Model Train Display Depicts Eight Decades Of IC History
Dr. Quinn Cost lines up the HO scale models of IC Railroad history at the Casey Jones Railroad Museum.
Model Train Display Depicts Eight Decades Of IC History
By Jack Gurner
Herald Contributor
WATER VALLEY – The development of rail equipment on the Illinois Central Railroad is the theme of a new display at the Water Valley Casey Jones Railroad Museum.
Kentucky physician Dr. Quinn Shaw Cost Jr. has provided models of ICRR locomotives and rail cars from before the turn of the 20th Century through the 1970s. The display is in honor of his father, Dr. Quinn Shaw Cost Sr., who was born in Yalo-busha County in 1915 and grew up in Coffeeville, and his uncle, Johnny Cost, who worked at the Water Valley shops.
Dr. Cost’s grandfather was Grover Cleveland Cost and his grandmother was Dessie Shaw Cost, daughter of Charlie Young Shaw. While there are no longer any Costs in the area, there are descendants of the Shaws, according to Dr. Cost.
When the shops closed here in the 1920s, Johnny Cost moved to Paducah, Kentucky to work as a machinist in the shops there. Later on he got the senior Cost a summer job in the railroad shops.
The display consists of 35 HO scale models – some built by Cost and some by his father. A few of the kits are from the early days of HO scale railroading in the 1940s and are built from wood and cast metal parts. He said that the emphasis of HO scale modeling was on closely duplicating the real trains in appearance. In those days, even the engines were kits, Cost noted.
The senior Cost was a train fan from an early age. After going to Ole Miss and Vanderbilt Medical School, he settled in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. “He loved to watch a train,” Cost said. “He had a special ability to work on the tiny models (he was a surgeon).”
Cost’s father had a train layout that ran all over the attic in the family home. “It had over 200 cars on the tracks and buildings…and a little scenery,” Cost added.
“Some of the models in the display ran on that layout and are still operational. I thought it fitting that some of my dad’s old kits would land in Water Valley.”
Cost took up the hobby in 1975 after his father died in 1973. “I added more to my father’s collection. I am quite familiar with the Illinois Central and with what models are available,” he said.
Among the display models is the Casey Jones 4-6-0 locomotive model by Rivor-ossi. Cost found a used model and repaired it just for this project.
Cost has two complete trains to represent the 1930s era: one is a large freight steam engine, the IC 1240, with a selection of freight cars and; two, a passenger train with a 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive built from a 1940s kit.
Water Vallians will be more familiar with the GP-7 diesel engine from the 1950s era and it consist of freight cars, including the familiar pulp wood bulkhead flatcar. There is also a streamlined diesel passenger train in the IC orange and brown paint scheme.
The last of the trains to come through Water Valley is represented by the orange and white GP-38 diesel freight hauler with a wide-vision caboose like the real one on display at the museum. There are also several refrigerator cars represented, which are like the real refer on display.
The installation of the new display was completed this past weekend and visitors can see it during regular museum hours from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
