East Tennessee & Western North Carolina RR ("The Tweetsie") branchline in On30

[davefoxx]

I look forward to watching your video after work. 

DFF

[p51]

I look forward to watching your video after work. 

I suggest doing so right before bed, especially if you have insomnia... 

[davefoxx]

I suggest doing so right before bed, especially if you have insomnia... 

Great!  I do! 

DFF

[p51]

I finished my Quonset Hut project over the weekend, with full interior and lighting. It's replaced the Nissen hut which really wasn't accurate for stateside WW2.

The front has the usual names sign for the chain of command. "J Stuart" is my nephew's first and middle name (he's also a real life Army Captain, just like I was before I got out). "R Sayes" refers to one of my best friends, and a real mentor for model trains.

This was based on a Tom Yorke kit, which really was just a box of resin castings, and I could only use the end walls for that as the rest was postwar. The rest was a tack of plastic sheets, and the corrugated stuff was way too thick to bend. It took a very long time to search for thinner stock and research into how to bend the stuff. had I know what this would entail, I would have just scratch built the darned thing. But, it's done now...

[davefoxx]

Looks great!  I can't help but be reminded of my first exposure to the WWII-era (or later) quonset huts that were used on classic shows that I watched in syndication in my youth, like Gomer Pyle, USMC and McHale's Navy.

DFF

[p51]

Thanks, Dave. I trained in a couple of those huts when I was in the Army...
I broke out the good camera and experimented with shots of both the outside and the interior of the hut. It worked to have the light on for just a couple of seconds on a 90-second exposure:

And of course I had to make a 40’s-looking shot out of it:

[p51]

Over the weekend, I painted this re-creation of my fictional Railway Operating Battalion insignia:

Today I'll do whatever touchup is needed, then hit it with some dull coat. I'm not sure how I'll hang it. Maybe Velcro as it doesn't weight much as it's a piece of Masonite around ten inches tall.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Love it!

[p51]

I've been asked several times to explain my fictional railway unit insignia. So, I created the 'official' history of the unit's time along Stoney Creek:


“The Stump Jumpers”
A history of the 796th Railway Operating Battalion, US Army
Compiled by the US Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair

The 796th Railway Operating Battalion (ROB) was established on paper by the US Army Transportation Command at Fort Eustis, Virginia on November 30, 1942. From the formation of the unit, the Clinchfield Railroad wanted to sponsor a ROB and they were asked to assist in the creation of this battalion. They provided a cadre of experienced railroaders, with the expectation of eventually running railroads in formerly occupied nations once they were liberated by Allied forces. Most railroaders in this unit throughout the war were formerly from the Clinchfield.
By January of 1943, the advance party of the ROB headquarters were in Johnson City, Tennessee to scout locations for their elements. Battalion HQ and most of the companies were set up near the narrow-gauge East Tennessee & Western North Carolina (ET&WNC) railroad shops and yard in Johnson City. As most of the effort for the 796th was devoted to running the Stoney Creek Branch, B Company was set up in various locations along that line and set up its company headquarters along a former logging spur near Winner, Tennessee.
Conditions long the line were spartan and supplies were long in coming. A dismantled Nissen hut which had been rejected during testing in Virginia was assembled along the spur and an ET&WNC shack was taken over as a little shop for anything needing hand tools. A former Stoney Creek Southern refrigerated car along the spur was taken over for storage. Perforated steel airfield “Marston matting” was placed in a square for a parking area for the unit’s heavier vehicles.
A trio of 2-6-2 tank engine ‘trench’ locomotives from the Great War were re-gauged at the ET&WNC shops and immediately put to work along the line, along with some narrow-gauge Army cars that arrived unannounced on the backs of some flat cars in the Johnson City yard. All this equipment was used in various locations along the line. One was set aside as a permanent switcher for the B Company, another dedicated to use around the battalion HQ.
Right away, track crews of the 796th went to work on the track which in most cases hadn’t been touched by crews in almost twenty years. In a few weeks, Army railroaders with 55-pound rail and newly cut ties, had the right of way was looking better than the locals said it had when it was new.
By the spring of 1943, soldier/railroaders of the 796th were out of shelter tents for good and housed in larger squad tents and Quonset huts that had arrived with additional heavy wheeled vehicles. Working closely with the ET&WNC, the 796th ran several freight and passenger and freight trains throughout the entire line. It was common to see soldier railroaders crewing trains anywhere between Johnson City to either Buladeen, Tennessee or Cranberry, North Carolina.
By summer of 1943, operations were well underway for tactical training and familiarity with European and Asian prototype equipment for eventual deployment overseas. A handful of European rolling stock captured in Africa was brought to Stoney Creek for the 796th to work with. A new Whitcomb 50-tonner diesel-electric locomotive was also brought in, though it proved to be unpopular with crews and somewhat unreliable.
In anticipation of the invasion of Europe during the spring of 1944, the 796th was ordered to prepare for movement to the New York port of Embarkation and eventual movement to the European Theater of Operations, where they later served with great distinction. The 796th ended the war at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and the unit was disbanded in 1946.
The Battalion insignia is described as a ‘trench’ engine jumping over a stump, upon a shield of Transportation Corps yellow. The insignia was unofficially created by a member of HQ Company, who later said he had designed it after the initial review of the Stoney Creek right of way. During the review, one officer was heard to say, “Boys, looks like we’ll be jumping stumps for the rest of the war.”

[p51]

I've decided to make patches of the 796th ROB insignia. I am very aware that Battalion-level units almost never had their own shoulder patches either during WW2 or at any point, but so many people have asked if I'll make them.
This is the digital scan of my insignia.

The patches will be 3" high.
I'm not going to make a huge batch of them but I'll be selling a few at the national Narrow Gauge Convention in Tacoma when people come see my layout for layout tours. They'll probably be around $10 each. Once I have them in hand next month, I'll make them available here for anyone who might want a patch for what HAS to be the only Army railway unit insignia ever designed in the hobby.

[p51]

I have placed the order for some of the 796th ROB patches and they should be here next week. I'm trying to figure out how much to sell them for, but let me know if you're interest in one:

They will be 3 inches high.
I'm quite sure these are the only military railway unit patches in the model railroad hobby.

[p51]

The story has long been told and is known by all the locals:
One fall morning, the revenuers and some deputies for the local Sherriff came to bust up the still for the Richardsons and Ensors. They pulled up in their cars at the Grindstaff store at the base of Hurley Hollow at Sadie, Tennessee. Knee-deep in the Great Depression, most of the locals were toiling in the fields and apparently paid them little mind.
The old men who always seemed to hang around the store watched in silence until their rifles and shotguns came out of the trunks of their cars. The old men started snickering and immediately knew what was going to happen.
"I wouldn't go up there looking for those boys," the men with badges were warned, "They's all gone across the water." The old men, of course, were referring to the Great War in France. They had all served in the trenches and the locals knew that those lessons had not gone unheeded.
The rifles and shotguns were loaded in silence, and off the men with the oversized badges went, up into the hills.
Over an hour passed and the old men suddenly heard the staccato echoes of rifle fire. Lot of it. As quickly as it started, it ceased.
An hour after that, the men with the badges came back, all limping and all injured in some way. The old men noticed that none had serious wounds, which they all immediately agreed was intentional. Those boys up in the hollow had learned where to shoot someone without killing them as they'd had plenty of experience against Germans in the trenches of France just over a dozen years before.
That was just over a decade ago. the moonshine stills are mostly quiet now. You can't get the 'fixings' for them now with wartime rationing on. All the young men are off across the water again, this time for a war across both oceans. Once that gets straightened out, the old men sitting in front of Grindstaff store declare, they'll be right back at it.



The law hasn't come up here looking for moonshine stills since that day they tangled with those Great War veterans. Sometimes the highway patrol comes up the valley, but nobody is worried to see men with badges. Everyone assumes they'll get right back at it once this current war is over.

[p51]

Okay, it's not so much layout related as concept related, but I decided to put together a uniform for the "Commanding office, 796th ROB", using a reproduction cotton shirt, original Lt Col and Transportation Corps insignia, and a should patch I'd made.

When I have layout tours for the National Narrow Gauge convention in September, I gotta wear this one of those days! Maybe I'll wear my pistol belt and a sidearm at the same time, as it'll keep visitors honest!

[p51]

Over this past weekend, I decided to re-write my switch lists.
I'd written a 4-position switch list for 4 trains to cycle through  the interchange whereas it'd re-set everything at the end of the 4th movement. On previous op sessions, I usually just run two trains, and that takes around 3 hours or so and crews generally want to take photos and BS after that timeframe (I'm not one of those guys who wants to make people work for a long timeframe as that's too much like real work).
I'd gotten some new cars (the ET&WNC wood hoppers I'd always wanted) and re-wrote the list, but it messed the scheme up badly.
It took a while to get it right, by placing cars where they should be, looking around and making notes or changing positions. By the time I was done, I think I got it all correct.

[p51]

Recently, I scored a 1930 Model A made by Brooklyn. Normally they're expensive models (over $100 retail) but I snagged this one for around 40 bucks with postage. For what you pay in retail, they're not worth the extra money, IMHO. Other than no plastic parts other than the wheels, they're no better than less expensive diecasts. That said, it really looks great.
Yesterday, I weathered the thing.
I added a "B card" gas rationing sticker to the windshield, removed the side windows, and then added a Tennessee 1943 plate to the back end.

BEFORE:


AFTER:


And afterward, placed on the layout: