Laying out the Rock Island industrial park lead

 

Modeling the AT&SF - D&RGW Joint Line through Colorado Springs from Milepost 70 to Milepost 80 circa 1978-1979

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Post 13: Laying out the Rock Island industrial park lead, Part 2

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And now for the other side of the Peninsula, but first, here are couple photos to enjoy of the Rock Island switching leads being worked in later years by a D&RGW GP40, albeit patched with it's new UP number: 

 

UP 1445 heading up the Rock Island main in 2009 with a cut of loaded centerbeams for Foxworth Galbraith (El Paso County Lmbr). And returning with empties. Note the trainman riding the end car as this is a shoving move.

To the east of the first Rock Island switching lead are two more. Make that three, since the middle one splits into two separate leads north of Fillmore St. The industrial park that they served was laid out in the late 1940s on an old airfield and grew steadily through the 1950s and early 1960s, filling in with low-rise light manufacturing, warehousing and wholesale distributing firms. No major large industries here, and I don't think there was a single two-story building among them.

Customers on the main center lead and its west fork included Timken's Rock Drill Bit Division (remember, hard rock metal and coal mining is very big business in Colorado), a carburetor manufacturer, a concrete block manufacturer, the local Canada Dry bottler, a good size Sears furniture and appliance warehouse, a small printing plant, a Maytag warehouse, a team track, a telephone pole yard, and the Pepsi Cola bottler. The east fork served two roofing contractor-distributors, a machinery company, a produce distributor, a PPG glass distributor, a waste cardboard recycler, and a couple miscellaneous warehouses.

The third (fourth) lead further east is very short, not even reaching Fillmore St, and only served yet another drywall distributor and yet another small lumber yard.

I chose to focus on the center east fork as it runs up an alley between N Century St and N El Paso St, flanked on both sides by parallel customer spurs and buildings, creating sort of a low-rise urban industrial canyon. Actually, I blended the two forks a bit, moving some customers around to better fit my scheme of the center building view block, and to yield a good mix of customers, buildings, and car types. There was plenty to choose from as I selected which ones to locate along my single lead track.

Here's the layout of the center Rock Island leads:

(click on image to enlarge, open in a new window to zoom in) 

The center lead, ran about a mile and a half north to above Nichols Blvd. It split into two leads 

just north of Fillmore St. The Timken complex was completely gone when this satellite view was 

taken, as was the concrete block manufacturer.

 

This 1965 aerial shows the center Rock Island lead curving north to cross Fillmore St, with Timken occupying 

the arched roof building at center right. Across the track is Carter Carburetors in the building with the white roof. 

Their spur has already been removed. Across the top of the frame is the RI west lead curving to run beside 

the Santa Fe, with the Amoco bulk plant at the edge of the frame.

 

Here's the view north from Fillmore St on the peninsula. I don't have room to fit Timken below Fillmore, 

and the first building north of Fillmore is already Everitt. Above there I am basing the lead mostly on the

eastern fork. First up on the right is Alpine Roofing, based on the the Roofers Mart wholesale operation.

  

 

Beyond Alpine on the same spur will be the machine company. It's an interesting looking building with a center 

clearstory, and a boom and hoist projecting over the track for lifting heavy loads and getting them into the building.

 

 

 

 

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 Across the track from the machine company is a nondescript modern sheet metal building. I plan to relocate 

Hexol Chemical here and have mocked up two ideas for a more substantial structure to house it. Buildings with 

arched roofs like this are fairly common in this area. I envision boxcar spots to the left, with a tank car spot to 

the right. I think the longer building parallel to the track better fits the center view block plan.

 

 

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At the end of the east customer spur at 4th Street is the PPG distributor, another example of a low-rise building 

with an arched or barrel roof common to a certain era, especially in the West.

 

The building has three dock doors on the track side. 

Across the tracks is a nondescript concrete block building. Stevenson Produce is listed at this address, but the building 

shows no evidence of a dock or doors along the track. Perhaps it has just been renovated, but a block west along 4th Street 

was the Sears warehouse, and I plan to move it to this location.

 The former Sears warehouse clearly has two dock doors along its own customer track.

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Above 4th St are two last customers. On the east is a plain Jane concrete block warehouse building with 

five dock doors. This building was probably subdivided and recombined to suit multiple tenants over the years. 

Maybe I'll locate Stevenson Produce here so I can spot a mech reefer or two.

 

To the west was one of the busiest customers on the center lead. In 1971 it was occupied by Enresco Inc, 

an agricultural implement dealer, but later it housed a waste cardboard and paper collection and shipping concern. 

Today it is operated by Waste Management. I'll just bill it as a larger City Waste Paper facility than the one adjacent 

to the ATSF yard downtown. The building is another of those precast concrete twin-fin tilt-up structures, with two spots 

along the open dock and another three along the enclosed section.  

Here's a shot with a couple boxcars spotted for loading, and here's a shot of D&RGW 3129 switching the dock in 2003.

 

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So that in a nutshell is the Roswell industrial park served the Rock Island as I would build it on a peninsula. Combined with the ATSF lead and some staging tracks it would make a great self-contained layout all by itself. In fact, if I was smarter I would have built it first so that I would have something to operate while I built the larger layout, and it would all tie together in the end.

 

As they say, things are always clearer in hindsight. 

Until next time.

 

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