3.17 Schmuck Coal
This started out as means to include a Branchline Laser-Art kit I really liked, which was also a substitute for a coal trestle—one of my very favorite modeling subjects. Incidentally, the real Crosby's Coal is located in Danby, Vermont, so it's already appropriately New-Englandish. Originally heating oil part of the business until I moved everything to the other end of the layout, and it got split off as Haber Heating Oil.
But then, on 22 June 2020, I decided I ought to be able to model what I wanted, and so the coal silo—as much as I liked that kit—went away, and the corner of the layout got chopped out to make room for a trestle. It'll need a new office, hopefully with enough room for an appropriately sourced weighbridge:
Reference Images
I was a little sad giving up the Crosby kit, as it's an interesting-looking, region-appropriate building that's still standing.
As far as examples of coal trestles go in New Hampshire, the only ones I've been able to find extant images of so far are these monsters in Dover and Franklin.
When the Boston & Maine reached Dover in 1842, coal began arriving on trains for the Cocheco Manufacturing Co. (above) on Chestnut Street. By 1887, the boiler house was using 20,000 tons of coal each year in 45 boilers.
The coal trestle in Franklin (roughly dead center, above) paralleled the Boston & Maine's Franklin Trestle, which still exists as a park attraction (below), although the line is long abandoned, and the coal trestle is long gone.
Named For...
Railwire friend Chris Schmuck (yes, that's his name) is an exceptional modeler who has a penchant for coal trestles, just like me. He also built the Code 40 turnouts for the layout.