NEB&W Guide to North Troy/Lansingburgh, NY - 101st Street

Last Update: 2008-11-26

Lansingburgh/North Troy Table of Contents
Layout Photo Gallery Table of Contents

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Covered Bridge

• We chose to model the 101st St. bridge leading up to Oakwood Cemetery because of these two Jim Shaughnessy photos from his The Rutland Road:
  • [Photo in steam days.]
    
  • [Photo in diesel days.]
  • [Color photo in diesel days, looking southeast. Photo in our collection.]
  • [Photo looking north, c. 1930.]
  • [Postcard c. WWI of the entrance to the cemetery. The bridge is just visible in the background.]
  • [Another postcard of the entrance.]
  • [East portal. Photo in our collection. (Note the sidewalk on the outside of the bridge.)]
  • [West portal. Photo in our collection.]
  • [Sanborn map c. '51.]

• Jack Waite took these two prototype views of the 101st St. bridge c. 1960's. (It burned on July 14, 1963.)
  • [Prototype view of the portal. Note the Queen Anne fishscale shingles and suggestion of half-timbering.]
  • [Prototype view of the ratty side.]

• Our model of the side of the bridge.
  • [Our model of the side.]

• After the bridge burned, it was replaced by a giant culvert. And after this section of the B&M was abandoned, the roadbed was made into a bike trail.
  • [View of the culvert and bike path in 2008.]
  • [View of the eastern abutment, south side, 2008.]
  • [Another view of this side, 2008 (composite of two photos).]
  • [View up the little stream (looking east), 2008.]

Culvert

• There was a small culvert next to the bridge. I have photos of the prototype which I hadn't seen for years, so I "wrung" this model out of styrene shapes.
  • [Model culvert, Nov. '08.]
  Just after I cobbled it up, we went up to see the prototype. Not only was the culvert different, but it was not right next to the tracks but somewhat upstream.
  • [Lance and Erica view the culvert, 2008.]
  • [Another view of the culvert, 2008 (composite of two photos).]

Retaining Wall

• This photo, taken from a distance, shows a long retaining wall, topped by a board fence.
  • [Photo looking north, c. 1930.]
  This photo surfaced just recently (2008), thanks to Steve Draper, and we decided to add it to our scene.

• Redoing the layout to add the retaining wall.
  • [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.]
  • [Further along, Nov. 10, '08.]
  • [Nov. 13, '08, glued in place, getting ready to add the Scentare grass to the slope.]
  • [All cleaned up for the op. session, Nov. 15th. View from Rutland yard.]

• After this re-scenicking was started, we went up to see the prototype again (never having paid attention to the wall in our earlier trips 30 years ago).
  • [View looking north, 2008.]
  • [Further back, 2008.]
  • [Side by side comparison, then and now. (Not quite back as far in the contemporary photo.)]

• The board fence was a problem because it had to go on undulating terrain. When this happens, the railings are kept parallel to the ground but the posts and boards are kept vertical. Central Valley's board fence and all other commercially-available ones are good for level ground only.
  I tried to make the hill level so the Central Valley fence could be used, but somehow I screwed it up and it had a slope. So I scrambled for how to deal with this.
  I finally hit on the idea of starting with Evergreen scribed siding.
  • [Photo.]

Oakwood Cemetery

• The land on the other side of the board fence was part of Oakwood. Since steam days, the parcel of land has been sold and made into garden apartments, so one would assume there never were any graves here. However, we are going to add a few. (And the land continued to slope upward past the fence, but on our model we leveled it off.)
  • [View of the graves closest to the retaining wall, 2008. (Actually north of the bridge and further up the hill.)]

• We aren't modeling the rest of Oakwood, but it is one of Troy's hidden treasures. If you ever get a chance, visit the crematorium. Its architectural riches, like oak, marble, Tiffany stained glass windows, will take your breath away.
  • [Postcard of the grounds.]
  • [Another postcard.]
  • [Another postcard, the grounds at night.]
  • [Postcard of the crematorium.]
  • [Another postcard.]
  • [And another view c. 1909.]
  • [And another, from the rear.]
  • [Postcard of the interior.]

See our Layout Guide for North Troy

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