My small pike, Paradox Uravan and Placerville can't effectively and realistically support a 10 stall roundhouse! What to do now? One of those too good to be true, but I can't immediately use it, kinda' deals.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
What a great find, I have occassionaly found things that changed the direction of my layout , not as dramaticly as your find . Good catch and good luck !!!!!
That's a gorgeous model at a wonderful price. Ten stalls/steam engines doesn't seem excessive. If you dispatch ten trains a day, that's ten engines. If they don't make it back to the barn until just quitting time, you need that many engines, especially as I figure one engine is always taken apart for heavy maintenance and thus unavailable.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
Richard,
That's a heck of a find and a deal! You're living large -- in narrowgauge.
I think that the roundhouse is built from the Cibolo Crossing Durango roundhouse castings. These are not a stock item, but Al Boos has produced them regularly over the years. I got mine from him at either the 96 or 98 NNGC convention. I didn't get around to building mine until recently. Here's a pic of mine under construction:
I can't see enough of the sidewalls in your pics, but you can compare and confirm one way or the other.
It also appears that the builder used the Cibolo Crossing vents and Grandt Line smokejacks, as I did on mine. These also duplicate Durango roundhouse features.
Not sure about the origins of the TT. Does it have a drive or is it strictly manual? One option if you need a TT, but not that big of a roundhouse, would be to keep the TT and sell the roundhouse. But you may need to add or subtract finger tracks to suit you needs, so how easy this is to do depends on the drive and/or indexing the TT has.
Anyway, I'd say that was a well-spent Franklin.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Mike,
I thought you might know more and I was waiting for your commentary. Thanks so much for the rather full ID on the castings and other info. The turntable was frozen from many years of neglect and sitting idle. Do you think Al Boos could have made this? It has hand writing inside, inscribed, "ABoos, June 1983. The A Boos is connected as in ABoos with the "A" formed at the top of and above the "B" in Boos with the back of the B forming one leg of the A. It looks like a stylized signature peculiar to a person's personal preference.
the TT is not motorized nor indexed and has a manual hand wheel underneath. It took about 4 hours of careful work to effectively hammer out the entire bearing assembly which was home made. I did some minor repairs on the bridge railings and installed a completely new bearing assembly after machining down the shaft to fit another bearing I had here. I remounted the bridge and now it is as smooth as silk and lithium geased with jut enough drag to hold the table in place when aligned without any drifting as the engine enters the table bridge. As this was assembled in 1983, I do not know if the TT was a store bought item, though the bridge looks made of TT use. I think someone might have kit bashed the TT.
The PUP has only three scheduled trains a day and owns two engines and one leased from the D&RGW. By agreement, and at no charge, one of the RGS Geese makes a once daily mail, passenger and light freight run from Placerville to Paradox and back on the PUP. The goose collects 100% of the revenues for the RGS only. The center point on the PUP is the small Naturita/Nucla yard where there is a two stall engine house/repair and car maintenance facility. Oddly, this key and rather important railroad junction is the hub of PUP activity, yet has no representation in the road name! It is merely known as NatNuc junction as it enters neither township both of which are about 1.5 miles away, both north and south of this important point on the road. Thus, a big round house is out of the question.
If you're on the East Coast and you can't find one of those big cyrogenic reefers Walthers offered in the mid-90s, its because of me.
My fleet size is classified. But I'm pretty sure I have a significant fraction of the existing unassembled undecorated ones.
That's interesting. Signed by Al Boos? My guess is that it was constructed as a display model to take to shows, although it's possible that he had it on a layout?
I'm pretty sure that Al is still with us, but it's been years since I've been to a NNGC due to my academic calendar. Certainly Cibolo Crossing is still in business and is carried in Walthers catalog. I've ordered several items recently. The address is listed as:
Cibolo Crossing
PO Box 2640
Universal City, TX 78148
Don't know if you have any plans to attend a NNGC, but that would be the ideal place to find a home for it. Certainly would be of interest to some. Heck, if I hadn't finally put my castings to work six months ago, we'd be making a deal right now...
Another possibility is that there are several foundations now seeking to preserve model railroad items. They might have an interest in a donation. It deserves a good home.
The TT sounds homemade and robust, but it could be any one of several different small manufacturers that have come and gone. It doesn't look like a Diamond Scale one, which I'm most familiar with. Manual drive is fine if your eyes can line it. The key is how track power is passed through it. Most likely through the pivot, as the Durango TT did not have an overhead power arrangement and it seems to be designed to represent that, doesn't it.
Great find! I really love the interior detail.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
Al Boos is an MMR and is shown on the NMRA website for the Achievement program with contact information
Since this is public information I assume there is no objection to posting how he can be reached
Lone Star Region AP Manager
Dave Nelson
Thanks for the info Dave and Mike. I have e-mailed Al about this item, sent images and asked many questions. Stay tuned, I will relay any history on this piece if Al did, indeed, build this stunning little HOn3 diorama in a future posting in this thread.
Great find on a fantastic looking diorama.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
this looks like an amazing piece...
I found this Helium tank car lasts year at a train show. Only go to a train show once a year, have my want list handy.
Al Moos was kind enough to e-mail me a rather full history of this Durango Roundhouse diorama. Rather than paraphrase, he has kindly allowed me to share the bulk of his response.
........................................
Absolutely fascinating! Thanks to you and Al, both. He's a great guy from the few brief conversations I remember from NNGCs years ago. Very glad to hear he's still at it.
And nothing like how I guessed it came about...
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
But we now know how these castings came into existence in the first place. I'd heard none of that, but it also shows you how this hobby and the products available are so dependent on both circumstances and the gumption of those like Al who jump in and produce something that becomes a legacy far beyond their immediate surroundings and an asset to the hobby as a whole.
This also gives me some ideas of how to finish my roundhouse. There wasn't really room for 10 stalls to look good, although I could have made it work, which is why mine's got fewer stalls. I want to build the powerhouse and stack at some point (another destination for coal loads), but it will end up at the opposite end than the prototype. I've got Grandt roundhouse doors back-ordered, so hope that's eventually filled. I don't relish building six of them. Got the wood along the rails in each stall installed just last week. I make more progress, then there will be pics.
That's just great that you got the complete history of this structure from Al Boos. I am sure you were going to treasure it anyway, but now it becomes extra special I am sure.