Pioneer Mills Work in Progress

Model temporarily placed on my O Scale layout

The model of the Pioneer Mills is almost done. It just needs gutters, skylights, and eaves.
Then it is on to the Virginia Locomotive & Car Works, wharf, marine leg, and boat.

Antebellum Alexandria Waterfront Diorama

Alexandria Bird's Eye View showing activity during the Civil War

I have been working on a model of Pioneer Mills the past few weeks. This is part of a larger diorama I am building for the Alexandria Lyceum. The diorama will depict part of the industrial heritage of Alexandria in 1855 before the civil war.   It focuses on one waterfront block from Duke to Wolfe Street. As such it features Pioneer Mills and Virginia Locomotive and Car Works.

Work in progress showing dormers and cupola
with marine leg

I have blogged about Alexandria in the Civil War several times before such as here and here.  These buildings were still standing during the Civil War, but were used by the US Army for storage and other purposes. This diorama shows the period before the war when the loco factory and mill were in operation as civilian business.

This diorama will be in built in N Scale as a static model. The photo  at the left shows the model of Pioneer Mills as a work in progress. I'll post more photos as the project nears completion.

In the meantime, I am looking for more information about the Virginia Locomotive and Car Works. Other that the Birds Eye image of Alexandria (see above), I have seen no photos of this facility. This website has some historical information.





Here is an image from the SMU archives of one of the locos they built.






[''Goliah'' locomotive, Smith & Perkins, Virginia Locomotive Works]






The 4-4-0 Virginia in my blog's side bar was also built by them.
If you know of any further information about Virginia Locomotive and Car Works that could aid in building the model, please pass it on.

Update on Harbor Project Layout- POLA, East Basin

I have a bunch of projects going on simultaneously right now - museum projects, client models, new kits for Alkem Scale Models, work on finishing Brooke on home layout, and the new book. Today the backdrop for the Harbor Project Layout moved to the front burner.

Since my last post on the Harbor Project Layout for the book a few things have changed. I had planned to model Beaumont TX, but I had to drop that idea because I didn't have enough photos to illustrate a feature project. The new layout theme is set along the East Basin of the Port of Los Angeles. I made a rail fan trip there last year and got lots and lots of great pictures. It is also a really neat place to model. More specifically, the track plan is based on the Fries Ave area on Mormon Island, Wilmington, CA with some additional features from nearby areas to add a bit more more activity to the layout.  The image below shows the current draft of the plan.

Now that I have a detailed track plan, I need to get the backdrop printed. Once the benchwork and backdrop are up, the track and buildings will be sited in their final locations to match the backdrop.

Using the plan as a guide I made a large photo mural of the backdrop in Photoshop CS5.1. The base image is 57,000 pixels wide. Thank goodness for my Retina 5K  iMac (3.5Ghz, 16GB RAM)  as it handles the file without any problem.  This image sample here has been scaled to about 5 percent actual size. The total image is 32 feet long.


If all goes well, this mural will be printed in two 18-inch high by 16-feet sections.  The mural utilizes about a dozen images composited together over a synthetic blue sky.  The features on the backdrop, such as cranes, buildings, oil tanks, etc,  are roughly where they would be in the prototype. I paid careful attention to the area with open water to match the track plan.  I also tried to get the perspective lines to point to the  corners.  This should be fun to see how it works out.

My brother visited today and he thought that the hidden staging track in the closet was a very worthwhile addition. So I need to make sure the benchwork is the right height to clear the stair landing at 54 inches.

Telegraph Lines in Tunnels?

Note the telegraph poles with two insulators at Stoneman's Station. (The wires are not visible)

I am preparing to run the final section of telegraph line (scenic only, not functional) on my layout.. Since I have a tunnel that was not on the prototype, I wondered how they would have run the telegraph line. Would they run through the tunnel or over the nearby hill?

On the Aquia Line the telegraph line was installed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps and not the railroad.  I suspect the Signal Corps had other military, non-railroad related,  factors to consider when laying the lines. So they would not have necessarily followed the railroad.

However, photos of the Aquia Line do show a telegraph line paralleling the tracks in the Stoneman’s Station area (see image above). Since the units of the Army of the Potomac were deployed primarily along the railroad right of way, it is reasonable that the telegraph wire would follow it. But the Army of the Potomac Headquarters at this time was not near the railroad. It was at White Oak, a few miles east of  the railroad. Reports state that the Headquarters did have a telegraph office, so at least one line was sent over land away from the railroad. The Army Signal Corps was mobile (see wagon at left) and could lay lines over land as the campaigns progressed.




I posed this question to the Civil War Railroad Historical Society Yahoo Group. The consensus there was mixed with people suggesting that either case was possible.

Late 19th century postcard view of Crozet or Blue Ridge Tunnel

My tunnel is based on Crozet Tunnel on the Virginia Central. 19th Century photos of that tunnel show the telegraph lines going over land. Thus, I will run my lines over land.















With regard to telegraph lines at Aquia, perhaps the more interesting line was the “submarine cable” from Aquia to Washington. That allowed rapid communication between the Army and the War Department.  I suspect that the train orders on file at the National Archives are actually copies transcribed by operators at the War Department as they listened in to the Aquia Line traffic. Depicting the submarine cable on the layout will be really simple!

Professor Gabel on CSPAN

I recently came across this CSPAN talk by Professor Gabel on railroads in the Civil War. If you have read his work, you will be familiar with his message, but this talk shows some evolution in his thoughts from his earlier papers.


 http://www.c-span.org/video/?320456-1/discussion-railroads-civil-war