"The Peanut Route"

Well we're all pretty excited here at SNR headquarters...  Three Notch Rail's custom run of Accurail Centerflow hoppers, factory painted for the SNR, has hit the streets! 

The artwork features the traditional SNR hex herald, time-warped forward into the Big Graphic Design era 

as a "multi-mark", for friends in the "modern" period.  (Yes, 1975 is "modern".  😉)  
The herald also channels the Burlington Northern's " 'N' that isn't there," that was so fascinating to me as a kid.

Much appreciation goes to Patrick Harris of Three Notch Rail for another custom run of SNR cars.  And a big thanks as well goes to all the guys who jumped in and bought copies for their own railroads -- I believe the run is already sold out.

Now, several of those friends -- especially guys who run waybill routing systems, who care deeply about such things and document them -- brought up the same question about their new SNR covered hoppers:

        ¿"OK, what's in them?"

Well y'know, I'd never thought about that before.  Grain always works, but what about something more specific to the SNR?   And the answer was quickly obvious:

            👉"Peanuts."

Suffolk, VA sits in the middle of a rich peanut growing region.  In fact, Barri and I named US 460 from Petersburg to Suffolk "The Peanut Route", so our boys would understand which road we were planning to take, on our trips down to the NC Outer Banks.  (This was in contrast to "The Bridge-Tunnel Route", which meant killer industrial and maritime scenery for boys, with spirited language and bursting neck veins from Dad, charging headlong through the insanity of Hampton Roads on I-64.) 

On 460, the bucolic 45-mile stretch of 4-lane highway runs almost constantly through peanut and cotton fields, and is paralleled the whole way by the N&W mainline to Norfolk and Lambert's Point.  It's also paralleled by the original RoW of the SNR, chartered north out of Suffolk, toward Petersburg and Richmond, in 1852. 

Upon my explaining all this, my friend Robbie Vaughn (L&N/Family Lines) said: 

"Seems like 'The Peanut Route' ought to be a slogan on a boxcar somewhere."   

Well there's something else I never thought of.  As much as every named thing on the SNR is an inside joke or buried reference, that idea never found a place to grow.  

So here we are, three weeks later, and look what just rolled into at Yaeger Yard:

SNR's subsidiary, the Southern Shore Line, hasn't gotten around to repainting all of its equipment to include the corporate overlord's herald yet, given it's only been 6 years since the 1946 acquisition.  This double-sheathed USRA car is still wearing the scheme from its last repaint, in the '30s -- along with many layers of soot.

The Southern Shore Line is analogous to the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line.  As an Appalachian coal hauler, the SNR was ahead of its time in acquiring a gateway route to the South -- grabbing the SSL, and leaving the C&O and N&W to fight over the SCL and the Southern, years later.  

By contrast to the wooden car still showing the slogan, this all-steel car (which has been on the layout a while), has had an overhaul since the 1946 merger, including new Youngstown doors, and a power hand brake.  We know now that the updated paint job that came with the rebuild must have obliterated the quaint SSL slogan -- replacing it with the conglomerate insignia carried by all the SNR subsidiaries.  

The SSL is named for the town of Southern Shores, NC, where our beach house is located... which has been our destination when travelling via "The Peanut Route" since 2002 (get it....).  And as it happens, that fertile peanut-growing region extends the full length of those southern coastal plains through which all three of the coast "Lines" pass, all the way to the Florida panhandle..  It was only natural that the SSL should be the subsidiary that would get to wear "The Peanut Route" slogan.  Great call, Robbie!  😉

Well listen, thanks for taking the time to read this.  The backstory, rationale, and references are as much fun as the modeling, for me at least.  

And especially, if you've acquired a Centerflow or two, thanks for honoring the SNR with your interest.  Shoot me a pic if one's made it onto the layout already.

Cheers!  Would love to hear what you think....

Weathering and Vanderbilts

 

WEATHERING LOCOMOTIVES

Look at this beauty!   

In 1952 the war-baby Berks are the pride of a well-maintained steam fleet,

but still get good 'n dirty between shoppings, from a lot of hard work.  

If you've ever operated on the SNR, you know there's a satin sheen that envelopes the motive power here, making the entire fleet look like it just got delivered.  And you probably also know that it's because when it comes to weathering locomotives, I am complete chicken-$#!+.  Diesels have been in SNR paint for 10+ years, and steam for twice that, yet the only engines I've ever weathered are the scrappers.  (Well OK, plus the Barrett County's Heisler.)  So how did this workaday look suddenly come about?

In December I was having a conversation with my friend John Pyles, who mostly goes by "Maynard" (long story), and the subject of weathering engines came up.  Several key facts emerged from the ensuing discussion around my self-acknowledged chicken-$#!++iness , most notably that Maynard:

a). does not despise airbrushing, unlike the other party to the discussion, 

b). loves to weather engines, 
c). has done so professionally, 
d). is currently retired, and, 
e). is currently out of engines to weather.   

Like a razor-thin shaft of sunlight illuminating a Druid vault on the Solstice, my world suddenly lit up.

                       👉"Need a retirement job?" 😍

I was actually kidding, but Maynard was insistent that he'd love to take on the SNR's roster.  And that he was affordable.  

I was feeling guilty about the idea, but 20 or so years ago I overcame similar guilt and let my friend Bob Kress (Kentucky Central) weather the first 250 or so freight cars for me.  OK, "let" is probably a bit too Tom Sawyer, but Bob did also enjoy weathering, and was happy to get the freight fleet going for me, as his retirement job.  So why not get over the same hump with locomotives?  

Even though S-4 #175 is only 3 years old, being a sooty Alco product, 

she's already acquired a light coating of grime.  Most importantly, the satin sheen is gone!

So yes, that project is underway.  The work is beautiful, everything still runs (always my greatest fear), and most importantly, I don't have to do it.  

Presented above are the first two subjects.  There's a transit box with 5 more recent graduates in it waiting to come home, and an equal number of candidates ready to be delivered to Maynard.  At this rate, he'll be available again within a few months (😉), if you're in a similar boat.  

I'll show you the progress -- watch this space.

VANDERBILT TENDERS

Speaking of hardworking steam locomotives, it is widely acknowledged, by people who are me -- and possibly by others -- that the three coolest and most aesthetically pleasing design phenomena in the entire history of our constructed environment are:

1. Tailfinned automobiles;         2. Art Deco anything; and                 3. Vanderbilt tenders. 

I mean really -- who wants to drag a shoebox behind their engine when they could have such a beautiful, geometrically-compound expression of form following function?  It has been a tenet since the beginning of the SNR that one of its signature "looks" would be a corporate preference for Vanderbilt tenders across most of the fleet, kinda like the B&O.  But all of the steam suitable for the SNR came with bricks.  So they'd have to be converted.

I started off with the Heritage Berkshires, as seen above.  Yes they're Kanawhas, in deference to the C&O, but many years ago my friend Darren Williamson (IHB) swapped out their giant VanSweringen cisterns for these really attractive long-distance Vandies made by Spectrum.  (And now they're weathered!)

Problem was, there just aren't many other examples out there that were offered as tenders only.  MDC made a well-proportioned one years ago, but they're really short.  Those will go well on the Consolidations, for local work -- but what about Mikes and other mid-range engines?  Spectrum also had an offering in the medium-distance size, but they have one problem:  they're fugly.  

Check it out -- everything's looking pretty good, except... whoa, the coal box is taller than the cab!  Huh?  It sticks up above the tank like Dr. Who's phone booth.  And on this first one we tried, with a BLI Mike, it keyed up with the cab overhang on a curve, and derailed the tender!

Crunch!  And that's with a lengthened drawbar, too.  

No engine small enough to run this tender could possibly be tall enough for its gooney coal bunker!

And I could hardly find any prototype shots of tenders that looked anything like this, either.  The vast majority have the coal box rising just slightly above the tank, like you'd expect.  Maybe with some extended sideboards here and there, but nothing like this.  I can't imagine what led Spectrum to create a universal model in the form of the ugliest and least-seen adaptation...?  Oddly enough, in the oil version, the oil bunker fits perfectly with the tank.  Only the coal version looks like a Sasquatch on a horse.

Anyway, I stewed for quite some time over what to do.  I had bought several NIB models, and really wanted to use them, but I just couldn't stomach the dorkiness -- it destroyed the aesthetic I was after in the first place.  And the thought of sectioning those coal bunkers and getting them glued back together smoothly just filled me with agita.  

Ultimately it occurred to me that since both oil and coal versions were offered, the bunker had to be removable -- and a few weeks ago I finally dragged one out and sat down to find a way.  Sure enough, with enough disassembly, I could get the bunker separated from the tank, and could then slice off 5/32" from all the bottom edges.  Thankfully there were no rivet lines on the bunker sides.  Then with a bit of extra trimming and fussing, I was able get it all back together squarely and screwed down tight, and without compromising the speaker.  

Like James Dean's '49 Merc, the chopped-and-channeled version 

just looks undeniably cooler than the dowdy, old man's conveyance it started from.   

Whew!  So I'm working through converting the rest of the inventory while I can still remember how I did it.  The first one took two years, and the second one took an hour.  (Two, if you count reworking the ccrappy coupler box.)  We'll be swapping them in for the USRA coffins on the Mikes, 2-10-2s, and Pacifics over time.  Then we'll take a look at fitting decoders and sound into those MDCs...

Thanks as always for reading, and let me know what you think!