Modeling the Cornwall RR

[Jim Miller]

This is my first attempt at a project like this, so here we go.

The Cornwall RR operated from 1850 to 1964 and ran various type of engines over that period.

I'm starting with the No. 10 0-6-0 which operated from 1920 to 1950.

Photo of actual engine.

My model to date. An AML 1/29 scale 0-6-0, a close match. Next, paint white walls on wheels.

Photo of actual caboose

I should receive today an LGB bobber caboose to transform to Cornwall RR.

I also have 4 USATrains ore cars that will be re-lettered. Still waiting for the new Aristo ore cars.

After this consist is finished, the next one will be the No. 15, a 2-8-0 which is very close to the Aristo Consolidation. This will get a USATrains Reading center cupola caboose. Cornwall purchased 2 of these cabooses from the Reading RR for $600 each. These will be re-lettered for Cornwall RR. I have photo of these cabooses and should be an easy conversion.

I intend to list some historical info here in the future about the Cornwall RR and mines.

The Cornwall mine operated from 1739 to 1973 and produce cannons for George Washington's Army during the Revolutionary war. The mined closed due to flooding from the Agnes hurricane.

STAY TUNED................Jim

[Rayman4449]

This will be enjoyable to follow, thanks for sharing.  How long have you had the 0-6-0?  The one I've seen it was a good looking engine and thought it was a good value cost wise.  Have you run it much?

[Jim Miller]

I got the AML 0-6-0 at the last York trainshow back in March 2014 from RLD (good price). I have run it 3 times. The grand kids ran it one time. I like to let them run the ones with metal gears. I installed a Phoenix P8 sound board and a REVO R/C system and it is wired to run on track or battery power. This Loco runs strong and smooth. It will make the trip to Florida in Sept to Ed Headington's K&E RR.

Picked up some SuperClean to remove lettering on caboose and ore cars and stopped at the Lebanon Historical Society for one more book about "Railroads in Lebanon County" which includes the Cornwall RR.

I finished sizing up the lettering for the ore cars. Now I need to place order and determine which road numbers to use.

Here's another tidbit of history:

Ever since Peter Grubb found ore in Cornwall (now part of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania) in the 1730's and built the first furnace, there was a need to transport iron products. At the time, roads were nearly all dirt and the density of iron did not help the situation of shipping it. Even with wagon wheels that were six inches wide, weather conditions would make roads almost impassable. As a result, in 1848, a plank road was incorporated to ease the process of shipping the iron to the Union Canal. It only took a couple more years to come to the next step of creating a railroad.

The Union Canal is another piece of history and here in Lebanon we have the oldest transportation tunnel in America, the Union canal tunnel.

[Jim Miller]

Photo of the Union Canal Tunnel.

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I removed lettering from one ore car. Below is a video link of the method I used.

I had to leave the SuperClean on much longer than the video, about 75 minutes to remove the logo and text. Seams it may depend upon manufacturer of car.

After removal of all letter color there was still an etched outline on the base paint. To remove the outline I used glass stove top cleaner. Just used a small drop on my finger tip and lightly rubbed. Presto, it is gone. Below are photos of before and after.

History Tidbit

The first railroad to reach Cornwall was the North Lebanon Railroad. It was incorporated in 1850 by George Dawson Coleman and William Coleman and opened in 1855. The railroad extended for about six miles from the ore banks in Cornwall to the Union Canal in Lebanon City. Originally ore laden carts were pulled by teams of mules. This type of operation only lasted seven months until a locomotive was purchased, capable of pulling the same weight as a team of one hundred mules. In 1870, the name was changed to the Cornwall Railroad. In 1857 the Lebanon Valley Railroad reached Lebanon and built an interchange with the North Lebanon RR there (the Lebanon Valley RR quickly became part of the Philadelphia & Reading RR).

I grew up in North Lebanon and still reside there today...............Jim

[markoles]

Jim,

 

Great job on the lettering of the 10!  Also, that LGB bobber caboose is going to be perfect for the Cornwall Railroad.

[Jim Miller]

LGB bobber caboose arrived yesterday. It will need new wheels, it came with spoked plastic wheels so I ordered some Bachmann 31mm metal wheels.

 

 

Removed the lettering.

 

 

 

Next Idid the couplers. Used USAT for now and had to remove bumpers on both ends of caboose.

 

 

 

Now as you may have noticed the grooves between the vertical boards on the caboose sides are raise flush to accomodate the lettering and logo. this is not acceptable so I cut grooves with small files.

 

 

History Tidbit

 

In 1865, a second rail line was constructed in Cornwall. Referred to as the Spiral Railroad, this line was constructed by the Cornwall Ore Banks to ease mining of the three ore bearing hills by loading the ore directly into North Lebanon Railroad cars. Later on, the Cornwall Ore Banks used rail lines constructed in a series of switchbacks to ease the mining of the open pit, just south of middle hill. This operation lasted until the mid-1940’s when the grade for the rail line finally became too steep and the operation was taken over by trucks.

 

The vinyl lettering for the ore cars is on its way....................Jim

 

 

[Jim Miller]

Here we have the ore cars lettered and you can see the caboose in the back ground is ready for lettering.

History Tidbit:

In the early years the Cornwall Railroad had virtually no competition but in 1883 all that would change. In that year, the Cornwall & Lebanon Railroad opened. Robert H. Coleman incorporated this line, directly competing with the Cornwall Railroad for access to the ore mines. Interestingly enough, Robert Habersham Coleman was the cousin to the then president of the Cornwall Railroad, William Freeman, and was the son of the North Lebanon Railroad founder, William Coleman.

The two lines quite simply did not get along with each other thus creating an intense rivalry between them. Several lawsuits between the lines were filed over rights to the mines and at one point the C&L’s tracks were torn up by men under the command of Freeman. Originally the Cornwall & Lebanon had a level crossing over the Cornwall Railroad’s line in Cornwall in order reach Mount Gretna and Conewago. However, there were arguments over who would protect the level crossing, and as a result of the disagreement, a large fill and iron bridge were constructed to carry the C&L line directly overtop of the Cornwall’s. Both lines retained high standards for their appearance resulting in very well kept equipment and locomotives. Each line even had their own parks to generate more passenger service. On the C&L there was Mount Gretna and the Cornwall Railroad had Penryn Park. The rivalry even took part in the form of train races from Cornwall to Lebanon. James Kercher describes it best in his book “Cornwall R.R.:â€

“Often the passenger trains of the Cornwall Railroad and the Cornwall & Lebanon Railroad would race each other from Cornwall to Lebanon. One train would sometimes delay its schedule to wait for the other – and then the race was on! This must have been a great thrill for the more hardy passengers. I have been told that Mr. Robert Coleman himself took over the engineer’s job on a few occasions in order to race.

From their Cornwall Stations to the 12th & Walnut Street crossing the tracks paralleled each other on a level grade for almost five miles and made an excellent race track. Some of the oldtimers tell me that often the “Corny†(Cornwall Railroad) would not be able to stop at the Donaghmore station. It would skid to a screeching stop several hundred feet away and then back up to the station.â€

[Jim Miller]

Gave it a run on Labor Day.

Want to see more? https://plus.google.com/photos/109450470389782260686/albums/6054186999495043041

History Tidbit:

In 1884, the Cornwall & Mount Hope Railroad was opened to traffic between its two namesake towns. In Cornwall it tied in with the Cornwall Railroad and in Mount Hope, Lancaster County, it interchanged with the Reading & Columbia branch of the Philidelphia & Reading RR. This line was owned by the Cornwall Railroad and was absorbed into it two years later. With this addition, the Cornwall's mainline reached its full length of 11.8 miles. Although its secondary trackage and sidings varied greatly over the years, the Cornwall Railroad's mainline often counted for only half or less of the total trackage owned by the company. The Cornwall did have some trackage rights over the Reading & Columbia branch into Manhiem and at one time all the way into Lititiz. This was done as part of an aggrement between the P&R and the Cornwall known as the Lancaster-Lebanon Joint Line, which allowed either company to use the other's tracks to streamline passenger service. This meant that the Cornwall often ran passenger trains into Manhiem and the P&R would run its trains accross the Cornwall RR.

Robert H. Coleman at his height in the 1880’s had roughly thirty million dollars; however, after he over-invested in a railroad scheme in Florida, he lost the Cornwall & Lebanon Railroad to his debtors. Eventually the Pennsylvania Railroad began to acquire stock of the Cornwall & Lebanon Railroad and completed their purchase of it in 1918. Finally in 1972, the line was abandoned by Penn Central after being severally damaged by Hurricane Agnes. There was simply not enough revenue to justify repairing the line.

Hurricane Agnes was also responsible for shutting down the Cornwall Mine.

......................Jim

[Jim Miller]

Here's the next two cars lettered. Will need clear coat on caboose, don't trust lettering to stay attached due to grooved sides.

Next I need some of those undecorated Aristo ore cars that Scott has been promising. Another project will be to do the Cornwall #15 a 2-8-0 so I need to find an undecorated Aristo consolidation. And of coarse I need to find the money.

History Tidbit:

The Cornwall Railroad remained a very prosperous line well up through the 1950’s and into the early 1960’s. In just the year of 1949 alone, the railroad hauled 1,448,000 tons of iron ore, significantly more than the annual revenue of 51,068 tons in the 1850’s. In 1950, the line replaced its fleet of steamers with much more efficient diesel-electric locomotives. However, in 1962 Bethlehem Steel created a new concentrator plant in Rexmont. For many years prior to this, raw ore was shipped up to Lebanon to be processed there at the original concentrator. The reduction in revenue due to shipping only processed ore devastated the Cornwall Railroad. It was only two years later in 1964 that the Reading Company acquired the ailing Cornwall.

In 1972, Hurricane Agnes struck and flooded the ore mines. After over 230 years of mining there was simply not enough ore to justify draining the mine shafts to recover what little was remaining. The open pit mining was continued until 1973 having been drained after Agnes. A year following the closure of the mines, the concentrator was reopened. For approximately one more year, Bethlehem Steel shipped foreign ore in to the Rexmont concentrator to be processed and then shipped out, again by rail. After it closed for the second time, there was no longer a need for a rail line into Cornwall, thus ending Cornwall’s railroading history. Some trackage was still used for another two decades that truncated north of Cornwall. This remaining track served Alcoa near Midway, a feed mill, the Lebanon Daily News, and one or two other industries before Conrail abandoned it circa 1996. Today there is approximately several hundred feet of servicible track in Lebanon City that Norfolk Southern utilizes, which once belonged to the Cornwall Railroad.

..................Jim

[Jim Miller]

Found an undecorated Aristo Consolidation and was delivered on Monday. It will become the #9 on the Cornwall RR. The #10 will be going to Lakeland Florida to run on the K&E RR and then to Mark Oles to run for the PRR museum open house tour. Hope to work on the #9 while on vacation...............Jim

[Jim Miller]

 

 

[Rayman4449]

Good looking train Jim.  One nice thing about the smaller shorter trains is they're easier and quicker to setup and take down and just as enjoyable to watch.  That 0-6-0 will probably run forever with metal gears.  I need to get out myself and do some running before the weather turns too cold.  Thanks for sharing the progress

[Jim Miller]

The latest addition to the CWL. I have an NW-2 on order for the diesel era (1950 to 1964).

 

[Jim Miller]

Here we have an additional caboose and ore payloads. CRR purchased 2 of these cabooses from the Reading RR and numbered them 900 & 901................Jim

[Rayman4449]

[PAZGRR7315]

Thanks for the post, video on removal of the lettering is a help for me; will be removing the large 7315 and Delaware & Hudson lettering on the long hood of a duplicate 7315 GP38-2.  Will put the blue D&H lettering on top with smaller 7312 numbering below for the Bernie O'Brien.

[Jim Miller]

I found that with USA Trains products you will need to keep the solution on for about 1.25 to 1.5 hours. I also used paper towel folded to 3 folds works just as good or better than the cotton. The paper towel lays flush againts flat surfaces with no voids. On LGB products, if left on too long will also start to remove shell paint................Jim

[markoles]

Looks good, Jim!

[Jim Miller]

Finally got some work done on the Cornwall #100 NW-2.

Started painting and mounting railing and air hoses................Jim

Graphics for decals

[Rayman4449]

Very nice work on the paint job Jim.  That's one thing that can be tough to get a perfect finish.

[Jim Miller]

I used a brush with acrylic paint. Not happy with the yellow on the sides of the cab. I had to open a new bottle of paint and it did not spread well over the yellow paint I already applied and it was the same brand of paint.

I have a lot experience with acrylic on aircraft models and with a good paint and horse hair brush and some patience you can lay down a smooth coat of paint......Jim

[Jim Miller]

It's finished with Revo and Phoenix sound installed. Will run on battery or track power.........Jim