friscobobs-boomer-trail

Construction
For this layout, I made adeparture from the usual tabletop or sectional-type railroads &’ve builtover the years, and went with a shelf design. The remodeling I’ve been doing onmy home left me with several spare hollow-core doors, some as narrow as 18 inches,so benchwork was no problem (and cheap, too). I installed heavy-duty shelfbrackets to the walls of the room, using a stud finder to locate the wall studs& an impact driver to fasten the brackets. On ...

Modeling the Friscoin a small space


Or, My Trials &Tribulations in Building an HO Scale Model Railroad depicting Paris (Texas,that is…..)

paristxawfultower.jpg

Introduction
I’ve been involved on & off inmodel railroading for almost 40 years, mostly in HO scale. For the last fewyears, however, I had to resort to N scale to satisfy my modeling jones. I evenwent so far ...

For the past few years I have mulled over the idea of using DCC on the next layout I build. The last one I had, an N scale line on a hollow-core door, was the last one to utilize DC cab control (two power packs plus cab selectors and block wiring).

I am a member of the Tulsa Area Layout Operations Group on Yahoo, and as such I've been privileged to operate & see many fine model railroads in the Tulsa, OK area- the major single thing making them alike was that they are wired for ...

Back when I lived north of Paris, Texas, I had a layout based on the Frisco's Miami (OK) Branch, itself part of the former Northeast Oklahoma RR. It served the customers in Miami,most notably the large B.F. Goodrich tire plant.

Since then, I've been wanting to build another HO layout, but due to space considerations I found myself restricted to either a branch or a terminating city. As a member of the Frisco group, I felt obliged to do a town on the Central Subdivision, most notably ...

Last year the missus and I joined the ranks of homeowners and bought a 3- bedroom, 2-bathroom ranch-style house on the south side of Muskogee. It had not been lived in for 2 years, and was in foreclosure due to back loan payments. For the princely sum of 17,000 dollars, we paid the easy way- 100% down, nothing else to pay It's a fixer-upper, and we got it up to where we could move in while we remodel the place.

Naturally, the resident model railroader (me ) was already scouting ...

Naturally, one of the first things I check out in any place I'm at is the location of the local railroad action. Besides the UP's ex-MKT line and BNSF's ex-Frisco trackage here in Muskogee, up the road a ways in Wagoner there's a pretty decent place to capture UP action.

Wagoner, county seat of Wagoner County (funny how that works out) is a community of about 7700 folks 50 miles southeast of Tulsa, OK, and about 15 miles north of Muskogee. It sits at the crossing of the former Katy ...

After catching all this action, I headed back into Haslet and down the highway until I could get to a road that got me back over to 35West. Once I hit the I-road, I continued south to I-820 (the loop road around Ft. Worth, and took it west to Business Rt. 287 North. Getting off there, I headed up 287 a little ways to the former Santa Fe Saginaw yard office, where I saw this combination finishing up switching chores for the shift:

...

Still more shots for you from Alliance:



SD40-2 7819, obviously of BN heritage, and behind it what may be an SD60M- I'm not sure, just guessing based on the road number (8116).



Junk carrying junk.....lol.......you gotta admit- it would make a great feature for a model railroad. My guesss ...

After getting these captured on pixel (??), I hopped back in my truck & followed the road under the tracks to see what else I could find. Lo and behold, a 3 unit power consist was being turned on the wye. The sun was at the right angle (west side, afternoon), si I skidded to a stop, hopped out, and took these shots:



C40-8W 939 in the new "Power Bar" scheme & logo was leading ...

This last Saturday was clear, sunny, cloudless, and fairly warm, so to take advatage (and to get out of the house before the pressures got to me), I took my camera, some munchies, and headed southwest to see what action I could find at Saginaw and Alliance Yard. I had been to Saginaw several times, and it's my favorite Texas rail hotspot (also the most accessible & railfan-friendly), but had never been to Alliance.

It's a fairly new yard not far from the small community of Haslet, ...

As I mentioned in my FUBAR Road Trip post, I was back in Sherman for family business. Well, it can be revealed- I went back for job interviews at Wilson N. Jones Medical Center in Sherman, and Harris Methodist Medical Center down in Ft. Worth (well, OK, I did a little shooting at Saginaw in between, but that's another story). LAte Friday afternoon I got a call from WNJ's HR director asking me if I was still interested, but since I was at work, and cellphone reception in this crazy town is sucky ...

Thus spake the missus.

So, after some considerations and not a lot of scribbling, I've decided to gather more materials (I've already had cars, diesels & track) for the construction of an N scale Frisco layout. Yes, it'll be Frisco- a secondary line somewhere. No, not too sure where, but with the rolling stock I have, I'm leaning toward something representing the former Ardmore & Arkinda Sub between Hope, AR and Lakeside, OK, in a time period before the arrival of the GP15s ...

This is the HOG line looking southwest. About 1/2 mile ahead, it'll swing off to the right, passing Norbord (maker of OSB sheets) to the right- one of its shippers. A spur goes on southwest- a remnant of a track that used to go to Albany. It's used for car storage, and some of the cars have been there long enough to get entangled in kudzu. Don't let that vegetation fool you- the tracks are in good shape. ...

Here's some pics of the crossings at Cordele to give you an idea of what things look like:



Looking south on the NS main. I'm standing on the siding here. NS's track is 132 lb. rail on wood ties, and in excellent shape. This is MP 64.5 on the GS&F North District between Macon and Valdosta. To my left is the place I was telling you about, which is on the site of the former deopt, torn down ...

This is a link to the GS&F North timetable, while here is a link to the CSX Fitz Sub. Both can be found at this awesome site owned & operated by Joe Hill. I used info from his website to railfan the NS in & around Macon last summer, and I recommend it highly.

Everything else I kinda figured out by detective work, guessing, and SDL (Sheer Dumb Luck).

Should you wish to eat or stay in Cordele, all of the good restaurants and lodging is on US280 near the ...