Westlake Publishing Forums

While building the model, I'm still working on perfecting the design. Two components have been missing so far: the shunt locomotive and a matching railcar.


The shunt locomotives were built around 1910 by Atlas Car Co., Cleveland, OH. They had a track gauge of 3' 6 1/2'' (1.080 mm). Power (600 V) was supplied via a conductor rail between the tracks. At least four of these locomotives, in various configurations, were in service on Whiskey Island.
For the replica, I selected numbers 6 and 7, as they are reasonably well documented.
Number 6 was last photographed in early 2024, when the demolition of the last Huletts was underway.





Number 7 is located at the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society in North East, PA. We photographed and measured this locomotive when we were there in September 2025.

And this is what the design looks like. The machines have a traction motor and two servos each for swiveling the pusher arms.





Reconstructing the railroad car was a bit more involved. Of course, over time, a wide variety of car types from different railroad companies were used. I have about 80 good-quality photos of Whiskey Island. In only one of them was I able to identify the type of car beyond a doubt.
It is a 2-bay GLa hopper car from the Pennsylvania Railroad.




(Drawing: prr.railfan.net, Collection of Gary Rauch)

Using the dimensional drawing and a few photos, I then reconstructed the hopper.





This will also allow me to recreate the setting of the ore unloaders in the model.



But now it's back to the workbench.

Bernhard

Amazing progress. Maybe its a bit rude to ask, but how many % complete do you think think the model is?

Thanks, Hauk. The design is 90% complete. The detailed designs for the beam hoist, as well as the rotation and opening/closing mechanisms for the bucket arm, are still missing. I think the overall design is very close to the prototype.
Of course, a lot of production drawings are also still missing — including those for the trolley and the walking beam.
In terms of production, I'm probably at about 25%. So there's still a lot of work to be done.

Bernhard