http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/blog.php?581-The-Gulf-and-Ohio-Midland TrainBoard.com: Discussion forums and message boards for everything railroading. Featuring forums for specific railroads, all scales of model railroading, and anything related to trains and railroads. en Sat, 25 May 2013 15:08:01 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/blog.php?581-The-Gulf-and-Ohio-Midland http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2787-Little-Kanawha-River-Railroad Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:01:37 GMT “The Little Kanawha Railroad Company was organized on the 29th day of April 1896, by S.L. Gould, Edward McCreary, William Bentley, W.A. McCosh and J.... “The Little Kanawha Railroad Company was organized on the 29th day of April 1896, by S.L. Gould, Edward McCreary, William Bentley, W.A. McCosh and J. Henry Fischer, business men of Parkersburg, for the purpose of constructing and operating a railroad, to commence at or near Parkersburg and run up the Little Kanawha River by the most practicable route to a point at or near Burnsville in Braxton County.

“The Little Kanawha Railroad was organized and originally projected from Parkersburg to Burnsville, primarily to reach about 75,000 to 80,000 acres of coal lands lying in the eastern part of Gilmer County, the northwestern part of Braxton County and the southwestern part of Lewis County and to establish a connection with the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Railroad at Burnsville.

“The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission of 1915 found that the Little Kanawha Railroad was acquired in order to obtain coal properties in Gilmer, Braxton and Lewis counties, in West Virginia and operated at a loss after 1906.”¹

“The Little Kanawha Railroad extended from Placid Station in Wood County through Slate, Elizabeth, Palestine to the terminus at Owensport, West Virginia. Shipments were transferred from trains to boats at Owensport for transportation up the Little Kanawha River.

“With the development of highway transportation, the owners of a railroad were enabled to dispose of an unprofitable, debt-producing property, and the Little Kanawha Rail Line was permitted to abandon November 9, 1933.”²

Our grandfather Ivan Clarke Owens wrote to his daughter Betty this anecdote about the maiden voyage of the mail train. “Some years previous to this time, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad established a branch line from Parkersburg, up the Little Kanawha River, which was planned to reach the coalfields in the northern section of West Virginia. Approximately 30 miles of the road were completed, but for some unknown reason, the road ended at Palestine, West Virginia, with an extra mile taking it to a little place called Owensport.

“With regard to the train, an amusing story should be told here, but I can in no way vouch for its happening. It was the train’s maiden voyage from Parkersburg to Owensport, stopping of course at every little station. At Palestine, the population was much greater than at the present. In addition, many rural people were on hand to see the train. The result was a gathering of perhaps several hundred. Thinking to amuse the people, the engineer turned loose a large blast of steam, blew his whistle, rang the bell, and, sticking his head out the window, yelled to the crowd, ‘Look out! I’m going to turn around.’ He said within three minutes, there wasn’t a human being in sight.”
1. Report of Chairman Interstate Commerce Commission. Little Kanawha Railroad Company. Senate Doc. No. 12.Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915.
2. Gray, Harold, and M.W. English. “Along West Virginia’s Highway No. 14.” The Highway The Motor Vehicle and The Community. Washington: National Highway Users Conference, 1938.

http://http://littlekanawhariverlock...g/?page_id=956 ]]> http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2787-Little-Kanawha-River-Railroad http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2716-A-cup-of-tea-please-with-dirt-on-the-side! Mon, 07 May 2012 21:20:26 GMT I cannot take credit for this scenery tip,as others have done this before me. Just wanted to share with my readers. I was inspired by scenery... I cannot take credit for this scenery tip,as others have done this before me. Just wanted to share with my readers.

I was inspired by scenery techniques but various contributors at Trainboard.com to use tea leaves and natural dirt material for ground cover. Tea leaves, you ask? Yessir, tea leaves! I found Lipton loose tea leaves for $4.18 for a 1/2 pound box at my local grocer., so I bought two boxes. We will come back to the tea leaves later..

For the natural earth material I simple went to my recently tilled flower bed and scooped up some material in a bucket. This material was already very dry, so moisture was not an issue. Crush clumps of material in an old bowl using something round, like the handle of a screw driver, or if you have an old mortar and pestle, that will work too.

Small (hand-fulls) scoops of material were screened over a hand made sieve. I made my sieve out of a frame of scrap wood and attaching (in my case, stapling) old metal window screen to the bottom of the scrap wood frame. The window screen was equivalent of an AASHTO #16 Sieve, which is a pretty fine sieve. (16 holes per linear inch, 256 per s.i.)



The resulting material passing through the sieve was a fine earth material perfect for steep embankments and woodland ground cover, which I am showing you here.



Back to the tea leaves. Crush the tea leaves in a bowl in the same was as you also broke down dirt clumps during the sieving process. the tea leaves and dirt material can be mixed together in a separate bowl in increments as needed and spread out over a scenery glue medium.

The results turn out really well, I hope this helps folks out there in search of cheap fall/winter scenery.

]]> http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2716-A-cup-of-tea-please-with-dirt-on-the-side! http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2608-Ballast-and-Switches Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:14:05 GMT I haven't updated my blog for a good while, so it is time for another update!

The entire yard has been ballasted with old ballast I had on hand that had been in storage for years. The yard tracks are ballasted with Woodland Scenics Dark Fine Ballast, the Main track and the runaround ballasted with Medium Gray Fine Ballast. I used a 1/3 Water, 1/3 Rubbing Alcohol, 1/3 Matte Medium mixture for gluing ballast down. This worked very well for me. I intentionally let some of the painted road bed show on the yard tracks to help show the lack of maintenance. These areas will be painted black later to look like muddy areas of ballast due to poor drainage.



The four yard tracks are only accessible from one end, to replicate several prototype situations I laid Code 55 rail towards the ends of the yard tracks and Code 70 through the switches and the yard lead, this poorly maintained yard with light rail is really beginning to look the part.



I am also hand laying all of the yard switches in Code 70 using Central Valley's #5 switch kits. I had some difficulty assembling the first one, especially soldering rails together for the frog. Practice makes perfect!



First completed switch in the yard, there are three others that are now complete as of this writing.



A lot of different power in the yard today including Seaboard Coast Line GP7 #1027, a dirty Pennsylvania GP30 #2203 and Chicago & Eastern Illinois F3A #1200.



I am now in the planning stages of levels #2 and #3 and an elevator to allow trains to depart the yard on the bottom level and arrive at the top without climbing a 12% grade. This room is 4' by 10'



The next blog probably wont come until the new year, so I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year! ]]> http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2608-Ballast-and-Switches http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2564-Weathering-Ties Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:14:03 GMT I posted in the How To forum about how to weathering ties with acrylic paints. I wont go into as much detail, mostly just a short picture show.... I posted in the How To forum about how to weathering ties with acrylic paints. I wont go into as much detail, mostly just a short picture show. Enjoy!




I killed off about 3 or 4 hours of my day and hand painted every last tie plate in the entire yard. The results were worth it!




May ballast tomorrow if I can round up enough glue. We'll see. Might at least spread it out and have it ready for the spray water/ thinned glue system. ]]> http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2564-Weathering-Ties http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2562-Tie-Strip-Progress Tue, 20 Sep 2011 01:37:06 GMT Since my last update I completed the roadbed installation and painted this section of the layout according to the plan I mention in my last post. ... Since my last update I completed the roadbed installation and painted this section of the layout according to the plan I mention in my last post.

In this posting I am documenting the placement of the Central Valley 9' Main line and 8' Branch line ties. I began by placing the switch tie strips for the switch kits. In this section of the layout all of the switches are #5 Code 83 or Code 70 switches. The Code 83 switches will be used on the cross over from the Main and the Arrival/Departure Run-around track. The switches for the yard tracks will all be laid as Code 70.

After the switches were glued down the tie strip ends were glued together in a long "ribbon" of ties. A light application of wood glue was applied to the road bed and the tie strips were flopped over onto the road bed and aligned. Push pins held the ties into place until the glue set up.




Next up: Soldering feeders to rail sections and switch kit assemblies. ]]> http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2562-Tie-Strip-Progress http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2555-G-amp-OM-Little-Kanawha-Secondary-Benchwork-amp-Roadbed Mon, 12 Sep 2011 01:34:00 GMT In May, I purchased two sets of bi-fold doors to use as bench work for the Gulf & Ohio Midland Little Kanawha Secondary. Each door section was 18" by 80", perfect for the shelf layout I planned. I also located some 8 by 6 metal shelf brackets at a local tool and hardware sale.

I used a stud finder and located the studs in the walls the bench work would be attached to, and measured the spacings. I then marked on the under side of the doors the spacing of the studs I had located and measured. Doing this allowed me to install the shelf brackets on the underside of the door to allow for an easier installation.


After all of the shelf brackets were installed, I painted the underside with flat latex paint tinted to Valspar's "Silver Leaf". A misty, light gray to give the appearance of a cloudy, spring day. The walls in the layout room are also painted this same color.


The layout sat for a while over the summer with other house project going on until early August. I discovered 13" flourescent light fixtures design to fit under cabinets at Wal-Mart for 9.77 each, they were linkable up to 8 in a series, a little pricey but it was worth not having to do any fancy wiring. (See lights in action below)

After posting a couple pictures in a recent edition of "Weekend Photo Fun", I was unsatisfied with the quality and quantity of light being put out. These were only 8-watt bulbs, so I had to space these fixtures closer. I moved the existing fixtures to the left, angled the first in the series into the corner and added two more fixtures. Problem solved, I didn't have any more dark areas against the back drop or on the layout.


As you can see in the above photo, I also have foam board insulation and road bed installed. More on the roadbed in a moment.
I priced foam board insulation online at Home Depot's and Lowe's websites. Home Depot had just slightly better prices on the foam board insulation. I picked up a sheet of 2" and a sheet of 1" foam. I used the one inch board on the bottom level because the height is moderately short between the bottom and middle shelves, and I won't have any streams or major elevation changes on this level.

For roadbed I am using 5.3mm (approx. 1/4") lauan plywood. This material came recommended to me by a friend who has been in the hobby 30+ years and hand-laid miles and miles of track over the years. The lauan plywood will hold scale spikes for hand-laying very well. I cut the lauan to be 1/4" wider than the Central Valley tie strips, 1/8" wider on each side. Each strip was cut to 1-1/2" wide and glued to the foam with wood glue and weighed down until the glue set up.


I will be painting the roadbed and the foam in the next day or two. The paint I picked out was actually from the mis-tint rack in the Lowe's paint center. The two smaller sample jars (below) were 1/2 price for a really dark green and a dark dirty brown, great for scenery base colors. The whole yard pictured above will probably be painted with the brown and road bed painted with the dark gray in the larger can. The bigger can was cut from $12.48 to $2.50 for mis-tint. This dark gray is nearly spot on for the coal slag railroads in the Appalachians commonly used for sub grade underneath the ballast.



I received my Central Valley switch kits, mainline tie strips and branchline tie strips. I have Micro Engineering weathered Code 83, Code 70 and Code 55 rail on the way, expected to be delivered this week. I will be using Code 83 on the main line, all passing sidings and non-main track switches will be Code 70 and the ends of the stub tracks will be in Code 55.

That is all for this installment. I will try to stay on top of this blog and keep the updates coming. Thanks for reading! ]]> http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2555-G-amp-OM-Little-Kanawha-Secondary-Benchwork-amp-Roadbed http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2252-Starting-Over Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:36:06 GMT A couple of years ago I started this blog following the construction of the Gulf & Ohio Midland. I let the blog go by the wayside over the last couple years and much has changed since then.

My wife and I closed on a 1,300 SF home with 2-car garage today and we will be working over the next 3 to 4 weeks fixing a few things and painting a lot of walls. We are very happy with our new home purchase but it lacks one essential elemnt for any model railroader.... there is no basement!

Sure, it IS a 3 bedroom ranch but we are planning on having kids in another year and a half or two years. Why build a layout in a bedroom to have to take it back down within 5 years? Well, it only leaves me with one option.

The previous owner of our home completely remodeled the whole house but left one small "room" (or a "large closet" might be more applicable here) completely unfinished... no drywall and no insulation. A 4' x 10' room that I can do anything I want to in.

My goal, over time, is to show progress of my closet railroad. Three levels of handlaid track and switches, scratchbuilt buildings and aspects of railroading not often modeled. Now, I won't be modeling to Proto:87 levels but I am aiming for detail and realism since I can't railroad on a grander scale in such limited space.

My plan is to have the top two levels of the layout to be on one wall as 18" by 6' shelves. Both levels will tie in to a 4' x 4' helix built into the back of the room. The bottom level will have a 18" wide shelf that will run from the bottom of the helix out to a work desk where I can repair cars and construct kits. The work desk would be "behind" a locomotive facility and be like a car shop for Bad Order cars.

On paper it seems like a good idea. I hope to draw up and more complete plan for each level and have something to present for discussion and criticism at a future date.

Thanks for reading! ]]> http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2252-Starting-Over