Two working weeks remain in the summer of 2012 and building projects for the O Scale (Hi-Rail) CONUS Lines are drawing to a close.
1. The June project was to build a Chamber of Commerce and Railroad Park for the town of Ellison, site of the major yard/engine terminal on CONUS Lines. I "severely" modified a Bar Mills mid-20s gas station kit, based on a similar effort I saw in Montana many years ago.
2. The locals are celebrating the opening of the new city offices in the renovated gas station with a picnic.
3. The July project was to model one wing of the Eagle Mountain House where my wife and I had spent several days of our October '85 honeymoon, and to which our family of four returned in the summer of '01. A Bar Mills Idaho Hotel kit served as the basis for this rendering. Location on the layout is amongst the mountains at Summit, highest point on CONUS Lines.
4. Final project of the summer, about half done, is the York Hotel/Railroad YMCA. Goal is to finish this by Labor Day Weekend and install it adjacent to the engine terminal.
5. Attending the Strasburg, Pennsylvania, O Scale show 11 August I purchased three cars from the collection of retired Navy Captain W.C. Johnson. The two cabooses and one refrigerator car were all hand built solely from wood in the 1930s when Johnson was on active duty. Stationed in the submarine tender USS Canopus (AS-9) in 1941, Johnson was sent to Corregidor when his ship was sunk, along with other surviving crew members. Becoming a prisoner of war when Corregidor fell in May 1942, he suffered at POW camps in the Philippines and finally in Japan. He survived the war, and in the late 40s would attribute his ability to exist in the POW camps to his hobby and sketches he made throughout the internment of railroad equipment, etc. Here is one of his hand made cabooses, built in 1936. When stationed in San Diego in the mid-30s, "Western Pacific" was his railroad, replete with his own custom-designed herald.
6. Assigned to duties at the Naval Training Station, Newport, Rhode Island in 1937, then Lieutenant Junior Grade Johnson made the cross-country trek with both his wife and his model railroad equipment. New England duty resulted in construction of equipment for both the New Haven and this "Southern Aquidneck" truss rod boxcar. (NTC is located on Aquidneck Island; the Naval War College and other Navy facilities remain on the island in the 21st century). Though built in 1938, the 74-year old car remains structurally sound. Here it is trailing a trio of New Haven FAs pulling a Maybrook-bound freight through Georges Creek Junction as a New York Central Pacemaker freight enters Ellison yard lead behind Mohawk #3100.
