Thoughts on Modeling Prototype Trains

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

WKRP We’re in Cincinnati

Posted on by jkdummler

Let’s walk through my track plan for the Norfolk & Western in Cincinnati, OH.  The research on the industries found on early 1920’s Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, and my interest in certain industries found there has coalesced into this plan.  I know that some are re-arranged from their actual historical placement in Cincinnati, and I’ve deleted tracks from some of these in order to fit them into the 2’x11’ space, but after spending some time with the track plan and sorting out what fit, I think this will provide a great deal of interest and operation for visitors to see and a crew of two or three to operate for an evening.

We’ll start in the East and work to the West.

East end of Norwood. (Note: The N&W station kit is in use as a place holder, it is not intended for this location).

East end staging, essentially the line to Portsmouth, OH, is intended to be a transfer table.  Most likely, that kind of arrangement can handle 6 tracks, about 4’ long each.  The transfer will need to also be available as part of the lead to one of the industrial tracks that reaches to the rear of the layout, so it’s important to the operation of the layout.  

The N&W Station at Court Street, Cincinnati, OH. From Hamilton County Ohio Railroad Stations

Just as trains enter the Norwood scene (because the vast majority of these industries are based on the Norwood section of Cincinnati), they will pass a location where I intend to have a passenger station, maybe just the platform with the rest of the station suggested as off the layout to the East.  I’d like to include a model of a N&W station here, and that might be possible.  If I scratch build a model, it will be of the station that was at Court Street on the O&N RR (a N&W subsidiary) and the CL&N (a PRR subsidiary).  The famous Cincinnati Union Terminal (you’d know it as the Hall of Justice if you were a Saturday morning cartoon fan and watched the DC super hero’s battle the Legion of Doom) was not yet completed in 1927.

Just past the passenger station, there is a split South onto a long passing track that also serves as a house track, and an industrial spur that continues to the East.  Behind the passenger station is a large freight house and team yard.  The general layout is based on a conglomeration of photos, some from the ERIE, some from the DL&W, and the Sanborn map from Cincinnati showing the CL&N RR freight house with two tracks further into the city.  The N&W Ohio prototype would have to be the freight house in Columbus, OH.  The N&W did have a freight station in Norwood, so I feel at least a little justified in adding this feature.

The center of the plan includes a large open space.  I haven’t yet sorted out what to put here, but I may include just some empty lots and a road.  The Norwood area appears to have had some empty open space near the tracks according to the maps, and that might be important with some of the industrial clutter.  Along the back of the plan at the center will stand the Victor Safe & Cabinet Company.  This massive manufacturer of fine safes and wood office furniture has been compressed to fit here.  I’ll include a spot to unload coal for the plant and a smoke stack, shipping dock, and I’m going to try and include an overhead crane to unload steel product and lumber for making the goods shipped out.

Moving further to the West, we find a crossover on the house/passing track, and the center of the layout is occupied by a brick factory.  This is based on the inclusion of the Cincinnati Cement Products Co.  The prototype was founded in 1910 in Norwood and vanished some time in the 1930’s.  Behind the brick factory, the Rebhun Last Co. makers of shoe lasts, will be represented.  This company had a spur extended by the N&W that serviced a large varnish and paint factory so they could also be rail served.  Lumber and metal stampings will come in, shoe lasts will go out.

Finally reaching the West end of the layout, the front of the layout will be occupied by the Glob Soap Co. (relocated from elsewhere in Cincinnati).  This company will receive chemicals in boxcars and tank cars, and ship out finished soap products.  The spur is long, so if there is room, a small lumber yard may be added here, but that will be determined later once the soap company is built.  The passing/house track come back to the mainline here, and then there is a spur that comes from down by the Cincinnati Cement Products Co. and will service the J.P. Humphries & Co. Contractors facility.  This company, from what I’ve found so far, was receiving road building and other construction materials by rail from the N&W.  Behind the contractor yard, the R.K. LeBlond Machine Tool Co., again greatly compressed, will stand, moving in from the East, and making automated lathes and tooling.  Coal will be delivered, steel, oils, and giant machines will move out.  

The mainline will exit to the West here, again to another transfer table.  The line will connect to the PRR, B&O, and CCC&STL this direction.

I’ve been working out traffic flows here that include the possibility of passenger trains running both directions, interchange coming on from the West and dropping off or picking up from the passing/house track, freight running both directions, and lots of switching.  The industries I’ve picked should get an immense amount of freight for such a small layout, and cars may need to be switched more than once in an operating session to keep things moving, especially at the freight house where the crews may have reefers on one track that need to be switched for poultry cars that need to be switched for something else.  The plan should keep a crew busy for at least a few hours, which is all I expect.  Interesting movements will be required to gain access to some spots, and that will add to the fun of switching this area.

-Jeremy

A Little Progress All Around

Posted on by jkdummler

I don’t have a huge update this week, it’s been rough recovering from the polar vortex that hit the Midwest a few weeks back, and winter isn’t over.

However, some progress has been made, however small, on multiple projects.

Benchwork in the ‘office’. The sections are in the house and no longer in the garage. Some adjusting and additions are necessary. If you look closely, you’ll see some HOn3 flex track is here too and it’s stacked on top of the rear section (upper left)

The benchwork moved from the garage into the house in the last week.  Benchwork?  Well, yes!  I had purchased benchwork pieces from modelrailraodbenchwork.com last year to replace the things that were torn down when my supreme failure happened and I cut up the last layout attempt.  One of the reasons the new plans are 11’ long is that the benchwork sections that I have will make an 11’x2’ layout in a 5’ and 6’ piece to fit in storage. It’s going to take a bit before it’s possible to work on adjusting things, and I need to get some plywood again to finish things out, but test-fitting things into the closet proved that the storage idea will work.

A 3D printed HOn3 hopper, printed at Shapeways. Modeled by Narrow Gauge Creations.

A test for a narrow gauge hopper arrived this week from Shapeways.  The 3D printing technology is an up and coming tool in modeling, and we are starting to see more and more models that are either wholly or partly 3D printed.  While I have, as I previously wrote, a pair of injection and brass cars to build for the narrow gauge line, the idea of using 3D printed cars, with their light weight and decent detail, is greatly appealing.  I probably won’t need more than 25 total cars on that layout ever, including hoppers, log cars, flats, boxcars, tank cars, and anything else.  The light weight of the cars will make it easier for the small locomotives that I want to use to pull trains.

Speaking of pulling trains, after doing some research on couplers in HOn3, I decided that I would try using Kadee #153 “whisker” couplers.  Kadee has a narrow and a rounded coupler box that they sell separately.  I’ll be experimenting with those boxes.  I may also experiment with the Accurail couplers that I moved to for the standard gauge equipment that I’m building.  

After long researching DCC systems, I finally narrowed my choices down to two systems and then the decision was made for me as I received a system as a gift.  My choices were either Lenz or Digitrax, and the system that I’ll be using is the Digitrax Zeyphr.  I’ll add the right components to be able to operate using a throttle on a phone or tablet.  One system should be able to handle running both decks of the layout without much challenge as 3 locomotives moving, maybe 4, is a busy time,  I got lots of input from friends who deal in DCC that was greatly appreciated.

One thing I’ve learned about modeling recently.  I love, really love, building accurate models of prototypes.  That’s why the YV, the N&W, and all the freight equipment winds up being heavily researched and detailed as correctly as I possibly can.  However, as it gets harder and harder to see to read the lettering on cars, the idea of modeling on a system that has no interchange, that only might need to add a car number, maybe a reporting mark, is really appealing.  I can see to do the details better than read the decals and numbers and lettering sometimes, and it’s really refreshing to know that I can complete a project without a vision struggle like that.  I’m not saying that the Cincinnati portion of this project, the N&W portion of the project, is going to suffer.  I always have found a way.  It’s just nice to know I can build things without that ‘stress’ on my eyes.

The weekend ahead here holds some more snow and cold, but we’ll be working on structure assignments to locations, more research, and modeling fun. 

-Jeremy

And now for something completely different…..

Posted on by jkdummler

10 or so years ago, my friend Dennis and I were driving from the Sacramento area to Reno for a layout tour weekend, and we were discussing our modeling interests.  I mentioned that I could “easily” be a narrow gauge modeler because I loved the small size of the trains, the narrow rails, and the scenery that many of the prototype narrow gauge lines ran through.  Dennis remarked “maybe you should model the Yosemite Valley as if it had been narrow gauge and build in On30?”

No, we’re not changing scales.  To spite the fact that I really enjoy watching videos of On3 and On30 layouts, and the fantastic work those folks do, there just isn’t room to go bigger in scale, and I’m comfortable in HO.

However….

The Norfolk & Western actually purchased and operated a formerly narrow gauge line, the Cincinnati & Eastern Railway.  (http://www.jjakucyk.com/transit/nw.html).  I found that fascinating to find out while I was gathering resources on Cincinnati, and decided to see if there were any N&W narrow gauge lines or lines that connected to the N&W in West Virginia.  I found two lines in West Virginia, the Twin Mountain & Potomac RR, and the Mann’s Creek RR.  

I’ve resisted the narrow gauge “bug” for years.  It’s not only the comment from Dennis that made me consider narrow gauge.  I’ve ridden on several narrow gauge railroads, like the White Pass & Yukon in Alaska, and my favorite, the Roaring Camp & Big Trees in Felton, California with fond memories.  I’ve researched the West Side, operated on at least one model railroad of that railroad, and enjoyed the experience.  I’ve read about the Nevada County Narrow Gauge and watched segments about that on Sierra Short Lines Volume 2 DVD (https://www.amazon.com/Sierra-Shortlines-Yosemite-Valley-Railroad/dp/1909358266).  

TM&PRR 4-6-0. (Found on the internet)

So, looking at railroads like the Twin Mountain & Potomac is a lot of fun.  The TM&P was a fruit hauler, with 4-6-0’s, so that doesn’t really grab me and make me say “I need to model that”, though if you’re looking for a railroad that would be a great inspiration for an On30 railroad, it would be easy to build with some of the offerings from Bachmann.  (Note:  There is a great article on the TM&P in the Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine, from October, 2016.  https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/mrh2016-10-oct/lite-narrow)

On the other hand, the Mann’s Creek Railroad hauled coal and coke, along with lumber.  While the prototype connected to the C&O at Sewell, West Virginia, the fact that it was hauling coal warranted more investigation.  I located two books that discuss the Mann’s River Railroad, one on Sewell, WV and the other specifically on the railroad.  With those in hand, I set out to find out if the home-built wood hoppers that appear to be a signature feature of the Mann’s Creek were available ever in HO scale, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had been.  After securing a copy of two in kit, I now plan to build them, and possibly scratch-build the other cars that I would need to operate a layout in styrene. 

Mann’s Creek Railroad shay (Author’s Collection)

So, setting out once again with paper templates, I decided to find out if I could fit an operating HOn3 railroad, including a spot to trainload to a standard gauge line, at least 1 switch-back,, several spots to load coal, coke ovens, and logging.

Once again, using the 18” wide paper I cut another 11’ long section, knowing that if I draw to the edges, I have clearance to play with when actually building.

We’ll start on the right hand side of this plan, working at a small town that is located along a slow moving river and has a connection to the Norfolk & Western.  There is, in the center, a run-around track.  On the top portion of that track, a covered car-dump will be located to unload hoppers coming down the line and then conveyor the loads off the modeled portion of the layout to load standard gauge cars.  To the left, there is a tail track in the center, the track closest to the front of the layout (bottom) will be used as a transload/transfer track with a small freight house most likely located here as well.  The longer track toward the top will serve a small warf intended to load coal and coke onto river barges.

To the right side, a small area for an equipment storage track, and I drew in two potential tracks for an engine house.  That may become one track, but we’ll see depending on locomotive procurement.

If you follow the tracks, you’ll see that the “mainline” leaves the layout to the right.  This is intended to reach a sector-plate that will move the trains from the small yard/town onto the climbing mainline that runs from right to left, running through the center of the track plan.

As that mainline climbs, there is a spur that will include a truck-dump for loading one or two hoppers.  The mainline will climb at a likely 3% to the left, where we reach a wye, and head across a bridge into the second small community modeled.  Here there will again be a small freight station, a sawmill, and this is a likely location for some beehive coke ovens along with company houses for mine workers and their families.

Running back along the mainline and taking the wye to the top of the plan, the line will then reach a spur that is intended to have log cars spotted, with the insinuation that they are hauled further for loading.  On the far right, we’ll probably locate a coal mine with room for loading as many hoppers as possible.

We still have to assign structure kits to specific locations, but that’s coming shortly.  At the moment, we own 2 hoppers and that’s it, as far as rolling stock goes, and we’re on the hunt for a shay to power the line, but some HOn3 flex track has been ordered.  Once we have the track, and get a locomotive, and get a few cars built, we can verify the grade to operate the layout, and then get building.

A view of the whole railroad, standing where the sector plate will be.

Oh…. And what space does this occupy?

The model of Cincinnati is 2×11, and the narrow gauge railroad is also 2×11, so they occupy the same space.  They’ll stack.  I’m considering, because there are two railroads with operators at them at the same time, building them mushroom style.

The next step is assign the structures to both layouts, and then get the benchwork adjusted and moving.

-JD

Switching Cincinnati: Track Plan

Posted on by jkdummler

My first instinct in planning smaller, after the description of why we need to go smaller, was to freak out again.  I’ve planned and re-planned a layout so many times here in the last few years, getting going on that again seemed like a daunting task.

However, my wife, with one statement, brought it into focus with what to do.  We both have loved the research of Cincinnati, OH and the N&W there, so her suggestion was “draw that”.  

Ok.

Without worrying about connecting to anything else, I sat down and used some inspiration from “48 Top Notch Track Plans” by Bod Hayden, and the ‘Third Street Industrial District’ layout presented within to get started.  I find often that making changes to published plans lets me envision more quickly what will and won’t fit in a space.

The agreed space is 2’ deep and 11’ long.  This will be broken into 2 pieces, a 5’ long and a 6’ long section.  Call it modular, call it ‘TOMA’, call it whatever, this is what fits in the space available to store a layout.  On either end there will be a 3’ transfer table attached so the layout will be 17’ long when fully set up.  

Working from East to West along the new plan:

You enter from a transfer table-style staging in the lower right and pass a passenger station.  There are two long tracks, mainline and passing track, but the passing track has a crossover allowing for a “house track” use of some of that space.  If you go just above the station, there are two tracks there to serve a large freight house and team yard..  Back to the mainline, and on the left side of the plan, a switchback industrial area for a few industries, and in the lower left, a long siding or another large industry.  The track that cuts through the center of the plan reaches more industries at the rear.  they look close to that edge on both top and bottom, but the paper is 18 and the layout is 24 deep, so there’s room.  The mainline exists to the West onto another transfer table.

There is some additional planning to do, so stay tuned.  We need to assign locations to structures, but that’ll be fun to sit down and do over the upcoming weekend.

This solves quite a few issues as well.  I’ve written before about the 1927 coal fleet of the N&W and how hard that is to model without extensive use of stand-ins.  While I still plan to have coal running, because it ran through headed West, the number of cars hauling coal that I need falls greatly with this plan for Cincinnati.  Also, the abandonment of the need for a continuous running loop means that the layout fits in a smaller space, and I can still set it up myself, without help, if I need to.  There are places for the boxcars, tank cars, and other equipment that we’ve started building, and the more urban structures that we have and want to build fit, with more room to add additional models.  This plan also, you’ll note, does not have a classic yard, meaning trains will arrive blocked from staging and any sorting that needs to be done will be done between the main and the passing track here.

An overall view, looking “East” from the “West” end of our Cincinnati-based layout.

We still plan to operate through trains, interchange trains, the local that will do the majority of the work, and passenger trains.  It’s going to be a busy layout.

What about the coal mines and coal hauling?

We’re addressing that too.  I’ll explain that in another post shortly.

-JD

Ever-shrinking layout space

Posted on by jkdummler

Ever-shrinking layout space.  The bane of any model railroader’s plans.

It’s over 10 years ago now that I started building a version of the Yosemite Valley Railroad in a 3 car garage at a house out in the Central Valley of California.  That layout didn’t get terribly far, though trains ran in Merced.

Last year, in a bout of optimism, I launched plans to build a good sized layout in our garage based on an Iian Rice layout optimized for coal hauling. When the physical construction fell apart there, we once again returned to plans, through sever iterations, to build in that same space, in the garage.

In hindsight, we probably should have changed that plan immediately because of some of the reasons that the physical construction started to fail, but the fact that the concrete floor was sweating in the summer heat didn’t really register as ‘much’ of an issue at that point, nor did the invasion of mosquitos any time the garage door was open.  A swamp cooler, maybe some removable netting, and things would maybe be OK.

Right.

Then, Illinois decided this last week and into the coming week to remind us that we live in Northern Illinois which is, I think, forecast to be as cold as the North Pole for a few days, with wind, blowing snow, and other ick.  Then there’s all the stuff that falls off the car that anything in the garage has to share with in the form of slop, muck, dirt, and when all the dries, this extremely fine dust full of corrosive salt and snow/ice fighting chemicals and general grime.  If you’re ever wondering how stuff gets grimy on a railroad, look at a car in the winter.  The same thing hits trains.

Several things do NOT fare well in that environment.  Wires, track, electronics, locomotives, scenery…. All the stuff that goes into building a model railroad…. benchwork…. It’s just not an environment that is in the least bit friendly to a layout.

I should have known better from the get-go.

When we both looked at each other one afternoon and started to say the same thing about needing to move the layout inside, the plans for even the scaled down 4.5 x16 layout we were getting close to sharing a plan for went away.  There isn’t room for that in the house.  

The search for layout space in the house has been conducted before.  It’s not ever been extremely fruitful.  There are limited spaces to house anything inside with a family of growing teenagers, even in 1800 or so square feet.  The options really come down to storing a layout in the master bedroom, where nobody visiting would ever see it or operate it, the laundry room, which is upstairs but already is string with the airbrush and painting equipment, or finding a way to fit the layout into the closet we refer to as the “office” where our workshop currently is stored.

Ok, that’s workable.  Storage can be shuffled in the house to find room for the workshop, and if carefully planned, a layout can be built in sections that ca be moved in and out of that closet with some care.  The living space of our house is big enough to house a set-up layout for operating or work that also fits in that closet.  Can you feel the ideas forming?

So, we’re on now to a layout, inside the house, temperature controlled, space decided but still needing to be completely sorted out as we Spring Clean the rest of the house, and track plans, gotta have those.

What style of layout?  It’s going to have to be more “European” than “American”.  Many layouts in the US are larger affairs like what I’ve been planning.  I took this week and looked at more space-space-conscious layout builders and the fact that they tend to build layouts with big operations that run from staging solution, through a modeled scene, to staging solution. 

As one friend put it to me this week, it’s a good idea to build in the house. Maintenance and access will beat size of layout, especially when it comes to the fact that a layout in the garage will really only be useable or accessible here for about 4 out of 12 months due to weather.

I think he’s right. Time to finalize the new plans.

-JD

Getting a Jump On Operations: Paperwork Design 1

Posted on by jkdummler
The weekend was productive with 12 55 ton hoppers getting a great start, and a number of other cars getting some details added. With that kind of progress, it’s time to make some paperwork.

Operating a layout goes hand in hand with planning a layout in my mind.  Every layout has some kind of operation plan built in, be it the plan to run trains that the owner wants to just see run through scenery, switch industries, TT/TO, and any combination there of and more.  Planning for operating a layout comes along with the layout design because one must make sure there is room on the layout for the planned trains, and adjust either the layout or the operating plan accordingly during the design and construction phase.

The layout we’re working on really isn’t big enough to run much true TT/TO.  Some might argue that with me, and while I can run TT/TO, my personal preference is more laid-back operation with a 1:1 clock, time to switch, and time to get involved in the paperwork of the railroad, as that’s part of the model.  To that end, I’m a huge fan of lots of the information that Tony Koester and Tony Thompson have shared in the model railroad press and on blogs about realistic waybills.  The research to fill those kinds of waybills out is part of my personal fun.

A test location, close to what one side of our layout will have trackage wise, with every track named in order to facilitate making spotting instructions on waybills possible.

I know that Tony Thompson started out putting stickers with the car information on the clear envelopes (baseball card protectors) that he uses for holding the waybills.  I’ve thought about doing that same thing, but as the more realistic waybill systems have progressed, larger plastic pockets have been located and written about, and the advent of the ability to have a yardmaster re-route an empty car to a waiting shipper on the layout ideated of a car coming and going simply with a 4 cycle waybill system has emerged.  Tony Koester covered how that kind of system works in a video for the Model Railroader Video Plus site when discussing their Winston Salem Southbound project layout and operating it.  

The gist of the discussion is that an empty car is located by the yardmaster, and that person has a list of loads ready for shipping at online industries.  The yardmaster can then match an empty car moving through their yard and re-route it to that industry by slipping a new waybill into a pocket that is shorter than the original waybills, covering the routing information.  The one catch there has been that because the waybills typically include the shipping railroad information at the top, the shipping railroad information doesn’t change, and that’s just ignored.

A test waybill shows the car information at the top, the railroad shipping info, the routing, and other information that are typically included on the more realistic waybills. (You can see at the bottom that I need to get a paper cutter better than my own hand and scissors).

In developing my own waybills, I’ve chosen, prototypical or not, to shuffle some of the information on the waybills around.  I’ve moved the car information to the top of the waybill, allowing allowing for the shipping railroad and shipment information to be lower.  This means that when the yardmaster on our layout needs to reroute an empty car for loading, the new waybills can all read ‘Norfolk & Western’, have the correct railroad number (if I leave that on the waybills, I’m still hunting for an ARA listing to see if those were used before the AAR accounting rules). 

The resulting waybills fit nicely in the same plastic protectors that are now common to see on layouts using the more prototypical waybill system.

Now I have the ability to start creating waybills and routing for cars that I am building while waiting out the Winter cold for time to get back to the garage and layout building.

-JD