Modeling Latrobe, Flonellis, east and west

One of the reasons I chose to model the Placerville Branch was due to its close proximity to home. I've spent some time driving by and over the branch, walking its trackage and recently riding the Sacramento and Placerville Rr from the very east end of Folsom up to Latrobe.

Site of the Latrobe Station 

Latrobe Station
CSRM used with permission

The new Latrobe station in or around 1914. The track directly in front of the station curves to the right toward the main and was most likely the freight siding for cars loading and unloading at the long freight pier connected to the station. Typically these were stub ended, but I cannot tell from the photo. The freight pier has a wooden dolly parked near its far end as well as, what appear to be stacks of filled burlap bags. The track to the far right curves to the left and is probably the Latrobe siding. A velocipede sits between the main (center) and the siding on the right. The station appears brand new and is painted 2 shades of what I assume is colonial yellow as was a standard in 1907. I can only imagine 7 years later that it was still standard.This is close to a  SP  station CS Common Standard #11. If you know otherwise, please let me know, but I am mostly suspicious about the wall paint colors I've described. Could they have been brown? Lastly there is no date on the back of this photo, so its not clear when it was taken, however I understand that the original station burned ( the one captured below top  right) in 1914 and that the station above was built to replace it until it was shut down in 1924.

Upper & lower right Latrobe Station pre 1914
Upper & Lower left Simas hotel 

I wanted to understand what Latrobe might have looked like in the early part of the last century. I wanted to capture in miniature - not in a precise or prototypical way, but in a way that sets a stage for what a very small foothill town might have looked like in those days. There were  2 scheduled passenger trains that stopped at Latrobe until the late 1930's. McKeen Car 45, headed EB at 4.30am, then again WB at 7.36am. I have no data as to passenger service before the McKeen car era. I do have some poorly scanned photos which show horse drawn wagons as well as early automobiles lined up at the station waiting for passengers. So more scheduled passenger trains previous to 1931 may have been the norm. I've taken a look at several of the train sheets in the 1930's and the crew names were always the same. I suppose the engineer and conductor were not about to allow anyone else to fill these positions. Times were hard in America during that time period and good jobs were not so easy to come by. Lastly note the upper right photograph that a train order board is sticking out over the roof. Next time I'll write of other influences I took from these and other Latrobe scenes and how I used various freight services provided by the railroad and some imagining to come up with my modeling scenes of Latrobe. Next time!

east Latrobe scene on the Placerville Branch