How A House Mover Rescued 61 Box Cars On An Isolated GN Branch Line

 

 By Nick Muff, MMR and John O’Connell

Inspiration for this project came from an article in the GN Goat Group IO by Dan Bolyard….A paraphrase of his article helps explain the creative solution to a very challenging problem:

In 1948 heavy rains wiped out 9 bridges on the Mansfield and Douglas Branches in Washington leaving 61 box cars stranded. The cars were in great demand in Waterville to ship grain out to make room for the incoming harvest. One solution was to lift the cars off their trucks and haul the cars by highway truck. But Freel & Sons, an Omak, WA house mover, came forward with a more expedient solution. The house mover said he could haul an empty box car without removing the trucks by securing a car on track mounted on logs on an improvised trailer. His truck was a three axle 165 HP 1948 rig and his crew could load and secure a car in 30 minutes! He then could cover the 30 miles to Coulee City in three hours!

After studying the photos in the GN Goat, I was having trouble making the transition from inspiration to modeling. I met with Nick Muff, MMR, who translated the photos into a scale diagram using AutoSketch 10 Software. Nick grew up around steel fabrication and was able to not only render a plan but fill any gaps from his own experience.

1. The Truck

[1] Sylvan Scale Models 1940 – 1958 White Super Power Tandem Day Cab (V-155)

[2] Dulled, dirty, washed out green or grey

2. The Trailer

The trailer is made up of the forward frame support, the tongue, the rear log support and the logs. The overall effect is meant to appear as hastily constructed unfinished welded steel. The paint used for all components of the trailer was Vallejo Model Color acrylic in Natural Steel 70.864.

The Forward Frame

With the daunting challenge of structural integrity without compromising visual realism, the fact that this is a static model reduces the challenge.

We chose Evergreen I-Beam 275 5/32” (0.156) (4.00 mm). For rigidity, bent two short coat hanger pieces into 90 degrees and glued into the inside channels of the I-beams formed into a U shape with Gorilla Super Glue Gel. For additional rigidity, a thin piece of sheet styrene plastic was fashioned to cover the bottom of the U and provide a base for the trailer tongue. The sheet styrene is meant to appear to be sheet steel and just cover the bottom of the frame and extend forward 4 scale feet for tongue support.

[3] Top: the frame (scale 5’ long, 7’ wide). Middle: .45 mm sheet styrene. Bottom: 5/32” I-Beam

3. The tongue

The tongue was fashioned from three + pieces of I-Beam (4 1/2 scale feet) glued together around a short piece of wire. A hole was drilled in the front of the tongue so a small wire could be glued in place to protrude just enough to engage the fifth wheel of the truck. Finally, the tongue was glued to the thin styrene support at the front of the forward frame.

[4] Completed forward frame and tongue awaiting priming and painting. The imperfections and gaps can be filled with Bondo and masked with paint.

4. The Rear Log Support….

Parts from Herpa Trailer kit 5514 were used for the rear wheels and support for the logs.

[5] The Herpa frame was cut down and a single axle with four wheels was used. The frame was glued to a piece of 0.45mm plastic scrap roughly 6 scale feet long by 7 feet across.

[6] Rear Log Support prior to assembly

[7] Underside of Rear Log Support with wheels glued in place and ready to paint

Finally, a rear plate was fashioned using 0.045 scrap styrene approximately 1 ½ by 7 scale feet. For the taillight, a 6” lens (Details West LN-241) was set on a piece of tape and painted using Tamiya Clear Red X-27 and the glued on the rear plate. A 1950 WA state commercial license plate image was lifted off the web, greatly reduced then printed and attached to the rear plate.

 ‘

[8] The rear of the trailer includes a scale Washington state license plate and brake light.

5. The Logs

The logs were shaped using ¼” dowels 7 inches long, mounted in a power drill and tapered slightly over an inverted belt sander, then scraped with a fine saw blade to rough the surface. The final length is 6 inches. Side by side, the tapered ends have to fit inside the forward frame and provide a level contact for the cross ties. If the trial fit looks good, glue two pieces of thin bass wood across the bottom of the logs for stability.

The logs will be set on the rear support and appear through-bolted (Kadee #439 Nut, Washer & Bolt) to improve visual appeal.

6. The Track

Six by 8” lumber was used for the cross ties supporting the Code 70 rail. I chose to omit every third cross tie and use a piece of Micro Engineering track to set the spacing. The ties were cut to 7 scale feet in length. Two ties at each end were tapped down using green 3M tape and the rails were glued in place. Once dry, the fragile assembly was carefully turned over and the remaining cross ties were glued in place.

[9] Preparing the track

After all the cross ties were glued in place and allowed to dry overnight, the finished track was test fit on the trailer. Note the rails are longer at the rear than the front. They will be trimmed later to avoid an excessive gap during loading or unloading.

[10] Track glued in place on the trailer

7. Finishing Touches

Before the track is glued to the logs, a brake line and rear taillight electrical wire are run from the truck chassis, along the log on the right and disappear under the Rear Log Support. To do this, N scale spikes are inserted and glued into #60 holes that run along the side. The wires are guided to the bottom to avoid contact with the chains that will restrain the box car when it is underway. Chain attachment points are installed ahead and behind the box car doors. At this point you need to have a reasonably good sense of the position of the track on the logs and the position of the car on the track to know where the chain restraint points should be located. HO scale spikes are used to simulate chain restraints. Atlas HO/N round headed spikes were used. String the smallest gauge wire you can handle from underneath the rear log support and glue in place. Drill two holes in the rear of the truck cab to simulate the brake line and electrical line disappearing into the truck cab.

‘[11] Mounting the logs on the rear wheel assembly

[12] Chain Attachment Points; Brake Line and Taillight Wire Supports; Bottom: Installed.

[13] The forward end of the trailer mounted on the tractor.

A bollard for attaching chain to the car’s coupler was simply fashioned from the same I-beam material used throughout and glued on the tongue just ahead of the end of the track.

Determine final position of track on the logs so bolts can be seen between the cross ties; glue in place.

[14] Truck and Trailer ready for the boxcar and the trip to Coulee City

At this point, a decision needs to be made to glue the box car to the track and install the restraining chains and the wheel blocks or not, which would simulate an empty rig returning for another box car. In the later scenario. The project is finished.

My intent to model my imagined loading scene as described below. Once glued in place on the trailer, the truck wheels were blocked with 6” x 8” untreated lumber, and chains were draped through the open doors and secured in an alignment that would allow the chains to act as spring lines to avoid forward or backward movement. The forward coupler was locked and chain secured around it and the steel bollard on the tongue.

8. The Scene

A disused siding was altered by cutting the rail and extending the rail over an expedient crib wall. An approach to the stub siding for the truck and trailer was excavated by bulldozer and a compacted gravel roadway used to provide access to the stub track. The operating plan was for a 44 ton switcher to push a box car onto the trailer. The switcher used a flat car as an idler to avoid the weight of the switcher on the end of the stub over the crib wall.

The only points of precision: the height of the stub rail must match the height of the rail on the trailer and the skill of the truck driver to quickly align the trailer with the stub in order to stay on a-three-round-trips a day schedule.

[15] The completed loading scene.

9. Postscript, Musings From John.

My model is not faithful to the prototype. I didn’t have the modeling skills to fashion the forward frame and tongue properly. Perhaps 3D printing or laser cut sheet material would have helped but I chose to use I beams.

There is a treasure trove of inspiration in Dan Bolyard’s website bigbendrailroadhistory.com

1900 NP Washington Central Branch Extension Survey-In Douglas County

Location starts about a mile north of Mansfield and runs Middle Foster Creek. At this time, this is the only survey I have. Related sections are not available to me, which might show the line dropping into Brewster or Mansfield.

Speeder Adventures on the Mansfield Branch

Photos courtesy of Olaf Rasmussen, as found at the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum.

1986

Dave Lindhag Interview Transcript

Courtesy of Micheal Joyhaven and a friend, who recorded an interview with Mr. Lindhag a few years ago. Here is an okay transcription of the audio file.

Central Washington Grain Growers started out as a couple of small elevator systems, 3 or 4 receiving stations. And, at some point, they became before they were Central Washington Grain Growers, they were the Almira Grain Growers. They had branch managers, and they had a general manager. And, in 1963, my father moved from Hartline over to Almira and became the station agent for the Almira branch, where the general manager was also employed. And they had 3 receiving stations that they were responsible for out of Almira, which was Almira and then, Hansen and then Grand Coulee.

Grand Coulee was quite small. And, Hanson was pretty good size because it covered quite an area. And then Almira was pretty good size. It had a had a large flat house and, couple of, well, 3 large concrete tanks and a crib elevator that had a whole bunch of smaller bins in it. If you had something you needed to keep separate from the other grains, you could put them put that in those smaller bins.

And it made it easier to load them out and all that. In 1973, if I remember right, my junior year of high school, the company merged. It depends on who you ask. Almira Grain Growers bought out, Waterville Grain Growers.

Yep. And but if you ask the Waterville people, no. We've merged. So I don't know the real thing behind that. In any case, I remember because there was a chance that my father would be moved over to the Waterville office.

And that didn't turn out it didn't happen, so that was fine. I went ahead and graduated from Almira in 74 and, went on to the Air Force. About my 3rd year in the Air Force, I called my dad and asked if I could work during harvest for him. And he said, oh, I think we need a scale operator down at Hartline. Well, Hartline, next to Mansfield, Hartline is the biggest storage facility in the company.

And the second summer that I was there, we had a day of 435 or 40 truckloads. Come in during a harvest. That's good. And it was it was an amazing time. And if that had been my 1st year, I would have been completely lost.

But it was my 2nd year, so I knew what to expect. And there were times when I had 12 tickets out with the heavy the, grocery. Stamped on them. Well, then here would come another truck off one of these 12 tickets. So I'd have to put that ticket back in and that have 2 gross loads on there.

Then, oh, here it come the the, tear weight. So I have to remember, don't don't get mixed up on which one is which. The end would have turned out the same, but, again, each one. And, it was it was quite a quite a year that year.

But, in 1981, we brought you down from Spokane, moved into Judy's grandparents' house, and started a family down there. And I was working as a warehouseman. That's when I started full time. And, it went on that way. Well, I didn't weigh trucks anymore after that.

I was dumping them and making sure that everything was going where it was supposed to go. And, we put up a new elevator, there in Hartline. And I think that was about, I'm gonna guess, about 1983. Seems right. Maybe 4, the new place we called it.

And, just the year before we started the construction on the new place, we were putting grain on the ground. And we extended the auger, the screw auger, on top of the 2 steel tanks at, the concrete we called it. So it would carry on past and dump out into a prepared area on the ground through a pipe. And we had that pipe attached with about a half inch or maybe 3 quarter inch cable to a truck, an old GMC 1950 some truck.

And we drove away with it, got it up in the air, the pipe, and ran a shot of wheat through, and it didn't work. And our general manager, Scottie Watson, he was over there. Oh my. He was just about ready to tear his hair out. What are we gonna do?

What are we gonna do? It's okay, Scottie. We we got this. So we got in. We backed the truck up and and the grain that was stuck in the rusty pipes.

It came on through. Now let's run some grain through. And let it run there for about 5 minutes. And And it polishes that pipe up.

The the narrowest angle or the the lowest angle that you can efficiently run grain through a pipe is 28 degrees. This one was quite a bit steeper than that. So we didn't have to worry about that. But each time, we had to if if it was down for 2 or 3 days, it would get another color of rust on it.

So we had to back it off. The bush. Polish it up. Yep. And it didn't take long.

And then run it out here and then it would fly as far as we could fling it. And, and that was a fun year. Yes. So then another year, we had, built the new place, and the year that we used the, pipe out on the ground was probably 1980 2 or 3. It was pretty early because we had built a new place, and we had a huge bumper crop.

And we had to prepare a place on the ground across the street from that new place. And so we set up an auger for a pipe to dump into from the new place. And, one of the things that was kind of interesting because I had come from the air force as a sheet metal worker. I fixed airplanes. And I knew how to cut things to make them fit.

And my boss, the station agent there, he was having a terrible time trying to get the contour, the bevel right on 2 pieces of, u trough, to make it, make the exchange work right. And, I said, here, let me try it. And I will go, oh, okay. So I got the glasses on and the gloves on and I start torch. I just I never stopped.

I just made a one one cut. And I said there. And I got really, really lucky. And it fell into place like it was made in a machine shop. So how did you do that?

Best answer is no answer sometimes. There there it is. But we all get lucky once going on like that. Anyway, at the end of that auger that I had put in was a slinger with a I think it was a 50 horse 50 horse power motor.

And an endless belt. And I would go to work at 5 in the afternoon and I would start running wheat out of 1 of the tanks at the end and run it across the street and into that slinger and then throw it out there into a pile. And it was funny because the first load, it actually I could run it from the pit or I could run it from the tank. I ran a load out there with the slinger and it looked like a teaspoon.

It didn't look like anything at all because it had taken that 250 or 300 bushels and spread it out over a large area. But, anyway, I worked all night on on that. And, there were several nights I worked I worked 24, 23 hour shifts. It was it was a busy time. And, that year in a given in a given month, there's about a 172 work hours.

And I turned in 218 hours of overtime that August. Lord. Yeah. So it was a busy time, and I was happy to get some rest after that.

But, in 1985, my father passed away from his cancer, on February 18th. And the boss had moved me in. He left the office on Thanksgiving holiday. Never came back.

And so the boss says, I want you to go and start learning the books at Hartline or I mean, Almira. Excuse me. So I did, and I took the books over and let dad show me some of the tricks that he used in them and whatnot. And then, when he passed away, about 6 months later, the boss made my move permanent. And I spent 17 years there And, at one point, I had a one of the school teachers come and ask me if I could give a presentation on the farm bill.

And I said, well, if they were all farm kids., I think so. But I said, I don't think it would be appropriate to have farm kids and city kids listening to the various programs that pay monies out to farmers for whatever purpose. And, and he said, I never thought of that. So, yep.

I'm glad I did, and I'm glad I didn't. I did quite a bit of electrical work while I was there. The boss was always trying to get the very last hour out of a electric motor or what have you. And, I learned a lot, working on that stuff then too. I did some difficult stuff too.

I had to help, retrieve the body of one of my friends out of some grain, Orville, when he passed. And, so it wasn't all fun and games.

It can be a dangerous place. And once in a while, things line up. And if your number's up, it's up. But anyway, we made it through that.

But, you know, there's lots of lots of laughs. Lots of not so much laughs, but lots of good friends. And I got along real well with the farmers for the most part. And it seemed like in my experience, the farmers that had the most were the most critical of how I handled the grain.

Well, we've got a little dockage here. But the guys that had the least, you give them what their grain graded and they were happy and content to have it. And if you needed something, they'd give you the shirt right off the back. So, but, you know, that's human nature. And and I found out early then, when you're dealing with people's money, it tends to bring out the worst down.

And that's where I learned a whole lot about conflict resolution. You know, I you might wanna tell them one thing, but you can't. So you tell them something else. Try to commiserate with them and, and make the best of the situation, whatever it is.

And it was it was interesting too. For the first 5 years I was there, we kept coming up short on storage. I had to deal with, the Feds and they would come and they would do a very, very in-depth inspection and measurement of what I had for grain on hand.

And it was coming up short consistently every year of roughly the same amount. And so at one point, I asked the, the Fed, the inspector, would it be possible to come back and measure this flat house again, after we get it empty? He said, you know, that might be a good idea. So he came back, and we had emptied the flat house. And he measured the mark points in the flat house and they were off by about 3 feet.

So so he's measuring from this line on the on beams. Down to the surface of this of that  and then takes that measurement less the overall, and that's how many feet of grain we had. Supposedly there.

And, he was using the wrong one. And so every year, it looked like we had less grain than we actually had. And, my boss was getting kinda, undone with me over that, but that really felt good when we got that figured out.

I built a new office there in 1991 or 92. The boss said, we had got a new boss.

His name was John Anderson from Wilbur. Really good guy. And he came into my office and my old office was nestled in between the flat house and concrete tanks and it had dead mice in the walls. And certain times a year, that wasn't too bad.

Yeah. But certain times a year, they stunk pretty bad. Well, they happen to be putting up a little bit of a stink that day. And he says, this is a pit.

And I said, yep. He said, let's put a new office up. Okay. He said, is there any lots for sale downtown? And I said, well, we can't do it downtown.

I said, I have to dump trucks and load trucks out of here fairly often. And I can't be leaving downtown to come and do this or they can't be calling me or coming and getting me to do that. So, I said, but I bet we could build right across. He said, okay. He said, draw up the plans, order the material, and we can build it.

So we did. And , Bobby Martin, I suppose you know him. He was working with us then. And, he was he was an outstanding carpenter.

And so he worked on it and, Bill Holtus, I don't know if you know him. He worked on it. Dennis, Jordan. Yep.

He was the superintendent at the time. And, we had the concrete done locally. Larry Short, Short Septic. And then I had a guy come out to dig the, hole for the sewer, because I couldn't cross the street, and the sewer line was across the street. So he was working on that.

They had a brand new backhoe, trackhoe, and, nice nice machine. And he just about beat it to pieces trying to get through the rock. And but he he did it. I was almost crying looking at that machine when he was done because everything was loose and things were bent and broken. But he got her done.

He said, that was an expensive job. And then, Larry came and, Larry Short came and set up the septic system for me and, and it worked just great. The, parking lot, I had good ground up to a certain point. And then guys would start sinking in the spring when the frost would leave.

And they'd sink. And so I had to run up to Spokane and buy parking curbs. And those things were pretty heavy. Mhmm. They were about 215 pounds apiece.

And, so I had I think I had 6 of them in the back of the truck, the pickup. And I didn't have anybody to help me. So there's the pencil pusher out there, packing those parking curbs and dropping them in place. I paid for that for a while.

But that that's kinda the way it is when you live out in a little places like that. You gotta move something. Just move it however you can.

Does this bring up any questions? I had college kids come work for me for the harvest or something. Was it 1985 when the train system from Coulee City to Mansfield? Did that close around the time frame? No.

It was actually before that. Okay. It closed. Oh oh, I see what you I see what you mean. Yeah.

Yeah. They couldn't they couldn't hold the C6, the grain cars on that track. It was light track. Yes. And they would have had to redo the bed as well as the track because it was not rated for the weight.

So, yeah, they they tore out the track and so I guess they sold it. And, one of the things that I got to do, it was about 1984.

Because one of the things I did was ride around with Orville and one other guy, and we picked up Grain car doors. Doors. Yeah. The coopering doors. And, we picked up, damn, thousands of those things.

And we took them over to Douglas County. And because they were still using the old grain cars and had to cooper them for each load, But then that didn't last very long. We did a lot of work and they used maybe 10% of those doors up. And then they closed that line and everything went by truck.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

I had kinda forgotten about that. But, man, we were up at Reardan and Davenport and all the places because everybody quit using the old grain cars to the hoppers.

And I I don't know what else to tell you without a little How about one little piece of humor when the high school kids decide to climb the elevator in another night? Yeah. Yep. I had been there for several years and I went over to the office to make a copy of something, something like that. And I noticed a car parked back behind the elevator.

I'm going, no good going on there. So I called Daryl, the town Marshall. And he came over and busted them. And my future no no, my existing brother-in-law Larry and his girlfriend were there, Pam. Let's see who else.

Billy Schuler, Ray Boutine, Albert. He he got away. But, anyway, it was it was kinda funny. And what the company electrician, I saw him that next Monday. His son and his daughter were both there and they had signed a contract.

At school. Mhmm. And he was mad. He wanted a fight.

And he says, I hope you have a son someday. Yep. I said, so do I. Thanks.

He was he was not letting it go. And I said, you know what, Howard? You didn't get a phone call at 2 o'clock in the morning saying, we've got somebody that we don't really know who he is. Could you come look and have to identify your son on the slab? And that kinda made him ease up a little bit.

But, anyway, you know, you wanna play, you're gonna have to pay and you take a chance and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. So but we got along well, Howard and I. I tried to I tried to hire, Bill, his son, who had real bad hay fever. Real bad hay fever. And I said, if you wear your mask, don't take it off.

Don't take it off. Just keep your mask on. Well, the first day, it was hot like it always is in harvest. He took off his mask to say something and took one breath in and he was done. I had to haul him over to, his folks house and put him in the shower with the straight hot water running to give him some breathing relief.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I thought I was gonna lose him. It hit him hard. I said, well, you're fired.

But it was an interesting 17 years in the office and 21 years total.

And between my dad and me in the office, we put in 37 years there. That that number sticks in my head. Yeah. Yep. 37.

Time flies. And it was good it was good experience.

1983 BN Washington Grain Elevator Directory M-R

Courtesy of Aaron Schwarz and the PNRA.

BN 1975 Station Revenues H-R

Courtesy of Aaron Schwarz and the PNRA.

Waterville-New Railway Schedule

From the "Spokesman Review."

November 13, 1914

Coulee Surveyed For Branch Line

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

September 25, 1933

Restart Survey Of Coulee Line

From the Spokane "Chronicle."

September 8, 1933

GN Proposes Dam Site Road

From the "Spokesman Review."

September 8, 1933

1971 BN Consolidated Annual Station Earnings

Courtesy of Aaron Schwarz and the PNRA.

1983 Spokane Division Train Briefs

Courtesy of Lynn Francis.

April 1, 1983

WENATCHEE AREA
51882 Quincy Spud Loc. 0900 DXSa-Su Wenatchee-Quincy A.
51882 Quincy Spud As Reqd. Columbia River-Bon Spur & Ret. B.
51881 Quincy Spud DXSa-SU Quincy-Wenatchee C.
51881 Quincy Spud As Reqd. Columbia River -Bon Spur & Ret. D.
51898 Quincy Spud As Reqd. Quincy-Ephrata & Ret. E.
51886 Alcoa Loc. 2100 Wenatchee-Rock Island & Ret. A.
51886 Alcoa Loc. As Reqd. Rock Island-Bon Spur & Ret. B.
51888 Alcoa Loc 2nd Trip As Reqd. Wenatchee-Rock Island & Ret. C.
51888 Alcoa Loc 2nd Trip As Reqd. Rock Island-Bon Spur & Ret. D.
51690 WO Local 1700 Tu-Th-Sa Wenatchee-Oroville
51691 WO Local 1500 Mo-We-Fr Oroville-Wenatchee
51894 Mansfield Turn As Reqd. Wenatchee-Mansfield & Ret.

SPOKANE WEST & SOUTH
51671 CW Loc 1030 Mo-We-Fr Yardley-Coulee City A.
51672 CW Loc 0630 Tu-Th-Sa Coulee City-Yardley B.
51672 CW Loc As Reqd. Davenport to Eleanor Industry C.
51672 CW Loc Tu-Th-Sa Cheney-Babb & Ret. D.
51803 Babb Turn 0700 DXSu Erie St-(Spokane)-Babb & Ret. A
51803 Babb Turn Tu-Th Latah Junction-Geiger Field & Ret. B
51619 Yardley-Pullman Loc 1300 Mo-Th Yardley-Pullman A.
                               As Reqd. Mt. Hope B.
51620 Pullman-Yardley Loc 0700 We-Sa. Pullman-Yardley A.
                         As Reqd. Palouse-Grinnell-Viola- B.
                         As Reqd. Rosalia-Balder C.
51873 Pullman-Julietta Loc Tu-Fr Pullman-Genessee-Julietta
51847 WIM Local 0800 DXSa-Su Potlatch-Palouse-Boville & Ret.

SPOKANE EAST & NORTH (Pt-1)
51842 Coeur D'Alene 0930 DXSa-Su Post Falls-Coeur D'Alene & Ret.
51801 Athol Turn 0400 As Reqd. Yardley-Hauser-Athol & Ret.
51816 Bonner Ferry Loc 0630 DXSa-Su Sandpoint-Crossport & Ret.
51821 Newport Loc 0730 DXSa-Su Newport-Sandpoint & Ret.
51846 Green Acres Loc As Reqd. Ydly-Erie St-Post Falls 7th Sub.
51819 Sandpoint Turn 1900 DXSa Sandpoint-Yardley & Ret.
51820 Sandpoint Turn 2300 DXSa Yardley-Sandpoint

1915 Mansfield

 

"Magical Mansfield Monday"

Courtesy of Blair Kooistra. 

August 1, 1983

Blair says:

"Dynamic brakes in full howl, descending the coulee above Columbia River, Washington, returning from the Mansfield Branch with a trainload of 40' boxcars filled with wheat. . . among the last places in the United States where grain still moved in this outmoded but time-tested method."