Hi, it's Stix actually, the link for the pic was to "Don's depot".
Anyway, a 2-6-0 is a "Mogul" type. No. 1 worked on the 3' gauge line in NE Iowa into the 1930's. At one time the Milwaukee had several narrow-gauge branches in southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa.
BTW don't be surprised if a lot of that South Dakota grain ended up on barges going down the Mississippi River, or going up to Minneapolis - the "Mill City".
Thank you Don. No, this was standard guage trackage from Milwaukee and Madison across the northern counties of Iowa and on to Rapid City, South Dakota. My guess is that it brought grain to Milwaukee for shipment to the world. By the way, does that locomotive have a type name? Was it narrow guage? What era? Thanks again for your reply.
Dave in Wisconsin
BTW, are you modelling standard gauge or narrow gauge?? The Milwaukee had 3' gauge lines in eastern Iowa into the 1930's, serving some of the narrow valleys of rivers feeding into the Mississippi.
http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr051.htm
Also try HABS-HAER for photos and plans.
Do a Google image search for the various towns.
Do a Google books search for the various railroads, towns or major commodities.
Search area universities for on line photo collections.
Its amazing what those sources will turn up. I model a semi-obscure branch of the Reading in 1900 but have gotten tonnage and commodity figures, maps, roundhouse plans, aerial photographs, building photos, equipment plans, etc from those sources.
Look in Google books for reports to the Iowa railroad or public service commission. They may have traffic tonnages, mileage, improvements, etc.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Thank you ironrooster, dehusman, MIL-RODR and wjstix. You all have given me a lot to think about. I'm going to get the CD and join the association. I also plan to visit the protype area in NW Iowa to see if local libraries have era Sanborn maps that could add prototypical industries to the mix: I suspect most of the trafic was grain shipments eastbound, along with reefers and livestock cars and from the east, manufactured goods in box cars and flat beds, empties, refined petroleum and chemical cars, as well as cement, gravel and sand hoppers. The NW corner had several N-S other RR lines crossing the CMST&P line and that should provide transfer traffic.
In the 1980's Walthers bought the Train Miniatures line of freight car kits and offered them as Walthers' kits with improved graphics in the eighties and nineties. Some of them went into the Trainline series as RTR cars and others are discontinued, but they (and even the old TM kits) show up pretty regularly at flea markets and such. They offered many 1920's era cars: 40' double and single sheathed wood boxcars, some with steel ends and roofs, all steel cars like the Pennsy X-29 type I mentioned before, woodside 40' reefers, 40' flatcars and gondolas...there might be some others I'm forgetting.
Reefers in that period would be almost 100% iced reefers, using blocks of ice in bunkers in the end of the cars. (Icing platforms would be neat to model by the way.) Mechanical refrigeration (like you have in your refrigerator at home) was starting to be developed but wouldn't become common until after WW2, and wood reefers ran well into the diesel era.
Single sheathed (externally braced) and double sheathed (internally braced) box cars. I have a pair of 40 footers, single sheathed in CNW and double sheathed in M C St. P & P and I think they’re a pair of the best looking box cars ever. And this is with N scale and somewhat lacking detail compared to other scales. My freelance will be based in late 40’s to early 60’s era but I will definetly be having a small fleet of these cars. The CNW is marked as New 1918 and the M C St. P & P is marked as New 19 by the by.
Short flat cars, there where even some heavy duty 8 axle flat cars, but now that I think of it them might have been later like very late 30’s. Stock cars, they look pretty neat. 36 foot box cars. If there were reefers they would be mechanical ice reefers, I know I just saw some mentioned that were 36 footers. Oh, and of course, always have a caboose.
Art Griffen decals also has many early decals, mostly in the 1890's, 1900 era, but lots and lots of bill board reefers, all prototypical.
In the twenties you would see mostly wood cars, though all-steel boxcars like the Pennsy X-29 were just coming out. Composite cars were around too - cars with steel ends and roofs, but wood sides. Some cars were double-sheathed (wood exterior and interior) and some were single-sheathed (interior only) so the external steel bracing showed.
40' cars would be the most common, although 36' and maybe a few 34' cars would still be around. 8 to 8.5' height boxcars and reefers would predominate, might be few shorter cars from earlier days.
Archbar trucks would be common, though by the 1910's new cars would have Bettendorf T trucks or something similar. Andrews trucks were around, I understand there was a way to use parts from an archbar truck to make an Andrews truck(?). Some cars had steel underframes, but trussrods (like arch bar trucks) weren't banned until the thirties so could still be found.
Passenger cars had been 80' long since the 1890's. Wood would still be around, but any cars built after 1910 or so would be steel, so heavyweights would predominate. With a few exceptions, all cars would be painted Pullman Green with dulux gold lettering.
One thing to careful of when modelling the past is you need to know both the type of car that's right for your era AND be sure the lettering is right. Many 1920's era cars are available, but painted in later paint schemes (like Walthers heavyweight passenger cars painted in postwar streamliner colors.)
Download the Clover House dry transfer catalogue, it has diagrams showing different paint schemes and when they were in use.
While you are stopped at Westerfield, look at the models. He specializes in models from the 1920's.
Pretty much any USRA car would be applicable. Boxcars under 10' IH (the 10' - 10'6" high cars are mostly 1930's.)
For $5 a month you can subscribe to the NEB&W website, they have an extensive listing of what the eras are for cars.
Dave H.
I would start by trying to find an Official Railway Equipment Register for the 1920's. Westerfield has some on cd's http://www.westerfield.biz/ including 1919 and 1925.
And of course the Milwaukee Road Historical Society http://www.mrha.com/.
Enjoy
Paul
I'm contemplating building a 1920's era model railroad prototyped on a section of the old Milwaukee Road in northwestern Iowa. I would think there are rolling stock car and engine inventory listings somewhere. I know the Road fabricated their own cars in later years but don't know if they did then. Anything that would point me in a direction where I could do some research on this would be appreciated.