I was searching for a new modeling location for my Nickel Plate Road interests, it was an article by J.J. Young Jr. in the January 1979 issue of Railfan & Railroad that sold me on the idea to model the coal mining brachlines of the Wheeling District. As a W&LE employee from 1946-48, he worked as an operator and agent in places like Adena, Dillonvale, Warrenton, Mingo Junction and Terminal Junction. His experiences and photos in that article provide the foundation on which I hope to model the Adena Branch and the AC&NA lines out of Adena.

Each J.J. Young Jr. photograph is practically a story unto itself, and since reading his article I've eagerly sought out his photos.  Every photo helps open a window into past of daily operations and atmosphere of railroading in the Ohio Valley.

J.J. Young Jr. passed away in 2004 but in 2014 his widow Liz allowed access to his vast collection of negatives. Mr. Young's son, J.J. Young III and another photographer Sam Botts have so far scanned hundreds of negatives and uploaded them to a Flickr page.

For a long time the photos being added were railroad subjects around Binghamton, NY where J.J. spent considerable time teaching photography until 1995. However this past spring the action shifted to the B&O around West Virginia and SE Ohio. Finally a few tantalizing photos of the 1950's Nickel Plate on the Wheeling District and elsewhere got upoaded! Then nothing and later a return to the D&H and EL railroads with upstate New York as the backdrop.

Then in December the floodgates opened.

The past couple of weeks have seen his Flickr site come to life with a slew of updates with tons of Nickel Plate Road steam action on the Wheeling District and a few from his travels to Fostoria, Cleveland And Bellevue. Lately every couple of days a few images are added showing us new views of the Nickel Plate at work around Adena, Pine Valley or even a few unknown locations. Every photo brings delight to my son and I as we find new details or figure out what might have been going on in each picture.

If you are a fan of the Nickel Plate Road or of railroading in the coal mining areas of eastern Ohio then click the link below and enjoy the images!

J.J. Young Jr. Flickr Photo Collection

Thanks again to J.J. Young III and Sam Botts for sharing these incredible images with us!

I hope the pile of W&LE and NKP negatives is a big one!


If you'd like to read more about J.J. Young Jr. a brief article about him can be found here at the Archiving Wheeling website and the Flickr archive announcement at Trains Magazine.

Overlooking the Obvious in Research

On Thursday fellow Nickel Plate Road modeler and friend Tim Moran stopped by with a magazine article about the Bucyrus-Erie Shovel Plant in Milwaukee. Why? Hanna Coal had several giant stripping shovels that were built on site near the open coal mines where they would work.  At least several of these shovels were built at NKP served mines, like the "Mountaineer" on the AC&NA Branch. The pieces, some huge, would most likely be shipped by rail on the NKP and would make for some really interesting loads for flat cars or gondolas. These loads could provide the occasional special movement during future operating sessions.

All I needed were some photos for future reference when I was ready for such a project. The article in the April 2006 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman didn't disappoint, as it contained several great photos of pieces of Bucyrus-Erie's Huge Shovels loaded onto flatcars for shipment.

After reading that article I felt I should try again to see if the Marion Power Shovel Company had any photos of their loads, so off to Google I went.

I can't say I found exactly what I was looking for but I did stumble into some great photos of several different shovels being constructed. There were many exciting shots of the shovels at work and a few "new to me" pictures of the Goodyear Mine and locations along the AC&NA Branch like Tipple "E". There was even a 1940's color picture of a giant shovel in Hanna's grey paint scheme where in the background I'm pretty sure is a W&LE 2-6-6-2 working a cut of hoppers.

Where did I find all these neat photos? On the Harrison County History of Coal Museum's website.

A place that I've VISITED in person, not once but TWICE, and never thought to see if they had a website...

I always suspected they had a larger archive of photos but nobody in the Puskarich Public Library above the museum was able to help with further information or who to contact when I inquired.

Lesson learned to always check for a website for a place you visit for further info, you never know what you'll find.

So if big shovels mining coal interests you at all check out the Harrison County History of Coal Museum's website, you wont be disappointed. The physical Museum is pretty neat and is also worth a visit if you're in Cadiz, Ohio.

Harrison County History of Coal Museum, Cadiz, OH

HO Scale W&LE Hoppers

A recent discussion on the Nickel Plate Road Modelers Yahoo Group, lead me to compare and contrast my small collection of W&LE hoppers to their prototype counterparts.

In my modeling time frame of 1953-54, I always assumed there would be some W&LE equipment that had yet to be repainted with new Nickel Plate Road lettering. A recent look at data contained in the January 1954 Official Railway Equipment Register, confirmed that plenty of Wheeling lettered freight cars still roamed the rails in two different classes of open top hoppers.

Finding Wheeling painted models to show this mix of old W&LE and newly lettered NKP hoppers hasn't been easy.

The Wheeling & Lake Erie name is very uncommon for any model releases in any scale, and in addition decals for freight cars are also hard to find (edit: there is a old Campbell Road dry transfer sheet, Set WT-31 for the WLE type hopper lettering and a W&LE Boxcar Decal set from Wabash Custom Decals). Luckily there have been some choices lately in ready-to-run HO scale models that make adding some W&LE flavor to your hopper roster easier.

I'll cover the two classes of W&LE hopper that populated the NKP car roster, and the HO scale models that represent them. All of these models are lettered for the W&LE, but with the exception of two, they are special limited runs and are no longer available.

I won't get too nit-picky covering these models unless warranted. I don't really get into super detailing freight cars or get too bothered by a missing inch here or there dimensionally. I need a fleet of 200-300 hard working hoppers to model the coal hauling part of the Nickel Plate. If it comes with brake piping fine, but adding that stuff or worrying about a missing row of rivets isn't on my to do list.

The Prototype

W&LE #61000-64399 Steel 2-Bay 50 Ton Offset-Side Hopper 

The prototype W&LE #61000-64399 were all steel 2-bay 50 ton offset hopper cars, built between 1936 and 1947 in various lots by Bethlehem Steel, Pullman, Ralston, American Car & Foundry and even the W&LE's own Ironville shops. These 3,400 hoppers would make up almost 40% of the NKP's hopper roster in my time period, and in Jan 1954, 565 still had W&LE lettering.

The 2-Bay Models

Athearn 34' 2-bay 50 Ton Offset Hopper

This is the Athearn 34' 2-bay 50 Ton Offset Hopper model. The Athearn hopper is showing its age now with newer and better looking versions produced by other manufacturers. It's still a good model and cheap, great for trying to build a very large fleet of nondescript hoppers.

I found this model on eBay and it's Athearn box was labeled as a NMRA Cleveland Division 1 special run, from when I have no idea. The lettering is a little rough but this is a good example to show the different lettering styles the W&LE used.

The photo of the prototype car W&LE #61147 above, shows the "as delivered" lettering style which was stretched out using an ampersand and abbreviation periods after each letter. At some time before the NKP lease of the Wheeling in December of 1949, the periods and ampersand were dropped in favor of a more simplified "W L E". I don't know when this changed, but I'm sure noted W&LE historian John B. Corns might. I'd love to see proof of the older lettering on a hopper appearing in the 1950's, that would save some decal work to change the older hoppers.

Atlas 34' 2-bay 50 Ton Offset Hopper

The Atlas 34' 2-bay 50 Ton Offset Hopper was announced in Feburary 2012 and released sometime in 2013. This was the first time Atlas offered these in W&LE lettering. They came with the "as delivered" 1930's lettering and in two different numbers,  #61071 and #61147.
The Atlas model offer a closer look to the prototype with crisper detail and comes with a plain coal load, Kadee compatible couplers and a real plus, metal wheels. The Atlas also matches the lettering style the best, but just a touch thick.

I have four of these and hope to get a few more as they are nicer looking than the Athearn and easier to find for now. I'd like to update the lettering to the 1940's standard on these hoppers.

Intermountain 34' 2-Bay 50 Ton Offset Hopper

Intermountain 34' 2-Bay 50 Ton Offset Hopper. WOW look at that overexposed detail!

As the song goes, if I had a million dollars, I'd buy a whole fleet of the these hoppers! The Intermountain 34' 2-Bay 50 Ton Offset Hopper is the cat's meow of the small offset hopper models we've looked at so far. All the nit-picky details, rib notch spacing at the top, rivets and more, look just like the prototype photo. Even the inside looks awesome. The only flaw I could think to point out is the lack of a trust plate in the upper left corner, but now that's getting picky. Did I mention it comes with metal wheels and Kadee #158 scale whisker couplers? These are available in that 1930's lettering and 6 different numbers; #61147, 61164, 61235, 61259, 61370, 61428.

Unfortunately these retail for $38.95, not real economical for building part of a hopper fleet with these bad boys. But if you only need a few, then you can't go wrong investing in these. Every now and then you can snag one (and only one for me) for $25 on eBay like I did.

Accurail 2-bay 50 Ton Offset-Side Hopper, shown as Undecorated

Also worth mentioning is a future release from Accurail of their 7700 Series Offset Side Twin Hopper. Who knows when it will get made, or what lettering style will be used, but at least its on the schedule and will get released someday. These cars would be also be an economical option to build a fleet with and Accurail makes it easy by offering decal renumber sheets matched to the particular roadname.

I always felt like the Accurail twin hopper seemed a little petite standing next to any of the other three mentioned above. One day I'll have to take a scale ruler to one and compare it to the NKP Freight Diagram sheets and see.

The Prototype

 W&LE #78000-80999 Steel 3-Bay 70 Ton Offset-Side Hopper

The prototype W&LE #78000-80999 were all steel 3-bay 70 ton offset side hopper cars, built between 1947 and 1948 in three lots by Pressed Steel, Greenville and  Ralston. The 3,000 hoppers added after the W&LE lease would make up almost 35% of the NKP's hopper roster in my time period. By Jan 1954, 1,037 still had W&LE lettering.


 The 3-Bay Models

MDC Roundhouse 3-Bay 70 Ton Offset-Side Hopper

The old Model Die Casting 3-Bay offset hopper has been around forever. I have no idea what real life example this hopper was based on, if one really existed at all. The ends of each side where the angled offset bulge is supposed to begin, is completely wrong among other things. The more accurate Stewart/Bowser and Accurail cars has rendered this MDC hopper version obsolete. Athearn now owns the MDC/Roundhouse line, is still occasionally making this car for sale. Most recently it was announced as a future release in NKP lettering as this ex-W&LE class of hopper.

I hate to be so critical of a car model, but this one needs to be retired just like the old Athearn wide body diesel engines. So why do I have it? I believe I got it on eBay at the same time as the weathered W&LE Athearn 2-bay hopper above. I think I threw a lowball first bid on it for the novelty of it being lettered W&LE,  thinking I would probably get outbid at the last second anyways, oops...

While this car doesn't show up in the NKPHTS's All-Time NKP Model List. I found one on eBay with an original box. Apparently this was a Roundhouse release, as kit #7784 with my models W&LE number of 78958. 

The weathering job hides it's ugly lines decently enough, so I'll keep it as an example to show why it shouldn't be in your W&LE/NKP hopper fleet when there are way better looking alternatives.

Stewart/Bowser 3-Bay 70 Ton Offset-Side Hopper

This is the Stewart (now Bowser) 3-Bay 70 Ton Offset-Side Hopper. These are really nice models, easy and quick to assemble and can be found cheaply enough to use for building a large hopper fleet.
Unlike the MDC car, the offset hopper sides are just like the prototype and the rest of the basic details match up as well. Of the three cars this has the best rivet detail.

I found two of these in W&LE lettering at a train show in Cleveland and quickly snatched them up. Only later I noticed the data lettering is the wrong font, but they came with Kadees, metal wheels and coal loads so I couldn't pass them up at $10 each. The Athearn box they came in said Greenway Products, and a Google search found a old message from 2001 on the NKP Yahoo Group mentioning they had these for sale back then.

I have about 40 of the Stewart/Bowser in various road names (mostly NKP) and they make a great base to any NKP era hopper fleet.

Accurail 3-Bay 70 Ton Offset-Side Hopper

The Accurail 3-Bay 70 Ton Offset-Side Hopper is very similar to the Stewart/Bowser model. Both match the prototype well, but the Accurail has finer details, better looking brake gear and thinner grab irons and stirrups. The assembly of your first one can be a bit tricky to fit together, especially the fitting of the bolster assembly into the ends of the car. But like most difficult things, after doing a few I can now build one in about 20 minutes.

The NMRA Cincinnati Division 7 offered these W&LE Accurail offset 70 ton 3-bay hoppers back in 2007. These were lettered as delivered in the 1940's lettering and available in four numbers; 78952, 79240, 79897 and 80829. Now they are long sold out, but I found a few of these on eBay awhile back. The Cincinnati Division 7 always has good car projects to offer modelers. Lately they have featured cars from Tony Koester's Allegheny Midland and Allen McClelland's Virginian & Ohio.

Accurail's webpage for their 7500 Series 70-Ton Offset-Side Triple Hopper doesn't list the W&LE as a possible future release, probably because of the Cinci Division 7 release. Accurail did have a past release of the NKP lettered version of this hopper.


Conclusion

Adding HO scale W&LE hoppers to a 1940's-1950's car roster has many paths.

Option One for quickly including some W&LE hoppers in a NKP hopper fleet would be to just to buy the Atlas or Intermountain 2-bay models, not worry about how long certain lettering styles lasted and call it a day. If those are too pricey or become difficult to find, then waiting till Accurail releases their 2-bay becomes a back up plan.

Option Two, which I'm using for now to boost the W&LE presence in my roster is the above option plus scouring online sites and train shows for the special runs.

Option Three is decaling your own hoppers with;

1. The old Campbell Road dry transfer decals, if your comfortable using that type of decal.
2.  Repurposing the Wabash Custom Decals W&LE Boxcar set (I don't know is the lettering size is correct for hoppers).
3.  Making or your own decals on an ALPS printer or have a custom decal printer make them for you.

Aside from a lucky train show score, decals are the only was to get 3-bay W&LE hoppers right now.

If I had to standardize on one 2-bay and 3-bay model for a large fleet, I would probably just have Accurail make me a custom run of everything I would hope to need. This would be the way to go if you were modeling the W&LE in the late 1940's.

My plan for now is to standardize on just the Atlas 2-bays with Accurail and Stewart/Bowser for the 3-bay hoppers.

2015 W&LE Chapter Tour of Adena

On April 25th, a cool and overcast Saturday morning, the W&LE Chapter of the Nickel Plate Road Historical & Technical Society gathered at the side of US 250 in Harrison County Ohio. This was the first of possibly three activities planned for our Chapter this year starting with a tour of the former W&LE lines around Adena. Despite the chance for cool weather, we chose April to visit this area because much of the abandoned and unused railroad that interests us will quickly vanish from sight once the leaves come out.

Our tour guide was Denny Snyder, a former Hanna Coal Co. employee and long time resident of the area. He began our tour with some background on his time spent with the Hanna Coal Company and the history of mining coal in the land that surrounded us.

The first point of interest was conveniently right in front of our group!

Old Pine Valley Turntable as a road bridge. Georgetown, OH 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo

Apparently, when the old 75' turntable at Pine Valley yard in Dillonvale, Ohio was replaced in the 1947 with a new 105' turntable. The old structure was moved to this location, flipped over and re-purposed as a bridge over the Little Short Creek. As we looked the old turntable over, we could see where the center bolster had been cut out and marks where the rolling wheels had once been on the ends. Most people probably drive by it everyday unaware of its unique railroad history as turntable, not a bridge.

The strip of land we stood on admiring the turntable span was once the roadbed of the Adena, Cadiz & New Athens. Opened in 1917 this subsidiary of the W&LE was a short seven mile line serving various coal mines, and was later expanded another 3 miles to serve the large Hanna Coal Georgetown Preparation Plant just south of Cadiz, Ohio. Much of the AC&NA branch is now gone, abandoned in 1997 a few years after the Prep Plant closed and the enormous shovels ceased stripping coal out of the earth. Many of the short wood trestles and sections of the graveled roadbed are all that remain.

Looking west toward Adena, the AC&NA's near 2% grade is apparent as it snakes along the Little Short Creek. John Beach records the turntable bridge standing on the ground where Mallets and Berkshires once labored. 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo

From there our caravan of about 9 cars traveled along the grade of the AC&NA into the town of Adena. The rails still run through Adena, now a part of the new Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway, but they are long unused, covered with rust and weeds. Sections of the line north of Adena are washed out, as seen here from a trip I took to the area in back in November of 2014.

W&LE Toledo mainline washout at MP 191.5, just north of the Adena Tunnel. 11-29-2014 Chris Ellis photo

However, rumors that the new W&LE wishes to reopen the line to serve the fracking boom in the area, offer hope that the rails will be rebuilt and polished once again.

At Adena we stopped at the site of the former yard on the Toledo mainline and the wye that began the Adena Railroad and also the AC&NA branches. There we were joined by Carol Bednar, Editor of www.adenanews.com, who offered the history of the town and described it's agricultural roots before coal mining and the railroad showed up. Denny then spoke about the volume of coal that moved through this small town tucked in the valley of the Short Creek. Just a few of the quick facts reported by Denny about Adena included;

• Between 1900-1927 17 Deep Mines and 5 Strip Mines produced 17,000 tons of coal a day.
• By the mid 1950's 11 million tons of coal was shipped by the W&LE/NKP, 90% was mined within 20 miles of Adena.
•  In May 1965 the N&W reported 9,600 loaded cars of coal moved, and 5,00 of those came through Adena.

The tour group enjoying some conversation after the lecture. Adena, OH 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

In previous trips I didn't venture too far from the road, but with others wandering around I did the same. Since I have a great interest in modeling this area, I took advantage of the opportunity to photograph view points or sides of buildings I knew I might not get normally.

The area around the road is featured in many of my pictures from Adena, so that's where I started. The switch that begins the Adena wye remains as it always was, buried in the road. Strangely enough at the road, the railroad crossing signs are brand new, even though the line hasn't seen a train in nearly 20 years.

East Adena Wye switch. Left leads to the Adena Branch, right is the mainline west to Brewster. 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

Further west only one of the two bridges still stand, the missing long curved wooden trestle that began the Adena Branch was removed in the late 1990's after abandonment of the line. Next to the bridge remnants was a concrete footprint of a water stand pipe that once quenched the thirst of the hard working steam engines. We also investigated the remaining steel plate girder mainline bridge barely marked as 192.67 (mile 0 being Toledo).

BR 192.67 over the Short Creek. This 82' through plate girder bridge was built in 1906 and moved here from Navarre, OH in 1910. 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

Along with Tim Moran, my son and I then ventured deeper in to the remnants of the yard to capture photos of the Bridge Maintenance building, Steelox Freight House, and snapshots of the geography for future modeling efforts.
 

Tim Moran explores the grassy remains of the Adena Yard. Once eight tracks wide and filled with coal, only two now stand empty. 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

 I also tried to capture some before and after shots using 8x10 photographs I had on hand of some late 1950's NKP action in Adena Yard.

Now and Then. 348 SD-9 getting orders at Adena, on August 1958 in the hand held Chuck Yungkurth photo. The train order station is gone but the telephone poles, rails and the concrete post for the signal remain to mark the scene. 4-25-2-15 Chris Ellis photo.

Another highlight of the visit to Adena was finally talking to someone who actually operated trains in the area. That someone is Joe Immler, a former Nickel Plate Road employee, who was quickly able to answer a few burning questions I had about operations in the area. Joe also explained the use of the telephone at the location of the former Yard Office and showed us how you talked to the dispatcher in Brewster or other stations along the line. Fascinating stuff to me and my modeling efforts for sure!

After spending a good chunk of time at Adena, we left and headed toward Dillonvale, but along the way we stopped so Denny could show us the former location of the lesser known Long Run Branch.

The Long Run Branch split from the main at the mouth of the east end of the Long Run Tunnel and headed south along the Long Run Creek. The branch traveled a little over 2 miles along the creek to the Ramsey Mine (or Long Run Mine?) and the mining town of Ramseyville.

Here's a 1905 topographical map from historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs that shows the long abandoned branch line. When it was abandoned I forgot to ask and didn't uncover while preparing this article.

U.S. Geographical Survey, St. Clairsville, Ohio 1905 1:62500 Topographical Quadrangle Map USGS.gov

Denny explained how at the turn of the century the railroads often reached areas before the roads did, especially in little hollers like the one where we stood.  I also forgot to take any pictures of this location but here's a view from Google Maps marked with where the railroad ran. Left went to the Ramsey Mine and right headed north down the valley to the connection to the main at Long Run Tunnel.

The red line marks the location of the former Long Run Branch. Google Maps

We left the long Run Branch and traveled past the old location of the Dun Glen Mine and the small community built for it's workers. A photo of this mine can be seen in Nickel Plate Color Photography Volume 3 on page 114 mistakenly identified as a mine on the AC&NA branch.

Turning our caravan into Dillonvale we first visited the New York Central Depot on the former Lake Erie, Alliance & Wheeling line through town. During 1901 the LEA&W extended their line south from Bergholz, OH to Dillonvale to serve the coal mines in the area. It's odd to think of the "Water Level Route" NYC having rails in this part of Ohio but they also had a line go all the way to Charleston, West Virgina.

New York Central's LEA&W Depot, Dillonvale, OH 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

During our stop here my son Brendan who was already having a great time considering there were really no "live" train stuff to see, was given a very educational class on railroad jobs and life by Joe Immler. Thanks again, Joe, he really enjoyed it! I even learned a lot listing in on you two.

W&LE Chapter President Joe Immler imparting some of his railroading knowledge on to a self proclaimed future W&LE engineer, Brendan Ellis. 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

Leaving the NYC Depot, we moved a few streets over and parked next to the remnants of the Pine Valley Yard. Once the terminal for all the mine and mill runs in the area for the W&LE and later the NKP. Like the Adena Yard, Pine Valley has been reduced to a few weedy tracks with a few forlorn structures still standing. However due to the natural gas and oil drilling that has taken SE Ohio by storm, the old mainline track in Pine valley has seen some action recently as an unloading track for fracking sand.

Fracking sand gives Pine Valley Yard a beach like feel. The old Yard Office is slowly being overgrown by trees. 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

The biggest surprise for me at Pine Valley was that the old Yard Office was still standing. I had long assumed it was gone after not seeing it in any Google Maps or Google Street views. As it turns out the growth of trees and a leaf stuck to the Google car camera conspired against me to hide the building from my view. Seeing the old brick building was especially thrilling after I had just built a temporary foamcore version of it for my layout planning. Many pictures were taken here by me for sure!

Not far from the Yard Office were the rusted remains of two switches that fed the small yard for cabooses and car repairs. One of the switches looked like it might work, and seeing this my son Brendan proclaimed "I'll throw the switch!" and ran over to do so. To Tim Moran and my surprise the points actually moved all the way and lined the route for the nonexistent yard tracks. Never doubt the optimistic child!

Brendan Ellis as Tim Moran put it "bending the iron" at Pine Valley. 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

Nearby where the yard tracks would have traveled from those switches, were some of the old Maintenance of Way and Car Repair buildings. Most interesting of the four structures were the re-purposed W&LE Baggage Car and an old W&LE X-29 Boxcar.

Tim Moran and Gary Busby inspect the ex W&LE 0145 Baggage Car built in 1904. 4-25-2015 Chris Ellis photo.

According to Denny the Baggage Car is supposedly the W&LE 0145, built in 1904 by the AC&F in Wilmington, Delaware. The Nickel Plate would later ground the car at Pine Valley to serve as a car repair tool shed. Here some 60 years later the car is in some serious disrepair.

Interior of the W&LE 0145. Spooky! 4-25-2-15 Chris Ellis photo.

Just a bit east of the baggage car was another reused car, an ex-W&LE X-29 steel boxcar. In the information Denny supplied us, these were the first all steel boxcars owned by the W&LE. Constructed in 1925 by Standard Steel Car Co., these were copies of the Pennsylvania RR's own popular X-29 boxcars. At some point in time like the baggage car, it was grounded and given a new door and smokestack to serve a new life as a shed for the car repair forces at Pine Valley.

Ex-W&LE X-29 Boxcar (number unknown) used as a Repair Shed at Pine Valley Yard. 4-25-2015

After almost 5 hours touring the abandoned and forgotten relics of the old Wheeling & Lake Erie and Nickel Plate Road, it was finally time for lunch. Our hungry group headed to Bill's in Yorkville along the Ohio River. Along the way we got to see the wye at Warrenton (now used to load tankers with fracking liquids) and the old Tin Mill in Yorkville once served by the W&LE/NKP. Finally at Bill's we settled down with some great food and stories, a perfect way to end our tour.

2015 W&LE Chapter Adena Tour
LEFT to Right:

Dennis Snyder (kneeling), Bob Vensel, Russ Shilling, Alan Nagy,

John Snyder (seated), Brendan Ellis, Tim Moran, Chris Ellis,

Joe Immler, John Beach, Mike Spinelli & Chuck Petscher.

(Gary Busby, photographer)

Thanks to Denny Snyder for organizing the 2015 W&LE Chapter Adena Tour and to everyone for making the drive to attend! See you all hopefully in the fall for a tour of the Carrollton Branch.