Modeling Romely, Apline Tunnel, St Elmo

[Jim Courtney]

Don,

Found some more info that might be helpful in modeling the St Elmo to Romley area:


1918 C&S Valuation Map

The spur that leveled out to the south of the depot actually had a double ended siding, near the boxcar bodies. Depot is to the right, by the mainline switch of the town spur.




Merrifield Collection, in the Klingers' South Parks Gunnison Division Memories . . .

Another view of the big Mary Murphy Mill between St Elmo and Romley.



And if you need a more compact mine for the layout, you might consider the Flora Bell, about a half a mile above Romley:


Date, photographer and source unknown or forgotten (by me).

The trestle to the tailings pile, crossing over the mainline, is really cool!

EDIT: Chris Walker identified these 1941 post-abandonment photos of the Flora Belle as all take by Muriel Sibell Wolle and gave the DPL lables:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/6234/rec/1



http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/6233/rec/1



http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/13765/rec/1




Then back again in time:


First decade, F.B. Rizzari Collection, in Kindig, et al, The Pictorial Supplement . . .


I've always liked this last photo, always thought it was the coal spur for the power house at the mine.  But since Chris Walker educated us about the compressed air plant at Curtain (in the Blue River thread) I can now recognize the air pipe just above the rails of the spur, running south to the ore bins and up to the mine, to power all those pneumatic drills, etc.

[Chris Walker]

Nice Jim,
your post abandonment Flora Bell pictures are from the DPL, X-3440  X-3439  and X-3447.  Muriel Sibell Wolle took them.

[Jeff Young]

Wow, great pictures of the Flora Bell, Jim!

That big mill is, I believe, the Golf Mill.  The Mary Murphy was the one in Romley proper.  Both mills served the Mary Murphy mine (and probably others on Chrysolite mountain) through an ever-changing set of aerial trams.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Jim Courtney]

Chris and Jeff,

Thanks for the information and the photo references (above post was edited, Chris).  

The "Golf Mill" . . .  yes, somehow that rings a "belle".

Speaking of other "belles", just a smidge upgrade from the Flora Belle, was the Allie Belle ore bins:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/13793/rv/singleitem/rec/1



In the distance, down grade, is the tailings trestle of the Flora Belle.

Other Allie Belle photos, likely shot the same day in 1941, by Muriel Wolle:



The ore bins and chutes.




The log boarding house.


The last time I hiked the railroad grade up to Hancock, the Allie Belle looked like this:




 Not my picture though, again can't remember where I found it.  If the owner is a viewer, please claim it!

[Don Gustavson II]

Thanks Jim.
The map is great.
And I am thinking the Flora Bell Mine will work out well.

[Ken Martin]

Speaking of the Flora Belle mine thought this might be of interest.

From my collection.

Ken Martin

[Robert McFarland]

When was the last train run over Trout Creek Pass?

[Jim Courtney]

Neat stuff, Ken.

With only a couple of months to go, the C&S was still shipping Flora Belle ore all the way to Denver.

And coal car number 4015 was one of the early 3-board St. Charles cars -- wonder if it had been rebuilt by 1910?

Jim

[Don Gustavson II]

Ken,
That is very cool. If I make that Mine I shall print that out and hang it next to the Mine on the layout.
Thanks.

[Don Gustavson II]

In the spirit of being an active participant here. I am posting this.

I do not have a C&S layout update.
We are going to focus our efforts for the next while on converting our Standard gauge layout over to DCC. (It is time)
So the C&S part of the layout is on hold for the most part.
We may get tired of being under the Standard gauge layout with soldering irons. And start some new bench work for the C&S Romely / St Elmo area. Will see. Also we may keep working some on Rowe St. in Como.

I did start looking over some of our C&S DC HOn3 Brass locos we have.
May soon make contact with locodoc.com. Would be nice to get new motors and add DCC to a couple of them.

Pictures of the Standard gauge layout are here.
Not Como Nevada

Thanks everyone.

[Don Gustavson II]

Some progress.
So we thought we would try out a spline roadbed.

This will be a Duel Gauge reverse loop. It will mostly be inside the mountain out of view.

The narrow gauge ,Romely, Apline Tunnel, St Elmo will all be above this.


The card board was just there temporary to help map things out.
Now on to scratch building some Duel Gauge turnouts. And variants of such beasts.

[South Park]

  Don,

I really think you should consider buying yourself some clamps !  

[skip]

Don Gustavson II wrote

I did start looking over some of our C&S DC HOn3 Brass locos we have.
May soon make contact with locodoc.com. Would be nice to get new motors and add DCC to a couple of them.

Don,
I, too started looking over my shelf of C&S HOn3 brass last year after finally seeing how much DCC/Sound adds to the pleasure.
My ongoing upgrades are very rewarding and I can give a strong recommendation to the locodoc conversions. Wayne is a true wizard with these things. Good luck and post some updates as you hack into those precious little "new in box" treasures.

Skip Egdorf

[South Park]

  Back on page one I mentioned posting photos of some insulators,
and apparently I never followed through.  



  On the left is the St. Elmo depot piece.  On the right is an original
construction piece.  These were used all the way from Denver to
Gunnison in the original build.  Most were aqua glass, but more icy
colors like this one, or even darker teal colors like the depot piece
were used as well.  A very few were recovered in purple shades.
This one was found by Dennis McHenry in the early 50's "about a
mile west of the Alpine Tunnel".

  The depot piece is a replacement style, installed in the mid-80's.

  Does anyone know what the final disposition of the St. Elmo
depot was ???

[Doug Heitkamp]

Here is some more info. Looks like the Romley Depot burned in 1908 according to the hand written note.

[Doug Heitkamp]

[Mike Trent]

Thanks, Doug. Looks like the section house at Romley burned out in 1905, and the depot in, as you say, 1908. Sheesh. Haunted?

What color might the old depot have been painted at Romley? The only photos I can remember seeing of it at Hancock it appeared to be yellow. With the trim color difference at the corners it doesn't look like it was red.

[Keith Hayes]

All:

Another modeler contacted me about making the Romley Roof brackets as a 3D print. I thought about it for a while and was able to make the base of the bracket as a sprue of parts. This is available on Shapeways in 1:87, 1:64 and 1:48.

Studying the photo more closely, I see that the carpenters spiffed up the braces as well as the bracket on the wall. The key issue for me was trying to figure out how to make the braces the correct length, and in particular at the corner: this just seemed easier for the modeler to do as there are too many variable to account for between the angle and material thicknesses. But, I can see about making a trim piece that could be slipped over a wood or styrene brace.

[South Park]

  If you think doing this in micro scale is fun, try doing it in full scale !
Last week I bought 44 eight foot number 1 grade 6x6 for the same kind
of roof braces.  $64 a pop !  ...  and that's before we cut any detail into
them !  Probably $200 a pop by the time they are installed !  

[Doug Heitkamp]

Keith,

I'm no Photoshop wizard, but perhaps these pics will help.