78 Miles to Yosemite

The Space Between

Posted on by jkdummler
Module 1. This is the stretch between Merced to the West (left) and Merced Falls to the East (right).

I’ve been here before, but somehow, it feels different this time around.  I’ve put into practice everything learned, and a few “best practices” seen elsewhere, and this time, without cutting corners and without settling for recycled materials, I’ve got the first module for the Yosemite Valley in P:48 standing on its feet.  

The module is 6 feet long and 18 inches wide.  In HO, that’s a whole empire.  In O, it’s a scene.  However, it’s also roughly sitting at 55 inches (track height) from the ground.  That’s fairly tall.  This means, though, that you won’t be seeing the whole thing all at once.  

The basic benchwork structure. Here you can see the 3/4″ gap at the end where the legs key in without a mechanical attachment.

The basics of the construction are pretty common for me now.  The majority of the materials are the 3/4” birch plywood and Kreg pocket screws.  Many modelers have started going this direction, and it makes sense.  I use 3.5 inches for the ripping of the lumber dimension, and then cut everything to the right lengths.  The decking is 1/2” plywood.  Heavy, yes, but these modules will have to move around, so I plan to overbuild.  On top of the decking, I used 1 inch pink foam.  I thought about using 2 inch, but without a plan currently for a bridge or much relief necessary on any of the scenes I plan to build, 1 inch should give me some play without making the layout too tall.

The legs are build from milled 2×2’s.  I got some heavy duty furniture leveling feet and adde them to the bottoms.  At the upper end, the layout is resting on the top of the legs, keyed into a slot in the benchwork by a piece of plywood.

This construction photo shows the module upside down. The two supports for the angle braces are offset from the center line of the benchwork by 3/4″ to allow for the screws that attach each of them to the center support.

At the height I’m building from the floor, and because I’ve had issues in the past with stability, I also added some angle braces from each leg set reaching up to the center layout support.  My angle braces are 1×2’s, and they are 39” long.  At the ends, a 3 inch block glued and screwed to the supports allows me to bolt them in place.  The supports are offset slightly on each side, so the center of the layout is actually between them.  I still, upon standing up, had a wobble back and forth along the long axis of the layout, but tightening the bolts used to connect the angles all the way solved that.  I’ll replace the standard nut I used for construction with a wing nut for each one that will make setup and take down much easier.

Some details see here include the pencil-line grid I laid out for drilling the screw holes in the fascia, the angle of the brace under the layout, and the fact that the entire layout is essentially resting on the 4 legs.

I ripped the fascia from hardboard to just a tick over 5 inches and it fit perfectly.  The fascia pieces are attached to the layout with 1” wood screws with countersink washers.  To be honest here, I ran out of the washers with only one side of the fascia in place.  Another box of 100 will arrive tomorrow and it’ll only take about 20 minutes to install the other side.

From here, the next steps are to paint the legs and braces black, lay the roadbed, and get going mixing and adding a layer of “mud” to the scene before laying track.  There are lots of details to sort out, like joint bars, the kind of grass to use, and if there will be a road of any kind here or just tracks, grass, and trees.  

A sea of pink foam! It shouldn’t look like this much longer.

More to come soon.

-Jeremy

A new, old, name

Posted on by jkdummler

Today I’m renaming the blog here on these pages, “78 Miles to Yosemite”. Some of you may be aware that my old page was taken down last year due to some unfortunate circumstances. While muddling through setting up here, fighting with my vision, and all that’s gone into returning to modeling the Yosemite Valley and what I love to model and research, the name here was sort of a placeholder, and in many ways, similar to other blogs by other railroaders who I have great admiration and respect for.

So, I’m reviving the blog name, and returning it to a more appropriate name for what I’m modeling and doing. 78 miles is not a huge distance, but the fun I’m having on the trip certainly is worth while. I hope you’ll continue to read along and enjoy the things that I have to share.

-Jeremy

Merced & Merced Falls: First Pass Track Plans

Posted on by jkdummler

Time to get down to some track planning.  I started out with templates to make sure things fit, but I’m trying to expand some of my horizons with a new scale and new tools, so I have endeavored to learn how to draw this layout in a CAD program, mostly so I can appropriately share it because at 18’ long, it’s hard to see both ends of a town, let alone both towns at once.

Modeling the YV has to start with some kind of connection at Merced.  The western-most reach of the YV, Merced housed the railroad shops, offices, locomotive service facilities, the small yard, a few industries, and the YV’s large station and freight house.  The industries within Merced included things such as the Merced Ice & Cold Storage and a YV house track, while just outside of town, but still within the yard limits for Merced, a spur lead to the Yosemite Portland cement Co. processing and bagging plant.  YV trains bringing limestone serviced this facility as well as the bagging operation with boxcars.

I haven’t, for many years, had room for all of Merced, even in HO scale.  Planning in Proto:48, I decided that even though I can’t fit a huge yard, the coach yard, roundhouse, etc… that even in 18” deep, I do have room to get lots of the operation of Merced if I am careful to pick carefully what I want to include.

With that in mind, the plan for Merced includes Merced Ice & Cold Storage, the YV house track (that may eventually include the YV station and freight house), a locomotive service track that will have the water, oil, and possibly the YV stores building, and I’ve moved Rock Switch from up the line into the yard here to be able to include the YPC plant.  Even in just 18” deep, there is room between tracks allowing for scenes to be visually separated.  It should take a while to switch here as well, as the 18’ length will provide long movements, and the locomotive and cars won’t all be in view at the same time.  At the SP interchange, I’ve allowed for a 24” from the edge of the layout to the points of the Western-most turnout.  To add to that, I plan to add a 36” extension track for a fiddle yard at the interchange.

This layout will be built in 6’ sections.  It has to in order to be moved into and out of storage.  That means that the structures I build need to either be sturdy and indestructible as they’ll be on their sides in storage, or they’ll need to be removable.  I’ve decided to build them on removable, bolt-on, sections of benchwork.  Doing so, the structures can be worked on at my workbench without needing them to be at the layout, they can be stored in the proper position, transported that way as well, and kept safe.  There are no commercial kits for YV structures in O scale, so everything will need to be scratch built.  

Moving beyond Merced, I had thought about building the in-between section of layout to be Edendale where the YV had a small bridge.  In thinking about that, and knowing the stunning P:48 model that Jack Burgess built of Edendale, and then thinking about the advice that my friend Jim Lincoln gave me regarding moving up to P:48 and the let go of my HO planning mentality.  I’ve therefore decided to replicate some un-named locations along the line.  The connecting section will be a space between towns.  That way, down the road, if I have space, or desire, I can build additional towns and the connecting section won’t be out of place.

At some point I will also need to build some curves.  Tackling that, and what radius to build, I’m going to punt on right now.  When I have the current plans built and running, I’ll tackle that task.  

The second location that I plan to build is Merced Falls.  I definitely wanted to include some of the logging/lumber operation and not reaching far enough up the line for Incline, building Merced Falls makes sense.  The sawmill and box factory, the station, and as much of the YV plant as possible will make for a fantastic place to model.  

I’ve managed to find room for the track that leads to the sawmill and the log dump where the YV loc cars will come and go from.  There’s also room for the box factory and lumber loading on a nice ling siding.  I’ll fit the water tank and probably the Merced Falls station in as well.  To the East, toward El Portal, I’ll again include a fiddle yard track allowing for the suggestion of the towns further up the line.  Who knows, maybe one day I’ll build more that direction.  

Overall, the 7 pieces of layout that I have planned right now are a total of 42’ from end to end if assembled all at once.  That stretches to 48’ with the fiddle extensions.  It’s likely the only spot that I’ll be able to set up completely, at least right now, is at a train show or RPM.  That’s OK.  I hope to eventually build curves that will likely make things fold into a more manageable size for home operation.

I have the lumber here to build one of the 7 layout sections, and the weather is improving.  I’d like to try and get that assembled before I cut more lumber to make sure things work the way I’m expecting.  Then, it’s full steam ahead into freight cars, locomotives, structures, and this fantastic adventure.  

-Jeremy 

Layout Visit: Milwaukee Road Iowa & Dakota Division

Posted on by jkdummler
The view as you enter the Iowa & Dakota Division

Over the weekend we had an opportunity to visit an incredible O scale 2 rail layout, the Milwaukee Road Iowa & Dakota Division built by Ted Schnepf and crew.  I’ve seen photos of this layout, and between my wife and I, we took several hundred photos while we were there, but photos do not do justice to the sheer size of this incredible layout.  This layout can operate with 7 people, but Ted said that 30 people could comfortably be accommodated in operating trains.

Ted was an incredibly gracious host who gave us a tour of the massive, “multi” deck layout.  I say multi because it runs, depending on where you are, between 2 and 7 decks high.  There is staging above and below, and the layout seems to go on forever.  Prototype size yards, 7 tracks, 13 tracks, and more, are spread around the layout, and O scale structures that are built to match the originals exactly are seen all around the layout.  The rolling stock runs the gamete between Atlas O and scratch built with Intermountain, and some of Ted’s on RailsUnlimited brand mixed in.  There are simply too many cars for me to fathom, but Ted could tell us who, when, and how, each of the cars was built.  

We had an fantastic time visiting, came home with some kits to build for the Yosemite Valley P:48, and plan to go back to join Ted and his crew in operating.

-Jeremy

A New Workshop

Posted on by jkdummler

Along with changes to scale, as I have cleaned up/out the workshop, it has become obvious that, with storage at a premium, our workshops here have needed upgrading/updating again.  Lots of equipment, both individual and shared, has for a long time been stored in drawers and caddies that are not easily mobile, and I’ve found myself up and down from the work space more than I’d like to be, and tripping over cords more than I’d like to be as well.  

With fixing those issues in mind, I started hunting for portable workshops.  Unfortunately I appear to have missed out on some fantastic portable shops from a company in Span, but their portable workshops inspired more hunting and gave me some ideas of what I was hunting for.  

I eventually hit on what folks in the hobby of slot cars and RC cars call a “pit box”. These are typically made with spots to store race cars and tools, but I found a gentleman who makes them and who was willing to customize a pair of them with removal of the slot car storage and addition of other drawers.

The new workshop
The view when open as I move into the new storage.

I’ve spent a few days now moving into this box, and found some improvements I plan to make.  First, I added some magnets so I can easily store my scale ruler.  Secondly, because the boxes are heavy to begin with being built of 3/4” plywood, and fully loaded they’re even heavier, I plan to swap the single top handle out for two heavy duty side-mounted handles.

I’m really happy to have everything tool wise now at my easy reach.  We’re closing in on the end of the reorganization of the shop and modeling items, so in short order now it will be time to sit down and build some Proto:48 equipment.  I can’t wait!

-Jeremy

The Correct Choice

Posted on by jkdummler
YV23. Likely taken at Merced (Author’s Collection)

The right choice for me, modeling wise, encompasses several things.

I’ve just spent the last few years starting to learn 1920’s freight equipment.  When I tell you that by 1939, the world of freight cars is vastly different than it is in the late 1920’s, it’s no joke.  The depression had an effect on the freight fleet of the nation.  New rules for safety appliances, and new rules for trucks on freight cars, along with more steel and less wood cars means that when I went back to 1927 and started modeling, the learning curve was steep, but now I’m comfortable in the late 20’s.  I want to stay modeling that window of time and build equipment appropriate to the pre-depression era of railroading.

My struggles the last few months have not only been vision related, but subject related.  The things I thought were drawing, wound up not being so, and as time went by, I got to the point of not really being interested in the research.  That likely contributed to the “drift” in my planning.

How to remedy these things with a move to Proto:48?  Staying in the pe-1930 era is relatively easy.  There are lots of subjects that could be modeled.  I know there are models in O scale of the locomotive I used to look at in books I checked out of the library as a kid, a Santa Fe 1950 class 2-8-0.  I saw one at the O scale meet, and in O, those are even prettier than they are in HO.  There are models of Southern Pacific “Valley Mallet” 2-6-0’s available from Glacier Park.  I’ve seen those too.  There are Nickel Plate, Great Northern, Pennsy, and other railroad small steam out there in O.  While tempting, they’re not the right fit.

The right railroad is the one I stopped modeling to hone my skills as a modeler.  I’m going back to the Yosemite Valley.  It’s “the” railroad that really has my interest, and this time, I’m ready, and I’m excited about the choice.

Staying in the pre-depression era, I’ve chosen August, 1928 as my modeling month and year.  By selecting that date, I can include a great many of the class Yosemite Valley points of operation like the logging operation and the limestone movements to the Portland cement plat just outside Merced.  

There were plans to import Yosemite Valley 2-6-0’s in brass in the early 1990’s, but those plans wound up being canceled.  The locomotives, then, will need to be scratch built.  That will be a challenge, but I believe it’s something I am ready to tackle.  Without the need to build 100+ pieces of rolling stock for a layout, I can spend the time to build a locomotive.  It’s actually exciting to consider because in O scale, dead-rail or battery operation is a real possibility and something that I am interested in including in my build.  I may wind up building 2 or 3 locomotives over time.

My plans for a layout are going to be focused on a portable, storable, modular layout.  18” wide, and with each module 6’ long, I am currently planning for a layout that runs, without staging extensions, to about 42 feet long completely set up.  Should I decide to build curves so I can bend the layout, it’ll wind up being even longer.  Curves will come later.

With just over 77 miles of railroad, picking locations to model, even in 42’ of length, means making some serious selections and leaving much out.  The obvious location to pick for at least one town is Merced.  Merced had the interchanges to the Southern Pacific and the ATSF, the largest YV station, locomotive service and other facilities, a house track, small yard, and a few small ice and cold storage industries.  CLOSE to Merced, so, still within yard limits, was the Yosemite Portland cement Co. plant.  It’s a stones throw outside Merced.  

The other location that really has some of the heart of the YV operation wise that I can see including is Merced Falls.  The massive sawmill with log pond, drying fields, box factory, station, a YV turntable, and other lumber loading, Merced Falls provides destinations for log cars, the occasional rock car, and lots of boxcars.  

Further up the line, places like Bagby, Emory, Incline, Rancharia Flat, and El Portal are really tempting locations to model.  I think for now, those will have to be suggested with traffic running from an interchange in Merced to a staging location just past Merced Falls.  In the future, I may build additional modules to include one or more of those.

There is, on a map, space between Merced and Merced Falls.  There are a few things I could fill that space with, but it’s likely that, at least to start, I’ll fill in with a model of Edendale creek and the bridge across there.  Eventually I’d like to add Snelling because I really like the station there, and probably Hopeton for the stock pens that were still there with a set of scales in 1928.

There is much more to come.  I’m really excited to get started on this whole project.

-Jeremy

Bigger Things

Posted on by jkdummler

I could have called this “Going Home” or “Accepting Reality”. However, the positive note that “Bigger Things” means (at least the connotation of those words is in my mind more positive) is what this needs.

I’ve come to a point with my vision where I simply can not continue to struggle with HO scale modeling. To spite my furious efforts to find something to model, shrinking the scope, playing with location, trying to plan and go narrow gauge to avoid decals…. it just doesn’t work. I’ve stretched it as long as I can, and yesterday I posted on my Facebook page a ‘Notice of Abandonment” for all things HO, with liquidation of kits, cars, structures, parts, etc… to soon follow. When a railroad is abandoned, it often is not just the railroad that dies, but the communities that are served can also die and be abandoned. This is only abandonment in the terms of HO scale.

I sat with my wife who has listened to me talk about what I “might” do in the future, in that ‘some day” down the road when I was ready to move up in scale, along with two other friends this weekend, having the “what are you up to in your modeling” conversation, and each of those three people looked at me and in their own ways, prodded me to not wait, to make a change, to be excited about modeling again, and to do “bigger things”.

We attended the Chicago O-Scale Meet in Lombard over the weekend. As the show wound down on Saturday, we had a fantastic opportunity to spend some time talking with Damin Keenan about his 14″ x 12′ O Scale swishing layout. Damin’s layout is long enough that if you stand at one end, the equipment on the layout is far enough away at the other end, that you have to move to where it is. Additionally, we noticed while talking that the layout really changes character and look if you change sides you are operating it from, so the “front” and the “back” view really affect what you’re seeing. Even changing ends of the layout has a similar effect.

O Scale switching layout by Admin Keenan on display at the Chicago O scale Meet, 2019.

While this layout isn’t massive, it has some cool details. Things like the figures hanging out or a work crew in a parking lot at the right hand side, derails on the tracks, hand thrown turnouts, locomotive sound and lots of operation for a small space in a large scale.

While chatting, my wife commented that a double-depth layout like this could be operated really easily as a 28″x12′, or if built right, it could be ‘opened up’ with two 14″x12′ sections placed end to end to reach 24′. Wow… that’s a fantastic concept.

“I can see the wheels turning”, said my wife at one point about me thinking about a layout in O. But not just O, Proto:48. There are a myriad of places online that explain Proto:48 better than I can (yet) but the gist is the rail is actual scale instead of the slightly too-wide of standard O scale 2 rail.

I spent the second day of the show examining things in the dealer room with a completely new eye. “You’re making the change, right now” was a quote from breakfast that morning and another friend. Ok, but I am a steam guy, a pre-1930 steam guy, I needed to look around and see what was there so I could start to figure out what I want to build.

I managed to find lots of USRA and 1920’s equipment available. By “lots” I mean “enough”, as even a 14″x24′ layout isn’t going to need much equipment. I also found that I could see the details on the equipment, read car numbers, access couplers, without needing even my reading glasses, where in HO I’m mostly in need these days of readers plus multiple magnifiers.

So, HO is abandoned. I’ll be liquidating things, keeping a few pieces for display here and there, but for the most part, like I did 15 years ago when I went to HO from N, I’m out and not going back.

What to model? Remember I said this could have been titled “Going Home”?

Yup…. I figured out how to do it, in Proto:48, and it’ll be really fun.

-JD

Birch Creek in the Birch State

Posted on by jkdummler

Have you ever had the feeling that you’re close to the right idea, the right ‘thing’ but you’re just missing something intangible until you realize in an ‘Ah-Ha!’ moment, what was missing or off?  We have a sort of philosophy in our house that when something is “right” and you know it’s “right”, it clicks, it energizes, it removes any kind of turmoil.  

To go along with that, at several points I’ve said out loud to multiple friends that if I “ever change scale, I’d go model logging in New Hampshire in a heartbeat” or some similar version of that statement.  The thought always was that the research I did several years ago for an article that was published in the Layout Design Journal on early 1900’s railroad logging in New Hampshire would come back to the surface in On30 or On3.

The log pond and mill on the Gordon Pond RR, Johnson, NH (Author’s collection)

Fast forward to 2019 and the decision to shrink the layout footprint, and then go give in and add narrow gauge to the equation.  I had focused in on the Mann’s Creek in West Virginia for that project, but as I started making decisions and looking at model choices, it wasn’t ‘right’.  I was close, the narrow gauge was right, just like modeling the N&W in Cincinnati, OH was ‘right’ and progress has continued to move forward there.  I found myself stalling out, again, and looking at other narrow gauge options from throwing in the towel and modeling Colorado to modeling the Nevada County Narrow Gauge, or something else.

As we set up paper the redraw a narrow gauge track plan over the weekend, my wife and I were discussing my unease with the long-term attention factor involved in this project, and her statement to me was “Well, the scale is changing… why don’t you consider modeling New Hampshire like we’ve talked about for several years now?”

Gordon Pond RR Shay #1. This is a perfect size, at 25 tons, for an upper end on the Birch Creek (and of course, in HOn3)

Like a ton of bricks, it hit me, that was ‘right’.  New Hampshire is the ‘right’ answer for me with narrow gauge.  I wouldn’t have to change much, I’d loose coke ovens, but gain more logging, would also gain some interesting New England scenery and other industries, and the majority of the structures wouldn’t change, they’d just become gravel loaders instead of coal tipples or warehouses for the railroad instead of mine company warehouses.  

With the resources already here, in books and magazines, as well as online at White Mountain History (http://whitemountainhistory.org/Gordon_Pond_Railroad.html), it was easy to envision how to adjust the Birch Creek for New Hampshire logging and granite hauling.  As a bonus, the railroad doesn’t need to change name.  The White Birch, or Paper Birch, is the state tree of New Hampshire (since 1947) but the trees are quite common in the state.

Deciding to make a change, and be inspired by New Hampshire and New England logging railroads, I first looked to see what, if any, railroads are recorded as having been narrow gauge in the area.  While there were a few, the closest to a narrow gauge logging line that I’ve so far come across was the East Branch & Lincoln.  The EB&L was actually a standard gauge line, but there are some indications that J.E. Henry started in 1901 to use narrow gauge to log the line that was eventually the EB&L standard gauge.  Size wise, the railroad I envision is kore like the Gordon Pond Railroad, a competing line built by George Johnson, also near Lincoln, NH.

A few criteria start to become clear.  The line needs to reach Town A, like Lincoln, NH, where it will have shops and a way to transfer to the outside world via either the Central Vermont or the Boston & Maine.  Small locomotives, where my favorite Class A shays can roam appropriately, or small Class B’s, or even some small rod locomotives like the ones used on a number of logging lines in the region, can provide power.  With other industries springing up around these logging lines, like furniture, flooring, and possibly some sap processing (both birch and maple sap processing were occurring in the area in the early 1900’s) there is opportunity for some additional industries for interest.  Granite hauling is another important factor in New Hampshire railroading, and finding some resources for how that loos so I can include hauling granite blocks and hoppers of granite will be important.

One more important detail I should point out before I get to the redrawn plan.  I’ve been trundling along with the narrow gauge railroad matching the same year of my standard gauge Norfolk & Western project set in Cincinnati, OH.  The assumption there was that I would be able to ship in or ship out, goods that were destined for either of those railroads from the other.  However, most of the great logging photos and railroads that are serving as prototype inspiration for the Birch Creek shifted to New Hampshire were earlier, operating from the late 1800’s into the early 1920’s, with the heyday’s well into the 1900’s and 1910’s.  With that in mind, I’m shifting from 1927 for the Birch Creek back to 1915.  The N&W will remain in 1927.  That should make for some interesting modeling.

While the Gordon Pond RR routinely had 4 car log trains, and may have had to double hills even with that, this shot of the Harwick & Woodberry RR hauling a granite pillar in a single car train would be right at home on the Birch Creek.

The railroad track plan as redrawn, retains multiple scenes and locations, with some slight reorganization.  Along the right-hand front edge of the layout, we find the small town, the as yet unnamed “Town B” where there is locomotive service and other facilities.  This is where the sawmill is located, there is an engine house here for one of the handful of locomotives owned by the railroad, a man-made log pond, a loading dock for finished lumber, and a warehouse for railroad and lumber company supplies.  The sawmill will be some sort of conglomeration of details drawn from a number of sources.  

In the original plan, I had intended to build a sector plate for moving trains from the front to the middle section of the layout.  Now, in this redrawn version, I’ve dropped the sector plate and included a turnout on the far right hand side that will lead to a simple removable extension for a switchback that leads to staging and “Town A” with the connection to the outside world.  The switchback returns on the center track on the plant that will then take trains up a grade and over to the far left-hand side of the layout to a “Town C”.  

At Town C we’ll find a small New England town, with a small station, a water tank and fuel pile for locomotives, along with a handful of industries, houses, and a run around track.  The industries are still to be chosen, but it would be fitting to have a furniture maker and maybe some kind of company using sap from maple or birch trees included in the town.  

Headed to the right again, the layout retains the wye that leads to what was the coal mines and logging area, and now includes a granite quarry with a tipple for granite and a spot to load larger blocks of granite on flat cars, then heads into the two sports for logging.  A truncated siding that can hold up to 4 log cars indicates Camp 2, and Camp 1 will be all the way on the right hand side with a loading area for logs and possibly a spot to have boxcars come and be spotted with logging supplies.

The plan, when I redrew it, included one more important feature.  You’ll recall, I hope, that I’m building both of my layout projects on two pieces of benchwork, one is 6’ long and the other is 5’ long.  The first thing I drew in on the new version was the dividing line at 6’ from one end.  This let me make sure that the layout doesn’t have turnouts slated to be situated over the middle of that break, and that tracks are running as straight as possible in the area of the joint to make it easier to mate the sections together.  Doing that drawing, and I’ll cover in a future post the redraw of Cincinnati, has brought me to another change in plans.  I had intended for the layout to have the Birch Creek face one direction and the N&W face the other.  In the interests of how I need to lay out electronics and access for those, storage of the layout, and the simplification of some portions for both layouts, and my desire to potentially be able to line the layout along a wall and operate both levels, I decided to return to a more ‘conventional’ layout and both levels will face one direction.  It still shouldn’t bee terrible.  We’re talking about maybe 4 people standing or sitting along an 11’ span.  They’ll be running slowly enough in all cases that people should be able to get around without being too much in each other’s way.

A mill similar to this J.E Henry mill in Lincoln, NH would fit perfectly on the Birch Creek.

So, I’m back now to making structure templates for kits, making sure that I have the right structures.

I’m excited to share in short order the adjustments to the plan for Cincinnati as well.  Similar streamlining and rethinking of the plan have produced something I’m simply thrilled to be getting ready to build.

-JD

A Virtual RPM

Posted on by jkdummler

My good friend, Eric, has posted a new “Virtual RPM” with models on display from several modelers. You can access the photos and descriptions on his blog here: http://designbuildop.hansmanns.org/2019/03/03/virtual-rpm-3/

Both my wife and I contributed some of our most recent work to the effort. We hope you enjoy, and I hope too that if you don’t already follow Eric’s blog, that you’ll dive in and explore the amazing resource that he has compiled there.

-Jeremy

Following Birch Creek

Posted on by jkdummler

With Cincinnati on the N&W planned, I turned my attention to planning structures for the HOn3 upper deck of my layout plans on the ‘Birch Creek Railroad’.  This line, based on the prototype of the Mann’s Creek Railroad in West Virginia, along with some ideas of my own, will add the coal operations to my plans without that appearing on the N&W right now other than in the form of deliveries in Cincinnati.

This book on the Mann’s Creek Railroad is the inspiration for my narrow gauge project.

Unlike the Cincinnati layout, this layout is intended to represent almost a whole railroad in 2’x11’.  To do that, we’re going to have to deal with tracks running through scenes more than once, and focus attention on what we’re intending to be seen at any given moment as opposed to the whole railroad.  The general plan is:

Town A – Lower right hand corner of the layout.

Town B – Located on the sector plate / hidden trackage and not modeled,

Switchback.

Town C – Located on the far left hand side of the layout with a sawmill, coke ovens, and town buildings.

Mines / Logging – Located as high up as possible with two mines and a spot for picking up logs.

Trains will operate A-B-C-Mines and back down.

With that general layout in mind, we’ll start looking at what will go where in Town A.

On the right hand side of Town A is a small 3 track ‘yard’.  Two of these tracks will likely be used for an engine house, while the third track is an equipment storage track.  From the yard, then, we move over to a run around track.  The rear track here will have a location to unload hoppers that will conveyor coal and coke off the front of the layout and to the suggested connection to a standard gauge railroad (the N&W, likely in my case),  Moving further to the left, there are 3 tracks a this end of Town A.  The track nearest the front of the layout will have a transfer point for freight and a small station for people coming off the narrow gauge line to transfer to the implied standard gauge railroad.  The middle track is the tail track for locomotives or equipment to use when unloading at the dump house.  The third and most rearward track will reach over to an unloading spot for coal where that coal will then be loaded onto river barges.  I have a beautiful river tug from Train Troll to build and this is the perfect location for that.  Trains that are done working at Town A follow the mainline to the right side of the layout and disappear off the modeled portion to what I call Town B.

Town B is intended to be slightly larger than Town A, and will house the unmodeled car shops for the railroad, a yard presumably for sorting out cars, and some company houses.  Trains will come to Town B, which is intended to be located on a sector plate, and then return to the modeled portion of the layout on the middle track in the drawing.

The ‘mainline’ of this layout entered from hidden Town B, and I had originally drawn in a truck dump not long after the track returned.  As you can see from the attached photo, I’ve moved this and drawn in the track grade just straight.  After some careful thought, I decided that switching on this grade was not necessarily a good idea.  The mainline will climb, a 2 or 3% depending on locomotive testing outcomes) the whole length of that track section, arriving at a wye track and then crossing a small bridge over Birch Creek and entering Town C.  

Town C will be up on top of some rather rugged cliffs that look down on the river below and Town A.  At Town C we’ll have a station and freight unloading track, a sawmill, and a set of coke ovens fed by Mine 1 (unmodeled).  Cars of coke can be then hauled from here to Town A for transport by the standard gauge railroad.  At the moment the tracks are drawn in sort of like a paw, but remember, I’ve drawn this plan on a piece of 18” x 11’ paper and I have 6” of space to play with as things are laid out in their final positions, so some of the tracks may be longer in the final plan.

Town C will also have a small store, a handful of company houses, and if there’s room, a small church.  

Leaving Town C, we head back to the right, and after crossing Birch Creek again, we take the rear fork of the wye and head up a little to the mines and logging area.  Here we have a truck-dump for Mines 3 & 4 that are intended to be implied as being located further up the mountains.  A track will also lead off to implied logging, so loaded log cars will be picked up and empties spotted on this line that disappears.  The very end of the line at the far right, will have a set of bings for coal taken from Mine 1 & 5, again further up the hills but close enough that the unmodeled mine cars can reach the bins.

The railroad will use small locomotive power, likely a Class A Shay and eventually an 18 ton Climax.  There will probably be a pair of boxcars, maybe a refrigerator car, one coach, and a couple of cabooses, two or three flat cars, a group of 6-8 log cars, and likely 10-15 hoppers to run this layout.  Everything is intended to be small.

I plan to use magnets uncoupling, employing the Rapido Rail crew uncouplers, servo’s for turnout control, and touch-toggles along the fascia for operator input.  With everything being small, and condensed, I want to try and limit reach-in for operators, especially since this is the upper deck and bumping into structures of scenery may happen.

I should point out a couple of small operational notes here.  Nowhere on the plan have I indicated a coaling facility for the locomotives, nor have I indicated a water tank, or a sanding tower.  Sand will be brought in bagged and can be loaded into locomotives by hand.  That’ll be hauled to Town B where the shops are.  Water will come via hose attached to the locomotive and dropped into Birch Creek. This was a common practice on some logging and other specialized railroads with Shay’s and other geared locomotives, I’ve seen it in prototype photos, and plan to make it part of the operations on this layout.  I most likely will try and find wood-burner locomotives, allowing me to fuel the motive power from wood piles brought out of the woods.  Any kind of coaling would be done at Town B if a coal-burner is procured.

With plans now made, and crystalizing, it’s time to move to the construction portion of this project to really get some trains running this year.

-Jeremy