Equipment Roster

*Updated 07 April 2017 -- Added a few more cars; I think the roster is looking pretty solid now.

*Updated 18 March 2017 -- Mass update with acquisitions through this date

*Updated 19 July 2015 -- Moved some cars to individual pages.

With my recent visit to the Chicago March Meet O Scale Show and this post, the conversion to P:48 (O Scale) is fully on!  The roster of equipment is up to five boxcars, mainly because that's the most prevalent car type serving industries on the spur and one can never have enough boxcars.

Each of these will be a project in and of itself.  First is conversion it from standard O scale (using a 5' wheel spacing) to P:48 which uses the 1/4" to 1' scale and honors the prototype's 4' 8 1/2" wheel spacing and second is enhancing some of the details with replacement (Protocraft) couplers, wire grab irons, etc.

I'll try to structure this page with a photo of the model plus either or both prototype information and photos.

As is often the case with model freight cars, the manufacturers take several liberties with selectio of car numbers, application of paint schemes.  I wouldn't be surprised if I had to perform some renumbering along with the detail work.

Research on these cars is incomplete.  I give a fair amount of credit to RailcarPhotos.com for reference material.  Of course, this is only one of many sources and I'll be most grateful to any reader out there able to deliver additional research bits on these cars or the accuracy of the models themselves.

I need to dig out my ORERs from storage a see what else I can learn.

An additional research site that I recently found is: Eric's Railroad Car History

(Larger pictures can be viewed by clicking the reporting mark text links)

GB&W 7080

Conversion work has started on this freight car, see details on the GBW 7080 page.

IC 150022

This car is a 53' double plug door boxcar manufactured in 1971 (according to the printed car data) by the Evans Products company.  I (yet) wasn't able to find an exact prototype photo, but did locate one of a similar car lettered for the Frisco.   I also found several examples validating the paint scheme in the mid-to-late 1970s era.

RI 33821

According to the model lettering and box description, this is a 60' car intended for automotive service (stenciled return to Flint, Mich).  Having found this picture of a 50' car in the exact same scheme, I'm skeptical about the correctness.  According to the printed car data, it was manufactured in Nov. 1966 by the ...

L&N 100161

The manufacturer lists this as a 50' PS-1 boxcar and my (limited) research to date indicates that it is likely a stretched rebuild of a 40' PS-1 (Pullman-Standard) box car.  I found two examples of really good visual matches, albeit with different lettering schemes, doors and car numbers.

MP 265032

I don't have much on this car yet.  One search to date reveals many 60' MP boxcars, but none in this number series or door configuration.  A more refined search of "ex CEI" cars yields similar results.

ATSF 310137

Atlas PS-2 airslide intended for flour deliver to Safeway Bakery

DRGW 18109

Atlas PS-2 airslide intended for flour deliver to Safeway Bakery

BN 281430

Modernized 40ft boxcar for general deliveries to warehouses at the end of the line.

CB&Q 19861

Modernized 40ft boxcar for general deliveries to warehouses at the end of the line.

BN 875007

~17k gal tank car for chemical or oil deliveries

WRNX 14661

~17k gal tank car for chemical or oil deliveries.  This one likely has inaccurate stenciling, claiming to be built in April of 1958.

GM&O 59226

Atlas PS-1 box car for general deliveries

GN 72789

52'6" gondola intended for either line pole or wire spool deliveries to Southwestern Bell Telephone

LRLX 200

Specifically assigned 50' plug door box car for Masonite delivery to Schutte Lumber

SHPX 60905

Three bay cylindrical hopper car for plastics.   I might be able to use this if Styro Fabricators is modeled.

SOO 6748

50' box car for general deliveries to warehouses at the end of the line.  This is a older Weaver model and I'm presently unsure how it stacks up against the newer Atlas offerings.

SOO 18929

Atlas PS-2 airslide intended for flour deliver to Safeway Bakery.  This is a older Weaver model and I'm presently unsure how it stacks up against the newer Atlas offerings.

Undec 50' Flat Car

Currently undecorated Overland models brass 50' flatcar that will eventually find its way into either lumber service for Schutte Lunber or other deliveries to Swenson Construction.

BN 281430 (#2)

A second copy of the one featured earlier on this page.  Will need to rennumber

UP 518250

Another Atlas trainman 40' box.  This one came weathered to boot!

On The Ground Again

I had the opportunity to visit the Fairgrounds Branch again in mid-August 2015 and it was a good thing I did.

The former Safeway Bakery building was in the process of being covered with insulating panels meaning the exterior photos I recently captured will be the last ones anyone can get.

Prior to obtaining these photos, I had been thinking about the kinds of traffic and the car types that would've served this industry.  It isn't big enough to ship anything out, so rail service would've been limited to inbound raw materials.  That could include flour and sugar plus other commodities like boxes and such.  Pneumatic cars seemed out of the question until I spotted the small set of doors to the left of the rollup door and dock (upper right photo above).  This would've been a perfect place to store a hose and make connections to indoor piping.  The same could be said for the two side-by-side former doors in the upper left photo.  Also noticed was the supports for an awning that hung over the dock.

The other remaining item that had been holding me back from building track was the turnout details.  American Switch & Signal makes great turnout kits for Proto:48 (link is to the Protocraft distribution of said parts) but I needed to know for sure which type of frog would've been in use.  I had assumed that the answer would be simple bolted frogs and the following detail photos confirm this:

I also walked this turnout again in the daytime to confirm that it had a frog angle of #8.  One farther down the track that started the spur into Schutte Lumber measured out to be a #7.  I"m realizing now that I forgot to walk off the distance of the switch points; all of the kits I've seen have 16' 6" points.

I'm impressed by this particular switch that almost has a diverging route on the normal alignment.  It is those types of track variances that I hope to recreate (and have the equipment actually operate...).

I also captured a few more shots of the switch throw mechanism in order to be able to compare to some the products available out there:

I'll be in Kansas City again in October 2015, but may not have an opportunity to get to "The Hill" as the primary purpose of the trip is a wedding.

Battenfeld Grease & Oil Company

Updated 22 June 2015 with a few minor details on the company history and inbound commodities.

This installment of the Fairgrounds Branch tour examines the Battenfeld Grease & Oil Company, which was spot #327 on the 1972 Map.  Operations began around 1911 and I found this ad from 1924.

J. R. Battenfeld started the company at 3148 S Roanoke Road, which is actually across the street from the Farigrounds Branch, more on that later.  The company was involved in research into lubricating greases beginning in 1938 through 1940 (the time of the documentation).  At least one of their products was 'Tube-A-Kalk', first manufactured around 1949.  From an article about the owner's house, I learned that they made a lot of grease compounds: "... in 1947, his company was one of the largest U.S. manufacturers of grease and oil. Even during the Depression, the company produced 20 million to 30 million pounds of grease a year and supplied more than 1,000 oil companies ...".  It is unclear if all of that production took place at this location, though I have no reason to suspect otherwise.  30 million pounds is about one railcar's or six truckloads' worth of production every weekday.

A service bulletin for Piper Aircraft published in 1982 listed them as a supplier of a lubricating grease for a fuel plug on their airplanes, which confirms the company was still in business then at that date.

Today, there's a more modern-looking office building on the site with a sign that's not for this company.  City permit data indicates that that a significant remodeling took place in 1986, so the company may have folded or moved on around that time.  Interestingly, there is a company of the same name located in the state of New York that claims incorporation in 1939, however, according to a reputable industry source, the association between these two companies is by name only.

Now, about the difference in building location versus rail spur location.  Battenfeld Grease was served by two local railroads: The Frisco from the Fairgrounds Branch and the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) Railway from a short spur that diverged from their Rosedale Yard (which, interestingly enough, was captive to the Frisco's mainline; the Katy had trackage rights from Paola, KS into Kansas City).

First a map for orientation:

(Click the map above or this link to the current Google Maps view)

On the map, the upside-down "Y"-shaped green lines in the center are the Katy spur, while the brown "S"-curve at right is the Frisco branch.  Battenfeld's plant was in the area outlined in red and across Roanoke Ave in the blue highlighted area was the tank farm.

I've pieced this together from multiple sources of information:

• A topo map from 1971 revealed details about the Katy spur
• Historic Aerials views from 1959, 1966, and 1969
• This photo of the 1951 flood aftermath; the tank farm is at upper left

As for rail service throughout the years, the track with the tank car spots is busy in the late 1950s, less so in the mid-1960s, and, frankly, looks overgrown with weeds in 1969.  The Katy's rail spur has cars on it in all of these photos, so perhaps their product mix shifted from making greases from raw or bulk material to more of a distribution role.  The tank farm was served by the Frisco and the warehouse / manufacturing area was served by the Katy.  Frisco's spur did include on dock spot in addition to five tank car spots, so maybe smaller quantities were shipped from there or other smaller items were received.  The main inbound commodity would have been "base oil" used to make the various greases.

In any event, I'll plausibly be able to include the tank car spot and / or the edge of the tank farm on the model.  It remains to be seen how active this company was at this location in the latter part of the 1970s.

Prototype Rail

As mentioned recently, I was able to visit the Fairgrounds Branch in early April 2015, even if only briefly and at night.  After a short tour of the line again, I stopped near the still-active northern portion to check off two pending research items:

• Switch numbers
• Rail size

For the first, I paced out one of the switch and found the tip of the diverging rails in the frog to be eight size 13 shoes away from one size 13 shoe perpendicular between the diverging rails.  A bit crude, but we modelers have to work with the available tools.

For the latter, I took some pictures of the side of the rail as show below:

The pictures -- admittedly grainy cell phone ones in low light -- have rail markings of "ASCE 9040" on them.

A third picture shows a date of "1919", making this track nearly 100 years old and still in service.  I suspect it has not been located here that entire time, having most likely been used new on a mainline track somewhere and then re-laid here as the original Fairgrounds branch rail wore out and this rail had outlived its service life on the main line.

However, now I was left with a quandary...What exactly does "ASCE 9040" mean?  My first rough guess was that it probably meant that it was 90lbs/yd rail, but I wasn't sure about the "40" part.

Fortunately, I follow Chris Mears' Prince Street blog, and in a recent posting, he was musing about an idea to catalog the various types of track as a reference for model railroaders.  In the same vein as Railpictures.net, I'd say that's a great idea.  Prototype photos are the best resource and realistic track weathering is one of my top priorities as well.   Chris' idea generated some comments on his blog, one of which was a link to a rail-markings database of sorts.

Sure enough, "ASCE 9040" is in that table and reprinted here for completeness and archive purposes:

Weight (lbs/yd)		Height (inches)		Width of base (inches)		Width of head (inches)		Type
90		5   3/8		5   3/8		2   5/8		ASCE 9040 1940

Coupling that data with another reference site serving all of the major scales, and I've now learned that I need approximately code 117 rail to accurately depict the Fairgrounds Branch in miniature.

So, in short, while I was only able to manage a short trip, I was able to check off two particular prototype details and heavily influence design and early construction.

Swenson Construction Company

In this installment of the tour of the Fairgrounds Branch we're capturing what we can on Swenson Construction Company, which is spot #348 on the 1972 Map.

The last view I've been able to obtain of this location is a 1969 aerial view.  There's a fair amount of rail activity at this spot location, but some of it appears to be potential offspot cars for Sherwood / American Mineral Spirits.  An aerial view 10 years earlier shows pretty much the same layout for the materials yard, but is devoid of rail activity.

Swenson's Construction Company has a lengthy history in Kansas City and was founded in 1906.  Projects that the company has worked on include:

• 1960 KC Star article on I-70 bridge contracts
• Various Other Bridges
• Jackson County Courthouse
• Westport High School
• Kansas City Power & Light Building
• Coca-Cola Building
• 15th Street Stone arch Bridge
• Scottish Rite Temple
• The Kansas City Livestock Exchange (pg. 7)

Swenson's role in and the construction of many of these structures include basic building materials such as concrete and steel.  Given the aerial views that show a relative emptiness of the actual site, it stands to reason then that steel beams, blocks, bricks, and perhaps bagged or bulk cement might've been delivered here or the nearby team tracks for further truck distribution to various construction sites.

I found at least one reference to an employee retirement in 1978, so it seems plausible that Swenson Construction Company can be included on the planned 1970s rendition of the Fairgrounds Branch.  However, this business record indicates that they dissolved their main Missouri operations in December 1972, so some modelers' license might be necessary.  The related record for Kansas just says "withdrawn" but gives no dates.  What is also interesting is the Kansas record is addressed at 3305 TERRACE, KANSAS CITY, MO 64111 which lines up better with an undated but early (given the track layout at the end of the line) Sanborn Map showing that nearly all the property along Terrace St was Swenson Construction and possibly the tracks along there were privately owned.  The Missouri Record lists an address of 3252 Roanoke Rd, Kansas City, MO 64111 (which is currently a business called Crossland Construction) and is further evidence of businesses in this small little area moving around quite a bit as operations changed.

Other fun facts found while searching:

• Mr. Swenson passed in 1946
• Hartzell "Ding" Burton was a subsequent CEO of the business and he passed in January 1970 (obituary).
• Clarence Rupp was construction foreman with the company and worked there until 1978.

Safeway Bakery

This installment of the tour of the Fairgrounds Branch, covers the Safeway Bakery, which is spot #335 on the 1972 Map.

This location is listed as Fairfax Bakery in the 1950 Sanborn reference and confirmed by this 1955 Kansas City Times article to be Safeway Stores subsidiary.

Research for this location was complicated by the fact that the Styro Fabricators business located at the end of the line in 1972 moved to this location sometime before or in 1995, so it took some time to sort out all of the available information the internet had to offer.  The clincher was the plot map showing that there were two Safeway locations on the Fairgrounds Branch.

At least in 1955, this location was primarily a bakery for bread products, so one could expect railcars of flours to be delivered here.  The dock door is obviously from an earlier era when that product arrived bagged in boxcars; it isn't clear if adaptations were made to accommodate the unloading of airslides or other covered hoppers.

Present day pictures for reference:

Overview

Rail Side 

 Dock closeups

 Spur location

Styro Fabricators

This installment of the tour of the Fairgrounds Branch, covers Styro Fabricators, which is spot #353 on the 1972 Map.  Earlier research based mainly on this Sanborn Map shows this location being a warehouse for Safeway Produce, but this is only accurate up through the mid-1950s.


Research on Safeway's history in the greater Kansas City area reveals a hostile takeover from the private equity world in 1986 that led to the divestiture of the Kansas City operations in 1988.  Given that Stryo Fabricators is listed on the 1972 spot map, this particular location apparently outlived its grocery warehouse usefulness long before Safeway retreated from the market.  There's a loose reference in a link on the Safeway Bakery post that indicates a regional radius of 250 miles was served from the bakery and presumably this location as well.

In the target era, we have Styro Fabricators -- a manufacturer of polyisocyanurate pipe insulation.  It isn't clear what scale their operation was at, but the Frisco must have delivered railcar loads of some of the raw materials, perhaps in liquid chemical or granular form.  More research is required, but this may provide an opportunity to spot either tank cars or covered hoppers on this spur  Boxcars of chemical drums is another possibility; especially if the input chemicals had to be blended on site.  Perhaps additionally, they may have originated loads from here, but that seems less likely.

Styro Fabricators must have changed hands or completed the move to 3327 Roanoke Road in 1995, as that's all that is available online, including in the Missouri Secretary of State database.  Since then, the company has evolved into Bradco, which is the current occupant at that location up the street.  It is quite conceivable that the business started out at this original facility (3525 Roanoke Road) and later moved to the 3327 Roanoke building as the former Safeway Bakery property became available.  The extruded pipe insulation that Styro Fabricators produced now appears to be one of Bradco's product lines.

Present day pictures, for reference:

Also uncovered during research is that the present day occupant of 3525 Roanoke Rd is a company called MEDiAHEAD  They've been using that name since 2013 and were formerly known as Colormark which was started in 1990 as a business but possibly only since 2001 at this location.  That would align with Styro Fabricators relocating a few doors north on Roanoke Road and some vacant time.

Plot Map

It's been nearly two-months since a fresh posting on kcspur, but summer activities always seem to push railroad modeling to the back burner.

With many kudos again to Frisco.org members, I've obtained a copy of a plot map of the entire Fairgrounds Branch.  The original creation date is unknown, but there are updates to it as recent as 1974.  Displayed here are scaled down versions split in half for viewing convenience.

Part 1 (North half)

Part 2 (South half)

There's some great information on this diagram, such as:

• The turnout frog angle numbers are shown inline with the map
• The lengths of spur tracks are shown

Plus, I was able to clarify a few outstanding items regarding industries:

• Safeway had two rail-served locations on the branch:
• The bakery is just left of center on the southern (right) half of the map
• The grocery warehouse is at the end of the line on the west side of the tracks
• The sub-lease of part of the former Columbia Bedding property to Motor Parts Distributors is cleary noted in this document.

I'll continue to dig into the details of this map and update this post along with other Industry Review pages as I learn more.

Fred Wolferman Grocery

This installment of the Fairgrounds Branch tour looks at Fred Wolferman Grocery, which was spot #354 on the 1972 Map.

Unfortunately for this modeler, it seems that this industry was no longer active in my desired target era.  According to this 1986 People Magazine article, their participation in the local Kansas City grocery market ended in 1972.  If that's the case, rail service to this location ended earlier than that as the company wound down operations.  However, this KC History source says the last store was open until 1984.  For this particular property, however, things were likely shaken up or closed down in 1974 as both this Missouri Business Record source and OpenCorporates Database source claim an end date of June 20th in that year.

This 1963 business filing record lists "Fred Wolferman Building Company" as the owner of this property (the address is actually on the east-west Karnes Blvd. that is south of the end of the Fairgrounds Branch).  I suspect that the name change was tied to an internal restructuring of operations (e.g. spinning off assets into separate wholly-owned 'companies').  It could also mean that the usage of this building changed at this time from its original grocery warehouse purposes to a nice building to rent to someone else.

1963 is right between two other references: The 1950 Sanborn map and the 1972 railroad map.  I suppose that since Fred Wolferman was still in business, the Frisco had no reason to change their maps in the ensuing nine years to read anything else, even if they were no longer spotting carloads of groceries or produce there.

With respect to my recreation of this area, a careful selection of time frame will determine if I either have the challenge of modeling an unused warehouse and a rusty siding or exercise some modelers' license and keep Fred Wolferman's alive for a few more years.

While researching this far, I came across several other tidbits of information:

• This property record source indicates that the property was constructed in 1940.
• Universal Color, Inc is associated with the property in 1998.
• Kansas City Poster Display was located there as of early 1990.
• Interestingly. this particular company was in business from 1939 to 2003, but despite the close association of that timeframe to the building's reported construction date, KCPD was located elsewhere as of 1952 so their move to this location was likely in the post-rail service era.

The State Historical Society of Missouri may have some information on the company or this building.  Their website lists a collection of documents for Fred Wolferman, Inc. (record #K0205)

Schutte Lumber Company

This installment of the Fairgrounds Branch tour looks at Schutte Lumber, which was spot #311 on the 1972 Map.


While the lumberyard occupies the same real estate as it traditionally has, rail service has been severely curtailed since it's heyday.  Schutte must have found it more economical to have the Frisco spot cars directly for unloading rather than move material around the yard -- in the days of horse and buggy, who could blame them -- as there were multiple spur tracks to multiple car spots at each of their buildings.

Here's how the grounds appeared as late as 1957; note the myriad of tracks serving many different buildings.

A massive fire nearly destroyed this business in 2003 and likely reshaped it to the shed configuration seen today.  The myriad of rail spurs into nearly every building was reduced to just the two current tracks at the edge of the property.  Based on this independent review, they had rail service as of 2006 and, according to their website they still do, though recent photography from Google (street and aerial) show the tracks in pretty rough shape.

It's not clear if that fire coincided with any retrenchment of the Fairgrounds Branch itself...As mentioned in the Pacific Mutual Door Company post, rail south of Schutte Lumber was gone by 2006.

Modeling of this industry will be very era-dependent and difficult to squeeze onto traditional shelf-style linear benchwork.

Setting the Era

Conversations with local enthusiasts who had previously toured the line and done other research revealed that the majority of rail service ended soon after a derailment near the south end of the line in the early 1980s (1983?).  The report is that a car was destined for Turner UniDrive Company.  My speculation is that new owner Burlington Northern was probably looking for a good reason to curtail service.

At least Schutte Lumber continued to receive rail service into the mid-90s.  As reported by local observers, they received shipments of large beams or trusses to the spurs on the southeastern edge of the property.  This required some amount of tail track that crossed 31st street.  It isn't yet clear when service to Pacific Mutual Door or other industries in the middle section ended.

This sets an upper limit on prototype modeling.  Of course, one must choose between one side or the other of the 21st of April 1980 -- either the beginning or end of time, or -- simply put -- whether to use orange or green with the white:

Photo Credits:

Frisco #306, a Carl Nelson shot borrowed from Frisco.org

BN #154, a Jim Shepard photo borrowed from the Don Ross Collection

I've always been interested in the 1970s era of railroading as that's when things started to get "interesting".  There were a handful of developments in the 1960s, but larger railcars were the norm in this decade and the what I call the "great oxide red / brown fleet" of the 1950s and earlier was disappearing.  It was also a challenging time as several upheavals took place: Amtrak, Conrail, to name a few.  Deferred maintenance was increasing.

Post-Staggers Act railroading in the early 1980s is also appealing.  From a model perspective, its a bit easier to find appropriate rolling stock, but in the case of this branch line and the industries it served, it was about to be history as trucks really began to take over.