Bob,
That is great news. Really putting on the pressure on this end to
produce something special on my part. It would be great if the group
wants the photos too. These things tend to get lost to history/time
and when later someone is on the hunt for information it is gone.
One of my major frustrations in the hunt for information is in
regards to what appeals the most to me pre-1900 equipment much of
which is very colorful and no one has ever bothered in the their
writings about the colors of early cars. They go on for pages about
how Joe Smith had a hard time financing the project, but little is
said about what matters the most to modelers, the color of the model
when its done.
I spent several years looking for the true color of the Mason Bogies
that went to the South Park and Pacific. I finally got permission to
visit the Old Colony Historical Society and go through the original
drawings and paper work of the Mason Plant. It took a cooperate
sponsorship to get in in case I stole something. It was very
interesting. After all the models that have been imported none of
them were painted correctly. I found the paper work from Mason to his
plant manger and chief engineer how the engines should be painted. It
was all based on what other manufactures were doing at the time. For
example Baldwin engines were painted Lake, which to me implies they
were painted blue, Lake it turns out is a Maroon color. Mason saw
that you could visit almost any railroad of the day and see by the
color of the locomotives who built them. He for what ever reason
liked an engine called the Highland Light a 4-4-0 and told his man in
charge to paint all following engines the same, a sort of in modern
terms Candy Apply Green if your into cars. No one really likes my
answer, but it is at least the correct answer. I suspect the plant
manager liked the color more than Mason as he was from England and so
was most of his staff and the English are still very fond of Green
locomotives. So when you bought a Mason engine you could pick a lot
of things according to what the machine was expected to do and even
have your railroads name applied to the locomotive, but color and
lettering style was not one of your choices. After Mason died and the
world had changed, black became everyone's choice for engines at
least freight engines. There are many exceptions of course when in
particular it comes to passenger engines. You folks North of our
border seem to have stayed with colorful engines longer than your
cousins South of Your border.
I fear lots of information as been lost forever when the collector of
the information dies. His family simply toss the information the
trash as crazy uncle Ned's desire to collect pictures of trains and
no in the family is interested.
I thank all of you for your help in chasing down information on the
short business cars. I have been very impressed by your wiliness to
be of help.
Jerry Kitts
Willits California
On Mar 28, 2009, at 12:49 PM, Bob Hobbs wrote:
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jerry Kitts <jerryjkitts@...> wrote:
I am starting to feel greedy now. I have gotten a lot of help from
other members on the Business car. I know the layout of the car, but
only have one interior shot and know little about the underframe
My quest has lead me this far, if I can get some interior photos and
the under body, then I could of course finish my HO model in a grand
manor if that happens, I now want to scratch build the car in O scale
too which is my main scale of choice.
Jerry
Good news Jerry. One of the BRS members has a series of Photo's taken over the 6 Year period it took to rebuild Car 27 from the mess they inherited from the Thurso Valley Railway.
I am going to scan these slides. I believe there are over 100.
This will take some time. If Jim remembers he'll get them to me next week. We are getting long in the tooth and have short short- term memories ;) In the meantime I'll take some shots of the interior of Car 27 next week and post them no later than Sunday April 5.
Note to Jeff Pinchbeck
Would these photo's/Slides be of interest the Library Collection?
I have Jim's permission for the library to use the images.
I will scan the slides to Tiff's to keep as much resolution as possible. If you want then and there is a specific format you want let me know. bobhobbscan at yahoo dot com is my e-mail.
Bob Hobbs
Ottawa
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