More Groundcover in Dickey (and a couple of structures)

[Mike Trent]

Rather than add to the last thread which meandered off into a great secondary discussion, I'll include a couple of pictures of structures that have been lurking in the distant background in previous photos. First, when I took the first bite of the poison apple of On3 in early 1980, my first project was to build three modular sections that could be taken to the Boulder Model RR Club's annual show on Thanksgiving weekend. On one of the sections, I had a Mt Princeton Station labeled "Solitude", a water tank, and this Model Masterpieces C&S Section House. About four years later, "Solitude" became the first iteration of Dickey, and this section house was it's first structure, the Dickey Station was finished shortly afterward. Although this kit was based on a C&S drawing of a "Standard" Section House, I don't think any of these were ever used on the narrow gauge.  There were smaller ones which bore a vague resemblance, but nothing quite like this. The only one I think I've ever seen like this one was in Texline, although I'm sure there were others along the Front Range and Wyoming. For largely sentimental reasons, how could I not bring this into today's Dickey?

 

This water tank is one of five built by Joe Crea for the layout mentioned above, and was based on the Bakers Tank on Boreas. I have two of those tanks here, Rob Smith has the others on his layout, which is currently in transition with their move from New Mexico back to Longmont. One of the old C&S relics my Dad collected in his time was the water marker gauge from the old Boulder tank which was located East of town where the wye was, known on the C&S as ARA. (I have it here with me in Alabama now) I had asked Joe if he could put that particular gauge marker in two or three of the tanks, and this is one of those.