After a week working on the numerous creeks feeding into evacuation creek, and sorting out trestles, heights, creek banks, faulty topography and god knows what else further up evacuation creek, I needed a change, so I jumped a few miles up the canyon tor Dragon and did some fixing of the track, the hotel and the environs near all these items. Also removed the old freight house ( which burnt down around 1911 or so ) and replaced it with the smaller version.
There is still much to do at dragon, but at least I have now more or less completed the trackwork to a better standard and fixed a few kinks in the grades near the trestle.
Firstly tho, five miles up the canyon , here's a shot of 0-6-2 no 21 passing Urado.
This was a short 2 car spur that served a budding oil company of the same name . The company was supposed to run a five mile branch line to the oil field, but that never eventuated. I cannot work out where the actual well was located or whether it was a shale oil project , of which more then a few were attempted back in the 20s and 30s, they were not economical then but the area is littered with them now.
Back at Dragon earlier in the day the daily passenger train is resting , cliffs at the back are a hint of things to come
So far i have not seen a single track stop block on the Uintah , whether they just didn't bother to use them or not .... they did things their way
Overview of the yard,ticket office to the left, icehouse to the right and behind it the hotel ,which was a pain to construct as it has a series of terraces for its lawns .
The grass of which is much too green, I'll need to reskin if possible as there was so little water around that its grass covering was less than 100%. by this time ( 1930 or so ) it had probably burnt down as after the black dragon mine closed, Dragon went into a slow decline and the hotel was neglected and boarded up .
All of this isn't finished yet, but this is an indication of whats coming when the route is hopefully released.
West side lumber Shay 12 is now masquerading as Uintah number 5 , its unlikely that the Shays were active in this are at this time as they were so slow , they were usually at Atchee as helpers and for shunting, but one might have been based on this portion of the line. Unfortunately there are no known photos of the tipple at Dragon, we had dimensions, so Ben made it basing it on the tipple at Atchee.
Finally two shots of a new item ,which has been made by GMAN 347 who has made a number of great items for the Rollins Pass route. GMAN kindly offered to step into the breach and make a few items whilst Ben is having treatment ( although he assures me he is still working on an animated gilsonite loader at Pigeon toe spur when he feels up to it ) .
So here's a couple of shots of the new gilsonite hoist and hoist house GMAN has made , this isn't animated but is a very nice piece of work and much appreciated.
this hoist is well over 100 ft high, gmans also going to try to make a spline for the gilsonite shaft with a ground texture to cover up the shaft hole, if he can do it it will be a weight off my mind as so far i have not been able to do a good job on this aspect of modeling the gilsonite diggings.
There is still much to do at dragon, but at least I have now more or less completed the trackwork to a better standard and fixed a few kinks in the grades near the trestle.
Firstly tho, five miles up the canyon , here's a shot of 0-6-2 no 21 passing Urado.
This was a short 2 car spur that served a budding oil company of the same name . The company was supposed to run a five mile branch line to the oil field, but that never eventuated. I cannot work out where the actual well was located or whether it was a shale oil project , of which more then a few were attempted back in the 20s and 30s, they were not economical then but the area is littered with them now.
Back at Dragon earlier in the day the daily passenger train is resting , cliffs at the back are a hint of things to come
So far i have not seen a single track stop block on the Uintah , whether they just didn't bother to use them or not .... they did things their way
Overview of the yard,ticket office to the left, icehouse to the right and behind it the hotel ,which was a pain to construct as it has a series of terraces for its lawns .
The grass of which is much too green, I'll need to reskin if possible as there was so little water around that its grass covering was less than 100%. by this time ( 1930 or so ) it had probably burnt down as after the black dragon mine closed, Dragon went into a slow decline and the hotel was neglected and boarded up .
All of this isn't finished yet, but this is an indication of whats coming when the route is hopefully released.
Finally two shots of a new item ,which has been made by GMAN 347 who has made a number of great items for the Rollins Pass route. GMAN kindly offered to step into the breach and make a few items whilst Ben is having treatment ( although he assures me he is still working on an animated gilsonite loader at Pigeon toe spur when he feels up to it ) .
So here's a couple of shots of the new gilsonite hoist and hoist house GMAN has made , this isn't animated but is a very nice piece of work and much appreciated.
this hoist is well over 100 ft high, gmans also going to try to make a spline for the gilsonite shaft with a ground texture to cover up the shaft hole, if he can do it it will be a weight off my mind as so far i have not been able to do a good job on this aspect of modeling the gilsonite diggings.
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