for the period 1912 until 1964. These cars traveled widely around North America. It’s an excellent kit and is listed at $55.00, plus $8.00 shipping and handling.—JOHN RIDDELL
Monson RR combine: On2/On30 scale Mfd. by Portland Locomotive Works,
P.O. Box 133, Washingtonville, OH 44490-013 (
www.lightirondigest.com/ plw.htm). The hallmark for mixed trains in
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North America, even into the diesel era, was the combination baggage- coach car or combine. These cars could be seen bringing up the rear of a train of freight cars often in place of a ca- boose. They would carry baggage and express shipments, occasionally U.S. Mail, and whatever number of passen- gers needed to be taken to the destina- tion–usually in fairly spartan accom- modations. Mixed trains, at one time, could be found on everything from Class 1 routes to narrow gauge lines in remote parts of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. For many fans of Maine’s two-foot railroads, the ultimate combine was on the Monson Railroad, Maine’s slate hauling “Two by Six.” That line was two feet wide and six miles long. This car was built by the Laconia Car Com- pany in 1883 and was the only passen- ger-carrying car the Monson ever owned. The car made the trip from Monson to the standard gauge Bangor & Aroostook interchange at Monson Junction most days, generally in the company of slate-loaded freight cars. There are even legends that the car was never turned one end to the other, but photographic evidence seems to re- fute that story. The car was tiny by most wide gauge railroad standards. A neat little book, The Monson RR, by
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Roger Whitney (Robertson Books, 198 Saco St., Westbrook, ME, 1989), contains a drawing by John Derr that shows the combine measuring 34′-9″ over the link and pin couplers that it featured for its entire existence. It was only 6′-6″ wide over the body. Photographs in this book and another fine source by Gary Kohler, A Pictorial History of the Monson Rail- road, (Pine Lake Publishing, Washing- tonville, OH, 2011), show the car in vari- ous states of repair.
It was apparently painted Pullman
Green out of the factory, and later ex- hibited a reddish hue, possibly an al- most orange shade. As mentioned ear- lier, the car was almost always coupled to its train with the baggage door to the rear, but a photo on page 109 of the Kohler book does show it with the bag- gage door forward. So, it got turned at least once. As built, combine No. 1 had single seats down each side of its 16′-0″ long by 5′-10″ wide passenger compart- ment but these were later changed to benches. The baggage space had an al- most miniature toilet closet (22″×36″) and a conductor’s desk. All in all, the combine, later re-numbered to No. 3, was a compact car. In the 50 or so years that I’ve been
an active model railroader and builder, I’ve constructed a number of combines in several scales including HOn30, Sn2, HOn3 and my present choice of modeling the Maine two footers, with a bit more track width, On30. When Portland Locomotive Works announced the Monson kit, I had reluctantly con- cluded that I didn’t need another such car. I already had a brass SR&RL (Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes) No. 11, a narrowed and “bashed” Bach- mann car that greatly resembled No. 6 from the Wiscasset Waterville & Farm- ington and a scratchbuilt combine roughly based on the Monson car and one from the Kennebec Central. How- ever, when Gary Kohler offered a kit for review, I couldn’t pass it up. I picked it up at the latest Craftsman Show in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and got to work. But, first off, I need to edi- torialize a bit. Modeling the two foot railroads of
Maine in any scale is challenging. This is a truly “niche” segment of our hobby and it’s especially true when it comes to rolling stock. Manufacturers are few and far between, standards regarding things such as trucks, coupler height and the like can vary from scale to scale, and even scale itself varies. One can probably count on the fingers of two hands the number of true two foot gauge modelers in HO scale, as op- posed to HOn30, for example. My point is this: building this car as intended will produce an accurate replica of a “one of” car. However, with some artis- tic license, so to speak, and a close at-
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