I bought a depot laser kit and in their instructions they suggest buying a Section Care Toolhouse to go with it. My question is, what was a Section Car Toolhouse used for? What is a section car? Thanks in advance!
A section gang is the maintenance crew that maintains a a "section" of the railroad. Railroads divided their lines up into "sections", each in charge of a foreman and a "gang" of 2-6 workers. The section performed all the regular maintenance (tamping up the track, spiking rails, replacing bad ties and rails, maintaining switches, etc).
At their headquarters location the gang had a "section house" to hold their tools and a handcar/motor car and a trailer (section car). They would used the handcar/motorcar to travel over the railroad to inspect and reach the locations that needed to be maintained.
Here is a picture of my 6th Ave Yard area, the large cream and brown building is the yard office, the two smaller ones are for the section gang, a shed for the handcar and a tool house. There are also piles of ties and spare rails stored there.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
When I was a teen and my friend and I would go to the local depot on a summer day to see what was happening, we often saw the section gang out working. I think they took their speeder out about every day looking at the ROW, or working on what they saw or what passing trains (or a Sperry railcar) reported in the way of rough track. Of course back then the C&NW was still running fast passenger trains at 80 mph so maintenance of the mainline was critical but many of the sidings back then were also in regular use by customers so much was at stake.
By the 1970s the speeder shed and tool shed were gone, but the section gang kept their speeder in the freight room in the depot (cutting groves into the platform so that L shaped pieces of steel could be used like rail to roll the speeder into the freight room). By the late 1970s the era of deferred maintenance was in full swing and the track gangs were assigned to very much larger and longer districts so my home town no longer had its own track gang and the depot was closed and for sale. The passenger trains were gone, the super elevated curve was mostly eliminated, and average speeds took a nose dive. More sidings were unused and eventually removed to save money (taxes), the double track was reduced to single track, ties looked more like driftwood on the beach, and passing trains took on a rocking and rolling motion that made standing trackside a more unnerving proposition.
Fortunately the concrete bases to both the speeder shed and tool shed are still there to be measured - about as close together as on dehusman's photo, above, but further away from the depot and closer to where the siding behind the depot met a sort of frontage track leading to the mainline. That way they could roll out their speeder onto the track but were not fouling the main while they did it.
There was also a nearby burn pile that I recall. When they eliminated Adlake kerosene lanterns from all the switches, the lanterns were tossed into the burn pile (broken lenses), together with bits of removed ties, boxes or barrels that spikes and tie plates came in, all sorts of refuse. When the Railway Express metal signs were tossed they ended up in the burn pile. There were rusted 55 gallon drums for burning other stuff.
The statute of limitations has run so I can now admit that the Railway Express sign and two switch lanterns were NOT burned but reside in my basement. My friend had more guts than I did - he talked to the crews and they found replacement lenses for him, while I waited and bought my lenses at a railroadiana show years later.
And thus began my life in crime.
Dave Nelson
dehusman...Here is a picture of my 6th Ave Yard area, the large cream and brown building is the yard office, the two smaller ones are for the section gang, a shed for the handcar and a tool house. There are also piles of ties and spare rails stored there....
That's a great-looking scene, Dave, and I believe the first photo I've seen of your layout. I hope that you have some more to share with us.
I have section houses in pretty-well every town on my layout, but most with depression-era "dip" paint jobs in oxide red.
This one is in Lowbanks, the home of the Erie Northshore road...
Here's the one in Elfrida, also on the Erie Northshore line...
...and the Northshore's section house in South Cayuga, where their track diverges from that of the Grand Valley...
...while this one, also in South Cayuga, belongs to the Grand Valley, which favoured "cottage-style" roofs on many of their lineside structures...
Wayne
www.wnbranch.com