Model Railroading on the Cheap

   My Old Fossil Fuel Dealer is another example of trying to do too much in too small a space. This is a retail fuel delivery business that receives fuel oil in tank cars and coal in hoppers for retail delivery, but only one car at a time. They must have additional storage tanks underground because that little tank is not as big as a rail car! I wonder if they also have underground storage space for their coal pile?! They don’t even have room for a scale pit to weigh their trucks.  This little industry is jammed into a triangle bounded by the rail spur and a street corner. This serves as an example of how I dealt with too much scenery and too little space, but I don’t care that it is a bit crowded, I am glad that I did it. It makes for additional freight traffic on the railroad.  Both the coal pile and the truckload (shown on the next page) is a shaped Styrofoam block painted with white glue, dipped into a pile of artificial coal, picking up about one granule thick, and allowed to dry overnight.

   The Hillton freight/passenger station can be seen in the background. It has a team track with an end ramp. Of course a piggyback trailer flat car loaded at the Yardley end ramp will arrive here faced wrong and have to be turned on the ‘Y’ track before unloading here at Hillton. The photo above shows what imagination can do for scenery.  The John Deere tractors were intended as Christmas tree ornaments but my wife thought they would work as a flatcar load. I am glad she found them; I bought all I could find.