Whilst cruising along the Arizona Southern right of way, heading for Siete Madres and a meeting of the minds at the engine shop, I spied this Granite Rock covered hopper awaiting its turn to be loaded at a local cement factory. Well, reality has it that it was painted by my good friend, the late Dennis Docken of Downey, Pacific, and Western fame. We went nuts when E&B Valley introduced these 70 ton covered hopper kits and each built quite a few. Finally something other than the MDC car or brass was available in HO Scale. We were in modeler heaven, but nothing lasts forever.
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| The E&B Valley kit was a flat kit, you glued everything together, walls, slope sheets, etc. |
My friend has been gone over twenty years now and I still miss the hell out of him and our times spent together. We used to railfan L.A. to West Colton all of the time, and he knew all the good places to get pictures. We'd spend Saturdays doing the L.A. yard tour scene and then when it got too dark for pictures we'd head back to his place and run trains on their amazing layout. One of Denny's favorite projects was his live load rock train. He had a working loader at one end of the railroad and the dumper at the other and his cars all had working metal gates. The outfit was called GRANITE ROCK, as back then you pretty much took what was available decal-wise, and Dennis loved decalling his own stuff. The rock cars were lettered for L.G. Everest Inc., if I remember properly. I think Walthers made those decals, they looked nothing like todays railroad, but this was the late 1970's and very early 80's.
What I would not give to go back to those days, even just for a few hours. Take my digital SLR with me and shoot the layout like it deserved and maybe bebop down to Taylor Yard and fill a few memory cards before returning to the lonely here and now. Film was expensive back in the day, and for me money was tight; one had to pick their poison carefully. Trains kept me from doing more crazy things, so for that I am grateful.
That's all for now, write back if you'd like, and as always; Enjoy Your Trains!
John Huey
CEO Arizona Southern RR
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