Modeling a nearby terrain but a far-distant time Dick models the years 1945 to 1957, called the transition era in railroading for its wholesale switch from steam to diesel motive power. But transition was under way in the nation at-large as well. In those heady days, as Johnny came marching home from battle, vic- torious and optimistic, the U.S. econo- my was in transition, too. Now it was flexing its former wartime manufactur- ing muscle in the service of consumer demand, long deferred by the need to meet war’s stepped-up production re- quirements. Leaving Whitehall, our eastbound fi-
nally gets a chance to stretch its legs on an extended run past Eagle Bridge, a small town with only a creamery and a depot. Soon we get an approach sig- nal as we near the first peninsula and the town of Hoosick Falls, N.Y. By war’s end, Hoosick Falls was best known as the birthplace of Grandma Moses. No longer the 19th century boomtown it had been, this onetime home of the world’s biggest farm-ma- chinery maker nevertheless had enough industry in those post-war years to justify a stop on the HVRR. Among its customers is Pop’s Coal, with a coal bin built by Dick’s good friend Scott Mason from an FSM kit. The creator, among other things, of in- structional model railroading DVDs,
A work crew chews the fat in Essex Junction as a heavy eastbound manifest heads toward Whitehall. Essex Junction is the western end of the Hoosac Valley and functions as a fully visible and scenicked staging yard. Decker’s Tire is a Fos Scale Models kit built by Jim Armstrong. The Adirondack Northern R.R. (below) is a shortline that also interchanges with the Hoosac Valley at Whitehall. One of their Geeps is seen here easing a load of ma- rine fuel into Czubryt’s Pier, named for another of Dick’s friends, Frank Czubryt.
Scott has built or helped with many of the town’s structures. Indeed, Dick re- calls, Scott had to urge caution when he gave him the gift-wrapped–and del- icately detailed–coaling tower as a housewarming present when the El- wells moved to their new home in
2002. Dick had no idea what was in the unusually shaped present!
After meeting two eastbound trains,
we leave Hoosick Falls, barely picking up speed before rounding the curve at the peninsula’s end, rumbling past the beaver pond, then quickening the pace
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