Editor’s note: Here we feature the work of guest blogger Edward Halstead. We ran a photo of one of Ed’s models in our previous post “The Chicago and West Towns Railway.” We’ve discussed models before, for example in our post “Any Color You Like.”
George Kanary’s fanciful Cincinnati curved-side car, dolled out as a CSL 1940s interurban, in much the same fashion as LVT did with the “Easton Limited.”
A few of the traction fans and modelers in the Chicago area have informal Trolley Meets or Evenings throughout the calendar year at their homes. There’s no formal invitation list. In general movies, slides, and/or DVD’s are shown. The fellas who have layouts will invite other modelers to bring models to run. The evening is a chance for the “guys” and “gals” to meet one another and chat.
On Friday, November 15, 2013 Terrell Colson, the son of Bob Colson who owned both All Nation Hobby Shop and the All Nation Line of manufactured O scale models, hosted a “Trolley Night” meet at his house. Many modelers brought their O scale equipment to run on his layout. Also, much to Terrell’s credit he has been trying to include more and more of the younger traction fans and modelers.
Upon looking over my photos of Terrell’s Trolley Meet I realized each photo, each model tells a story of its own. Unknowingly many of us who brought models made it a North Shore Line and Chicago Surface Lines evening.
That’s enough from me!
Cheers,
Ed Halstead
Modeling Insull’s Empire in O Scale
CSL Pullman 141 was brought to the Meet by Bruce Moffat of “40 Feet Below” fame. The model started out as a Q-Car epoxy body which Bruce had finished for himself.
The NSL 604 was scratch built by Ed Miller and is now owned by Ed Heerdt. Ed Heerdt has many more models of what can be called the “Insull Empire”. As an aside, do you get the idea there are a number of Eds in the hobby?
Here are NSL 604 next to NSL 458. NSL 458 was scratch built by Ralph Nelson using cast parts provided by the late Jack Bailey (Ashland Car Works). The model is owned by Dan Ferlaciki. Dan and his father volunteer at Illinois Railway Museum. Between the two of them they operate and continue to work on the Indiana Railroad 65 high-speed lightweight interurban car.
That is my NSL 256 speeding by Dan’s 458. The NSL 256 started life as a Clouser epoxy body and was completed and finished by me. It’s normally operated in a 2-car train with NSL 772 as a “Milwaukee Limited”. My NSL 772 started out as an All Nation imported brass body.
The brass model NSL 459 is a Ken Kidder model and belongs to Dan Ferlaciki. It was first imported dating back to the late 1950’s or early 1960’s. This brass model could be finished as either the Oregon Electric 50 or the NSL 459.
The absolutely beautiful scratch built ice car was built by Don Idarius. It is now owned by his son Kevin. This is a model you cannot get enough of. In making the model Don even had the graphics made as an individual special order decal. Anyone for some ice cubes?
Kevin Idarius is the owner of the CSL Birney. Yes, the CSL like many city streetcar lines had Birneys.
These two 2 photos are Andy Sunderland’s Los Angeles Pacific Co. 700’s. WOW! We don’t get to see many West Coast trolleys in the Midwest. The pair make a beautiful train! They run just a beautiful as they look.
The CSL service car W14 was scratch built by Rich Nielsen. Rich did a great job in making the model. He included small rolls of different wire plus some wheels. It has to be powered as a gear can be seen in the front truck. Nice model! Zowie!
These two photos are of George Kanary’s scratch built CSL 5182 model. Take a look at the back platform. The CSL always had the back doors of its cars open in all sorts of weather. Look at the details George included! The model is made of wood! Excellent work!
The next model has a “What if!” CSL paint scheme normally seen on post war PCC’s and the early “spam cans”. To me it shows how great that choice and placement of colors was. When painted on a Cincinnati “curved side car” the color scheme looks just as great as on the actual CSL/CTA cars. Getting back to George’s “What if!”, George says the car is for the Chicago to Joliet route of the CSL. It is nice to dream!
Last is Rich Nielsen’s Walthers built-up NSL Skokie coach kit. Rich proves if the modeler takes the time and effort as well as his talents, a beautiful model can be built! Rich can be proud of his work!
