[David Boeschen]

I’ve installed and leveled the subroadbed for the extension along the other side of the corridor (opposite to the single-track extension on the other side), laid the roadbed, laid the flextrack, and built the turnouts at each end. Will still need power, but since it will connect directly to module 1 it can draw some track power directly from there.

I used the Homabed branchline roadbed for the first time, looks good except for the hump I just noticed in one rail of the siding. Oh well, it’s a siding.

Plans are to scenic this with maybe a grade crossing and some scrubby trees, but otherwise it’s just sixteen feet of straight track. I plan on extending it another six feet at the north end, which will have a couple of curves and some hilly scenery to disguise the fact that the track will be going through another wall. The grade is steep enough that cars left on either the main or the siding will definitely roll.

So since last fall I’ve added twenty feet of new track on the Conway sub and rehabbed another twenty, and now added a total of about thirty track-feet more. Main advantage of this extension is that the siding can act as a staging track, so I could actually run a train out, run around it and return. Could, that is, once I close two other major gaps in the mainline.

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

There are at least three of these dies on eBay right now, Towner CO, Clearwater KS, and Hughesville MO.

Probably real, or probably fake? I did read the linked item about reproductions of dater dies.

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

Yes, good catch. This spark arrestor covers all the exhausts, although from the angle it’s not possible to tell if there are the original two or the later four.

Another rare item is the first car behind the engines, a two-bay offset hopper painted red with 5′ buzzsaw. Those cars were being scrapped about the time the repainting started.

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

Here are some ideas. My knowledge revolves around wheat, but I’ve seen plenty of rice elevators and the storage practices aren’t that different. Note that I’m a city kid so I didn’t grow up with this, but they’ve been part of the scenery for as long as I’ve been around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grain_elevators

This article talks about the big concrete grain elevators, most of which were already in existence by your timeframe. But there could be some other useful stuff mentioned here.

I have spent many years driving along the Big Friendly at places between Rosenberg and Eagle Lake, Texas, and at places like Iowa, Louisiana. These are local collection elevators and they have a mix of concrete assembled silos with steel tie-rods holding them together (oldest), concrete slipformed silos and tall steel silos. These are rice elevators, generally smaller than the midwest grain elevators but the same basic idea. There are lots of the smaller steel grain tanks as you show, on individual farmers’ property, and possibly at smaller dealers.

That small piece of equipment is a grain dryer. I don’t recall seeing those in rice country, but can’t say for sure. It could be they’re not needed for rice.

Back to the grain tanks, which are often called ‘Butler bins’ where I came from. http://butlermfg.com/en/about_us

The first part of this article is enlightening for its history, but I think it definitively answers the question that, yes, there would have been at least a few of these things around by 1945. I believe there could have been a few bins made from flat steel like a water tank, which would have preceded the corrugated steel ones, but those were probably rare.

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

[attachment=0:1pjajqzr]P1000047(1).JPG[/attachment:1pjajqzr]

[David Boeschen]

The first two turnback loops were each built in halves, but together with a jig tying them together. Before lifting, I permanently bolted together in the middle which allows a bit of rotation between the halves for vertical alignment.[attachment=0:2rkz5ylf]P1050404.JPG[/attachment:2rkz5ylf]

[David Boeschen]

The Wichita slaughterhouse district was just to the west of the MoPac main line, with only the Rock Island and some slum houses in between. The Armour and Swift plants faced west, to the Santa Fe and N. Broadway. Behind them were the pens. To the north was Jacob Dold, which might originally have been served by the Frisco. On the opposite side of the MoPac, facing 21st, was the Excel slaughterhouse and maybe some other meat operations. So the MoPac served a small part of the slaughter industry directly, but had access to the Wichita Union Stockyards through the WTA (Wichita Terminal Association, which still exists), to ship critters in and body parts out.

So in this case, the hides were from cows and sheep mostly. They would have been outbound loads, since I don’t know of any tanneries in the immediate area. A dead critter hide probably smells the same, whether muskrat or bovine.

There would have been outbound tallow loads also, which at least were in tank cars.

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

Those are my photos, both January 1970 in the 25th St. yard in Wichita. I believe these cars were in hide service, but I’m not sure I can tell you how I know that. Some older 40′ single sheathed cars actually had a ‘hide service’ stencil, but these didn’t. Note that they both have ACI labels.

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

I might have a photo or two of these trust plates mounted on an engine, specifically F units. On geeps, they were on the side of the frame, but on the F units they were just above the bottom rivet strip. One photo I have shows one located next to the builder’s plate, probably on a B unit.

They seemed to have been taped over when the unit was painted. Perhaps there was a black background on them on etched portion when they were new, but twenty years of washing rendered them plain stainless.

Related note: I believe the forty GP9s were the only MoP engines to have the stainless etched model number plate. Is there any evidence that other units had them?

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

Those two units are the only ones I have ever seen photos of in Jenks blue. It’s possible these two were in the shop when the paint scheme changed, but before the decision to go all-EMD was made. It’s certainly possible there could have been one or two others not ever photographed, but probably not any more than that.

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

Spent eight days in Wichita, one day more than planned due to UAL’s inability to get us out of Dodge even on standby. Now that I’m back, I did what I said in the last post and bought what I call a gundrill (that’s not precisely what it is, just an 1/8″ drill bit a foot long with about three inches of flutes). This allowed me to drill a bunch of holes, a half-inch apart, through the Homabed right at its interface with the plywood subroadbed. I was then able to gently raise the Homabed with a couple of chisels and a putty knife, shimming it at the center of the dip with some 1/8″ plywood and with some cardboard at each end. (Curvable Homabed comes with a cardboard backing under each piece which has the same slits as the roadbed does.)

So far, it has seemed to work. I’ve pried up a couple more inches of roadbed to get it level all the way through, and both the flextrack on one end and the spiked tie strip at the other have seemed to survive. Shot it full of glue and put some weights on it, so we’ll see tomorrow how level it is.

My time in Wichita actually was somewhat productive, since I have a few resin kits up there that I’m gradually adding grabirons to.

Ron Merrick

[David Boeschen]

I now have 15 feet of flextrack suspended along one side of the corridor. The hole in the wall now has the sides attached, and the top loosely set on but not attached. If that keeps down heat transfer from the attic to the train room, I’ll be happy. I’ll post photos soon.

This 15 feet of flextrack is headed toward empty air, for now, but I know I will need to end up at 46″ or so elevation above floor, and it’s about 40-1/2″ in the annex. So I planned for a continuous upgrade, and I’m at about two inches of lift in the fifteen feet. Only problem is — in adjusting the track that goes through the wall, I ended up with a half inch of downgrade, and now this subroadbed is pinned in place with the Masonite I used to wall in the passageway.

Kansas roadbeds have lots of vertical rise and fall, but I didn’t want this particular dip at this particular place, since I may need a lot more rise somewhere, before I’m done.

So I have an idea. I’ll get a very small, maybe 1/16″, extra-long drill bit and drill holes through the Homabed roadbed until I can separate about six to twelve inches of it from the subroadbed, and basically jack it upwards to where the grade is level. Never tried this before, but how hard can it be?* At least I have clear access to it from one side. I’ll be in Wichita tomorrow, so maybe I’ll visit my neighborhood Ace hardware and see what they have.

There’s not just fifteen feet of boring roadbed. I had built a small timber bridge from (ME?) (CVT?) bridge decking parts that I didn’t use in its originally intended position, so now it’s spliced in the middle of this run. Only about two feet of clearance from the bottom of the timbers to the plywood subroadbed, but in central Kansas that’s about all you get sometimes. Fit a piece of flextrack over it by cutting the proper number of ties out, and it dropped in perfectly. Then I just need a road crossing or two, maybe a cattle guard, and it becomes a pretty typical stretch of Kansas track.

Ron Merrick

* I believe these have been the last words of more than one unfortunate soul down through history…….

[David Boeschen]

Here’s what the ORER lists for Jan. 1959.

MP
30000-31399 — 1358
31400-31499 — 99 (Duryea-underframe cars)
31500-32399 — 871
32400-32499 — 96

former other reporting marks, now listed as MP
17001-17500 — 458
” note DDD — 28 (80000 capy)

M-I
4000-4249 — 248

None of the above are listed as being in any kind of special service. So these cars made it through the fifties more or less intact, with only slight attrition.

From the 1968 SoE

MP
17001-17500 — 24
30003-32498 — 371
31400-31488 — 6 (Duryea-underframe cars)

M-I
4007-4249 — 18

Neat thing about the MoPac’s own listing is you can tell, at least at the top and bottom of the range, which numbers had survived.

RG7

[David Boeschen]

Photo re-submittal —[attachment=0:2k8fbjny]74-22 Apr 71.tif[/attachment:2k8fbjny]

[David Boeschen]

Here’s the only one I saw that could have been in revenue service. This is the 32463, and I have it noted as ‘new door’, but looking at the photo now, I believe this is a door off one of the 1951 rebuilds, extended to fit the taller car.

I also have a photo of the left end of the 30304, but it’s being used as an accompanying car to pile driver X37. In that photo, the lettering is the same (9″ reporting marks, 7″ 1962-style (Champ decal) numbers).

This is May 72, Wichita of course.

Ron Merrick

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