NEB&W Guide to North Troy/Lansingburgh, NY

Last Update: 2009-01-05

Layout Photo Gallery Table of Contents

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• Overview
  
• Near Hoosick Street
  
• 101st Street
  
• 114th Street
  
• On The Layout
  
• Lansingburgh Not Modeled

Overview

• Lansingburgh was originally a separate city, but later (c. 1900) annexed by Troy. It was founded about 30 before years before Troy, by Abraham Jacob Lansing. It is often called North Troy, although residents refer to it as the "Burgh".

• We are modeling three distinct (and widely spaced) prototypes in North Troy. The first was just north of Hoosic Street, by Jay Street, a cluster of three industries, Troy Feed & Seed, Armour, and Wilson Grocery. The second is the 101st Street covered bridge leading up to Oakwood Cemetery. The third was the Lansingburgh B&M depot and coal dealer at 114th Street (12 blocks north of 101st Street.)

• The B&M abandoned this line in 1971.

Near Hoosick Street

• The three industries just north of Hoosic.
  • [Valuation map.]
  • [Sanborn map.]

• Troy Feed & Seed, c. 1972. (This facility has since been torn down and is now an on-ramp for the Collar City Bridge.)
  • [Prototype view looking north. (The brick building behind is the Armour plant.)]
  • [Prototype view looking east.]
  • [Prototype view looking north, between the main building and the brick warehouse.]
  • [Our unfinished model.]
  • [From the other side.]

• Next to the feed store was an Armour meat packing plant. (This building is still standing.)
  • [The street side c. 1972.]
  • [The street side c. 1980's.]
  • [From the north end c. 1980's.]
  • [From the south end c. 1980's.]
  • [End view c. 1980's.]
  • [Broadside end view c. 1980's.]
  • [Track side, c. 1972. (Wilson in the foreground, Armour attached but in the rear.)]
  • [Trackside view c. 1980's.]
  • [Track side, oblique angle, c. 1972, as seen from Troy Feed & Seed.]
  • [Armour and Wilson cardboard mockups.]

• The third building in this trio from north Troy was Wilson Wholesale Groceries. It, too, is still standing.
  • [Street side, c. 1980's. (The Armour plant is attached, on the right.)]
  • [Another view, c. 1980's.]
  • [Track side, c. 1972.]
  • [Trackside view c. 1980's.]
  • [Armour and Wilson cardboard mockups.]
  • [Model under construction, Oct. 2004.]
  • [Model under construction, Nov. '04.]
  • [Model under construction, Jan. '06.]
  • [Another view.]
  • [Progress as of Oct. '08.]

• Other views of this area that we don't have room to model:
  • [Photo from the D&H Collection.]
  • [Photo from the D&H Collection.]
  • [Photo from the D&H Collection. That's the B&M freight house on the right. We are looking north.]
  • [Photo from the D&H Collection.]
  • [Photo from the D&H Collection. That's Hopkin's Coal on the left.]
  • [Photo from the D&H Collection.]
  • [B&M freight house looking south, c. 1973.]

• There was a couple of through truss bridges that carried Rensselaer Street over the yard, so occasionally you might hear of the yard as the Rensselaer St. yards.
• The actual engine facility as located just south of Middleburgh Street, so the yard most commonly was called Middleburgh St. yard. The roundhouse still stands, the only known roundhouse still surviving in the entire Capital District.
  • [Valuation map, I believe courtesy of the Boston & Maine Historical Society. The Rensselaer Street overpass is halfway down the yard and the three industries we model from here are at the bottom.]
  • [Jim Shaughnessy photo c. 1957.]

114th Street

• The first depot here was located just a block or two north, and the one shown here, the second one. The B&M's depot at 114th Street was a modest shingled affair that sat on the side of the embankment.
  • [Photo of the new depot.]
  • [Photo courtesy Rensselaer County Historical Society.]
  There was an exterior staircase set on the side of the structure and the slope of the terrain was such that most of the basement was exposed on the west side.
  Sometime after passenger service ended in 1958, the depot was taken off its foundation and moved across the tracks to serve as the office for the coal dealer.
  • [Photo c. 1973. (This was the street or west side.)]
  Several of us measured the building and I believe it was Bill Mischler who drew up these HO scale plans:
  • [Front and back.]
    
  • [Side.]
    
  • [Foundation.]
    
  Jeff English started a model way back in the early 1970's.
  • [Scratchbuilt model with a temporary roof.]

• Across from the depot on the east side was this modest coal dealer, I think F.J. Fagan, who sold Blue Coal. (They were listed in 1953 in the City Directory as 114th St. and Gurley Avenue, so I think that must be the right business. And note the Blue Coal sign on the near bin.) The two squat little pieces of machinery, I believe, were for bagging coal(?).
  • [Prototype photo c. 1972.]
  Our 6 foot stick marked off in red and white foot increments is there in the picture, if anyone wants to try to make plans.
  We used two Life-Like's operating coal tipple, kit no. 8306, cutting the legs off as high as possible. The operating mechanism was the limit as to how high we could go. A pair of styrene gables and a roof finished off the basic kitbash. (The roof needs tarpaper detail, plus the conveyor tower.) The kitbash might be taken further by cutting down the top of the bins by one set of horizontal bracing, re-attaching the roof at the lower level. It would also be possible to add, say 2x8 uprights between each pair of heavy braces to make the model look more delicate.
  • [Kitbash in progress.]
  • [With the roofs on and painted Floquil Tie Brown.]
  • [Cyberkitbashed lower. (Hmmmm, might go for this.)]
  On the layout. The space for these wasn't big enough, so some of the Styrofoam had to be cut down to ground level.
  • [Model view, Oct. 2004.]
  • [Model view with the terrain cut down.]
  • [Model view with one bin cut lower, given a roof with a shallower slope, and extra 4x4 styrene strips for bracing, Nov. 2004.]
  • [Another view.]
  • [One bin re-kitbashed and repainted.]

On The Layout

• Progress on the layout.
  • [Armour and Wilson cardboard mockups.]
  • [Redoing the track, Nov. 2000.]
  • [Photo, Oct. 2004. (The roof on the depot is a kit part that convenient fits, but needs to have slate shingles, not European tile. And the coal dealer is being mocked up by a partially built structure we had on hand, so don't judge by what you see.)]
  • [Another photo, Oct. 2004.]
  • [Model view with the kitbashed Life-Like kits in position, Oct. 2004.]
  • [Model view with the terrain cut down to make more space for the coal bins, Oct. '04.]
  • [Model view with one bin cut lower, given a roof with a shallower slope, and extra 4x4 styrene strips for bracing, Nov. 2004.]
  • [Another view.]
  • [One bin re-kitbashed and repainted.]
  • [Imagineering the hoist tower, etc. (Lousy photo but it give the idea of what we are trying to do.]

• Redoing the layout to add the long retaining wall just south of the covered bridge.
  • [Model photo, Nov. 5, 2008. (The paper is there to do a pencil rubbing of the area to cut out a piece of styrofoam.)]
  • [Model photo, Nov. 5, 2008, looking the other way.]
  • [Beginning to shape the styrofoam, Nov. 5, 2008.]

• Progress as of Nov. 15th, '08, as cleaned up for the operating session.
  • [Photo.]

• Even more progress.
  • [As of Jan. 3, '09. Most of this end has been given the final grass treatment, but still missing the tall trees.]

See our Layout Guide for North Troy

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