This post is especially for Lines West modelers and Jeff Worones or whoever
is maintaining or updating the BRHS inventory of prototype models.
This past summer I picked up a copy of GRANGER COUNTRY, A PICTORIAL SOCIAL
HISTORY OF THE BURLINGTON RAILROAD. This 1949 volume (edited by Lloyd Lewis
and Stanley Pargellis) is based on papers and photos the CB&Q donated to
the Newberry Library in Chicago.
Among its many excellent pics, I was pleasantly surprised to discover
prototype photos of one and perhaps two model structure kits I've built
over the years. The first, at the beginning of Ch. 4 (sorry, the book has
no page numbers) shows the Lake Grocery in Fleming, CO (c.1885); this is
the prototype for the old Grocery Store kit by Timberline (kit #119), and I
must say Timberline did an excellent job of accurately reproducing this
structure. Fleming, FYI, is/was along the Q's Holdredge-Cheyenne line about
20 miles east of Sterling, CO.
A bit later in that chapter, there are several pages of Nebraska Historical
Society photos showing a variety of "soddies," some of which look awfully
close to the Guts Gravel & Glory "Farmer's Sod House" (kit #160).
I also recently came across an unbuilt Timberline kit #134 -- a grain
elevator (c.1879) from Ellsworth, KA. Not along the Burlington,
unfortunately, but the instructions say the kit incorporates many details
from a similar structure in Wellington, CO, which is on the C&S mainline to
Cheyenne, north of Ft. Collins.
Strictly speaking these aren't RR buildings, but they are VERY
characteristic of the High Plains through which the Q and C&S ran.
The GGG building is still available, I think. The Timberline kits are long
OP, but they do turn up (I just found the grain elevator last month);
they're relatively inexpensive (as is the GGG soddy) and can be built into
attractive models.
Jonathan
PS: Does anyone know of a prototype photo of the Wellington, CO elevator?
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