The East Waterville grist mill Scratchbuilding a traditional grist mill from a few photos/George Pierson
PHOTOS BY GEORGE PIERSON I
first saw the grist mill at East Wa- terford, a small town in central Pennsylvania, 27 years ago. Or, I
should say I saw what was left of the mill, a pile of wood and stone rubble. The path to it had once been a siding on the narrow gauge Tuscarora Valley Railroad, a 27-mile long road between Port Royal (on the Pennsylvania Rail- road’s mainline) and Blairs Mills. It shut down in 1934. That was the beginning of many vis-
its to Juniata County, Pennsylvania, to gather information on the TVRR. The result was a book on the history of the railroad, Tommy Varner’s Red Rooster: A History of the Tuscarora Valley R.R. (1995, Juniata County Historical Socie- ty) and a decision to model the TVRR in HOn3. My original trackplan, drawn in 1992, included a place for a grist
As Tuscarora Valley 2-6-0 No. 1 (above) spots a boxcar behind the East Waterford grist mill a local farmer leaves with a load of corn. The prototype grist mill at East Wa- terford, Pennsylvania, (right) is seen in 1910. The Tuscarora Valley siding ran by the opposite corner of the mill. Notice the sag in the mill wall just above the flume which directed water to the turbine. The author chose to model a sagging roof and sides to represent the mill’s later days.
62 JANUARY 2013
mill in the town of East Waterford. I had found one photo of the mill that showed how large it was, and between wondering how I could fit that large a building onto my layout and other, higher priority, modeling projects, the
AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
mill languished. Then, a few years ago, I was visiting friend
my modeling Brian
Budeit.
There on his layout was a model of the grist mill at East Waterford. Like me, Brian had visited the TVRR and was
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