Coal, Sand and water. Or food for a L-131.

[Max Corey]

Here we go again.  Perhaps I can pretend I used a soften effects.

Yes, another diorama, this time in HO (1/87).  Favorite standard-gauge locomotive.  My mom remembers these.  She went to high school in Eagle, Colorado, back in the forties.  The Denver and Rio Grande Western originally ran L-131s pulling long freight trains from Denver to Salt Lake City over Eagle Pass and later, when diesels replaced them, two were kept alive at Eagle to help the trains over the pass.  One was cut in the middle and one pushed and then they ran backwards to Eagle where they had a turntable and roundhouse and the facilities of coal, sand, water and maintenance.  From photographic evidence, the D&RGW never washed these. 3600s, my mother calls them and says that the high school windows rattled and the whole town reverberated when they were running.

So I had built this water tank from a FineScale Miniatures kit combined with a Campbell's Northern water tank kit.  The sand house is a FineScale Miniatures kit.  The Chama coaling tower (technically 3' gauge) another Campbell's kit. They kicked around for a while until deciding on sticking them together in a 12" by 24" diorama to display the locomotive.  Yes, I know, the standard gauge coaling towers were HUGE but this is what I had so there.

The L-131 is a PFM United brass and runs very well.  I took it all to pieces and painted the parts separately.  I still like the paint job based on color and b&w photos.

Darryl Huffman always justified the stairs up the water tank as for an air raid siren but I just felt like it.  He took these photos.





In those days the thing for grass was dyed or colored rope and clumps of foam for basic ground cover.  I often want to re-do and upgrade the ground.  Also replace the Atlas track with Micro Engineering or Shinohara. I also notice the empty window in the sandhouse door in the first picture, as well as a wrong shine on the outside of drivers but this is a running locomotive so that is a compromise.

Have three MDC hoppers I have never finished to put on the coaling track behind these structures.  Maybe one of these days.

If it looks kinda blackish, I played around the coaling tower in Eagle as a kid and have since climbed coaling towers doing measurements for models and everything around them is black with coal dust and coal so there.

Max building a steam engine generator for his power house in MI this weekend.  (Photos soon to come)

[Ray Dunakin]

Nice. I like that first photo, looks like an old railfan pic.

[finescalerr]

Vintage top caliber modeling. Did you build it sometime around the mid 70s? -- Russ

[Chuck Doan]

Very nice!