A thumbnail switcher An Nn3 light industrial marvel/Tom Knapp T
he Pacific Coast Railway operat- ed on the Central California coast from the 1870’s until the beginning of World War II. It was orig- inally built to connect the wharf at Port Hartford near Avila to the inland seat of the county, San Luis Obispo. This was to be an outlet for the county’s dairy and agricultural products, but it grew to become a major force in the growth of the region. It reached to near Santa Barbara, and via stagecoach over Cachuma Pass, it connected to the Southern Pacific there. Agricultural products were brought by farmers to warehouses at the many stations along the PC right-of-way. These were col- lected and brought to the port via San Luis Obispo. In addition to this traffic, several industries were served by the railway, including gravel quarries, an asphalt plant, lumber and coal yards, a sawmill, and oil fields.
The existence of these industries are well documented in Curt Johnson’s ex- cellent book The Pacific Coast Railway, Central California’s Premiere Narrow Gauge. The book includes quite a few detailed track plans of the industry fa- cilities. In at least one case the indus- try had its own switching locomotive (a saddle-tank steamer), although it ap- pears most switching was performed by the PC’s road crew and equipment. The industries included the California Liq- uid Asphalt Company (with an exten- sive facility at Bitumina near Hadley Junction), Bishop’s Peak Granite Quar- ry, the Pacific Coast Coal Company (a large lumber and coal yard), Ensign- Baker Refining Company and others. Curt’s book documents the small sad- dle tank steam locomotive mentioned and its owner, the Bishop’s Peak Gran- ite Quarry. The presence of these in- dustries and their unique switching needs afforded me a good opportunity to model a small light industrial rail- way engine. I chose a kit manufactured by Toma Model Works for my “second generation” Bishop’s Peak Granite Quarry switcher. This particular cen- ter-cab diesel is the smallest I could find which had a conventional perma- nent magnet motor and would accom- modate a DCC decoder. The Kubuki Light Railway four-wheel DB81 diesel switcher is similar in de- sign and profile to several light indus- trial railway locomotives used all around the world. The Toma Model RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
The thumbnail switcher (top) is 1.3 inches long over the sills. It comes from a Toma Mod- el Works kit (above) which has brass etchings, white metal castings, motor, worm gears, wheels sets with plastic muffs, brass wire, various hardware and instructions.
Works Nn3 kit for this locomotive is composed of brass etchings, cast white metal weights, wheelsets with Delrin muffs (tubular axles) and gear, a motor with
brass worm, electrical wire,
screws, plastic insulating washers, white metal detail castings and instruc- tions in both Japanese and English. The model builder must provide Micro
Trains Nn3 body-mount couplers. The DB81 kit is one of the constantly evolving line of Toma Nn3 kits and ready-to-run products. The DB81 kit built in this article has been superceded by a model of the DB92 diesel. The new kit doesn’t include the motor. The mod- eler must acquire a Kato 11-105, 11-106 or 11-107 power unit to complete the kit. 67
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