Monthly Archives: September 2020

Leaving Cordova in 1913

Here’s an interesting old photo I picked up last week – a CRNW train leaving the Cordova depot. For those who don’t know, the Cordova depot was located at the bottom of the hill on the south end of First Street. Hand-written notes on the back of the image indicate this is August 8, 1913.

Leaving Cordova on Friday, August 8, 1913

There’s a couple interesting items in this photo. The first and most obvious is the fact the fourth car back from the engine appears to be a house. Zooming in, it appears that the CRNW is moving some sort of structure north on a depressed-center flatcar, and notes on the back call it a “house”.

Other interesting bits are the two GATX tank cars immediately behind the engine, which were used to deliver fuel oil to Kennecott. I wish I could see the number on the rear car, but at least this confirms the CRNW tank cars were GATX. Then behind the house on the flat are six of the 20t Western air dump cars loaded with what appears to be gravel. My guess is that this is gravel from the pit on the north side of the Odiak Slough and the yard being moved up the line for filling trestles and shoring up the early track.

Also of interest is the Cordova station sign. It shows “TO WHARF 1.3 MI”, which makes perfect sense given that the wharf is the end of track. However, on the other side, it shows “TO CHITINA 129.4 MI”. It’s interesting in that this shows the railroad, at least when it was painting this sign, still viewed Chitina as a junction between the railroad’s main line (Cordova to Chitina, with future expansion northward) and a branch over to Kennecott.

Here’s a closeup of the front of the consist:

New Control Panels

Now that the fascia is all there, it’s time to start mounting control panels. This is one of those things I’ve been agonizing about for some time. My traditional method involves printed track diagrams sandwiched between two pieces of acrylic and bolted into the fascia. I’ve never liked it, because inevitably the acrylic gets scratched or cracks, the print on the paper fades or the paper yellows, and they’re just a pain the butt to actually build because of all the cutting and drilling that must be done precisely.

Michael came up with a novel idea when I was visiting ISE World Headquarters a few weeks back. Basically the whole thing is 3D printed, and the track and lettering is printed using a different filament color. We don’t have a Prusa i3 with the multi-material upgrade yet (it apparently shipped today), so filament changes are currently handled manually. However, the holes are just made as part of manufacturing, and since the track and lettering is literally molded into the panel as part of the print process, it’s almost indestructable.

Here’s the Chokosna lumber reload spur panel…

Right now, we’re printing them using white and “glint grey” PLA on a textured Prusa bed to give it a finished texture. The indicator LEDs (amber for turnout position, white for timelocks, other colors to come…) are 3mm pre-wired LEDs I found on Amazon.

Five Years Ago

My phone and Google reminded me this week that five years ago, I was up in CR&NW country at Kennecott. Alternately seems like ages ago and yesterday all at the same time.

The preserved McCarthy station building, now the local museum.