Hi all I am a returning modeller (and new member!) having been away for about 25 years (scary when I thought about it!). Now I am a parent, my son (3-1/2) has prompted me to return to the train shed through his interest in trains and my desire to keep him interested for years to come. I bought my first Model Railroader magazine in years and Zac (my boy) stole it off me and pored over the pages for about an hour! First, here are my restrictions: 1. My "train room" will be 3/4's of a bedroom. 2. I am renting so attaching things to walls is a no-no. 3. I will probably need to move it sooner rather than later 4. I will need to keep the interest of a 3-1/2 yr old, although my wife and daughter (5-1/2) are eager to assist with the layout. Anyways, I really like steam and would like to model either a coal mining or logging operation. The railroad would be purely mythical so I am free to decide why it exists. My questions are: Where can I find out info relating to coal/logging operations in the steam era? What exactly is the steam era related to these industries? What range of engines would I be looking at to pull it off? I may consider a transitional period where diesels were being introduced. Any suggestions with regard to actually building this thing given my "restrictions" above? I have looked at a number of layouts on the net and have tried (maybe not hard enough) to find out about the industries in question. Anyway, I have ranted enough - any help would be appreciated! Cheers Bruce Nordstrand [ 08. November 2003, 04:06: Message edited by: racedirector ]
Welcome! Reading your restrictions #2 and #3, you might consider using modular benchwork. You could adopt construction standards such as those proven by NTRAK. (Available on the 'Net.) With a solid and easily mobile base such as theirs, design lay track as you desire. Boxcab E50
I can't speak for coal railroads, but I do know a little about logging railroads in the Northwest. The steam era lasted until the 1950s, about the same as with most railroads. Logging railroads used a combination of geared and rod locomotives, depending on what was available when the railroad was shopping around. There were a lot of logging railroads throughout the region, so it's not too hard to find one to model, or to base your own railroad upon. There's a neat book containing the photographs of the photographer Kinsey, of the railroads in the Seattle area. If you want to know more, let me know and I'll try to find the title and a source for you. Also, Walthers has published a book in their logging series called Trains, Tracks & Tall Timber, written by Matt Coleman. It's got a lot of neat info on logging railroads and the industry in general. Walthers should still have it in stock, and you can get it through your LHS or from Terminal Hobby. Also, our own Paul Templar is a great resource of logging railroads. His work over the past decade is simply amazing. Do a search on this forum for his postings, and you'll see a library of the photos he's posted. Pat
I would second the recommendation of a modular layout. I have a whole bunch of links for you, but here's one for starters: www.hotrak.ca Look for the Ntrak links if you want nscale (sorry if that is too obvious!) and for the Free-mo and other links for HO scale. A number of these layouts live their lives between meets as home layouts. As for logging, Paul Templar is a good source. He has built countless (well it seems like that) layouts based on North American operations. There is a great logging forum over at www.the-gauge.com , as well as a layout design forum. I think that railway logging went out with steam for the most part. You have the choice of a number of great geared locomotives like climax, heistler, and shay. You can also go narrow gauge. You can use grades that many other loco's won't climb, up to 10% or more... Good luck, and have fun with the kids! Andrew
Other N scale modular possibilities are Free-Mo, there is a Group for that. And Bendtrack. Which has some great ideas as well. I really like their concept. Possibly the most noted steam logging operations in the NW USA, were those of Polson Brothers/Rayonier. All kinds of steam locos. Shays, rod, mallets. Wood burners to oil burners. Running through varied terrain from farmland valleys into mountains. This might be an interesting prototype to look at. Boxcab E50
Wow! Thanks people....so many responses in such a short time - I'm gonna like it here CoalTrain - I would love some help in the mining area. I took a peek at your gallery and am impressed. BoxCabE50 - Great idea re the NTrak modules. I will definately check that out. and everyone else - thanks for the info. Some great stuff for me to check out. I have seen a couple of major logging layouts during my travels on the web, notably Paul Templar's Badger Creek & Red Fox Lumber and Angelo Battistella's Tall Pine Railroad (HO); and they have both inspired me and "scared" me at the same time. Once again, thanks. Cheers Bruce N [ 07. November 2003, 14:25: Message edited by: racedirector ]
Bruce- Don't be intimidated. You've started well. Ask questions. Read. See what fits your desires. Look at what others are doing. Practice and learn. Soon you'll be right in there! Boxcab E50
thanks The steam era on a coal hauler will really give you "more bang for your buck", translated "more operation in a smaller space". Back in the steam era there were no unit trains being flood loaded and whole trains going to one user. Coal in the steam era was loaded one car at a time (per track, tipples with four tracks could do four at a time). Some user would only buy one load of coal, others many. Coal was sold in many different sizes and tipples usually loaded each size on its own track. Coal cars were switched and classified like regular freigh cars because one train of coal could be going to many different destinations. Of course there are RR like the NW which did, and still does, dump lots of coal in ships for markets located on the easten ocean coast. What I like about the steam era coal railroad is that the typical coal car was the 50 ton (34' long) two bay hopper. Trains of these cars look longer because three cars are equal to the lenght of two 100 ton cars. I model 1953. My fictional rairoad is in a transistion between steam and diesel. My tipples ship many different sizes of coal and cars are sold as car loads, not train loads. My railroad represents the end of one division of a larger railroad that is not modeled. Off my layout is a large classification yard were coal cars are classifed according to their destination. What we do have to do on my railroad is block (a railroad term for group) the cars to either a destination between my yard and the next yard, cars that go east, and cars that go west. I use colored slips of paper in the car cards to tell operators where the cars go; green for local use, red for east, and blue for west. I will dispatch two coal shifters (coal railroad term for a local train that switches the tipples) to switch the tipples on my branch line. One crew will pick up blue only coal and the other red. The green coal is picked up by a "clean up crew", or if there is just a few greens they are added to a blue or red crew if they have room. The coal is gathered in my yard and sent out on mainline coal drags when the numbers reach the maximum mainline train lenght. So when I get 15 red cars in the yard, I hook on some mainline power and send it out, same with the blue. To see an actual operating secession go to my post http://www.trainboard.com/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/18/t/000260.html I give a discription of what is happening for each photo. Here is a good site to take a look at http://members.tripod.com/appalachian_railroad/index.html there is lots of coal railroad information on that site, make sure to take a look at the track plan section. If you want a good book on coal railroads, how the operated and some good personal stories get the two books about the Interstate Railroad. The first book, The Interstate Railroad by Ed Wolfe: Old Line Graphics, is about the history, locomotives, legal battles with other railroads, a good personal story section of a guy that worked on the RR during steam and diesel era, and every inch of the railroad mapped out and discussed. The second book, Appalachian Coal Hauler, Interstate Railroad's Mine Runs and Coal Trains by Hugh and Ed Wolfe: TLC Publishing, Inc., is very detail about how the Interstate crews switched every mine and industry with every town and tipple mapped out in detail. It is all told by a retired employee. [ 06. November 2003, 20:13: Message edited by: Coaltrain ]
Jeff Thanks heaps for all that. Great info and excellent research material. Your operating session thread as great and gave me an insight into operating a coal RR. I have bookmarked it for future reference. Now I am armed with a variety of information I can move on to figuring what to fit into my space available with a view to a bigger layout as time goes by. Just as an FYI on what I am thinking... I will need to have continuous running in there somewhere to satisfy the 3 1/2 yr old interest. It will need to have an operational component to satisfy the adults (my wife, father and I) so we can do the railroad thing. The scenery will need to be interesting (it's gotta have water according to my daughter - so she can have ducks!) so I can include some trestles in there and other interesting buildings and formations. So with those basic requirements I have my work cut out. As for operation, I have decided to go DCC from the word go and maybe (as I am also a computer geek) look at computer involvement as well (long term). My planning hat will now be placed on the scone to get going on all this. Cheers all Bruce
thanks again. Good luck planning. If you look at a map of any of the Appalachian coal hauling railroads you will see that most of their tracks followed rivers and streams up a valley to the mines, it was the easiest path to grade. So having lots of bridges and rivers is very prototypical.
To continue my journey, I had decided to model coal as the primary industry with logging making an appearance somewhere in the system. Logging will probably be modelled in the bigger scheme of things. I have been reading heaps on here (and have probably used a fair bit of TrainBoards bandwidth doing so! ) and have alot of information with regard to planning, benchwork and a variety of other things - which is all good. My first specific coal question is: How many mines would too many? I have seen a plan for 2 modules and the designer had 3 mines in a 6ft x 2ft space. I will probably have something like (outer dimensions) 3.7m x 2.4m to run around the outside of with the center part used as thoroughfare for my desk. Part of layout will traverse over the top of my work desk and computers (probably hidden behind a shelf or something) thereby giving me 2 sides of the room to commit to modelling. How I fill this with RR I don't know (still thinking about that bit) I am ranting now so I will go.... Cheers bruce
Bruce, while it looks like you have a pretty good mentor for coal roads and some great idea's from Pauls Badger creek(its one of the best ive seen)Some things to consider as options that you may not have heard about. The ntrack (which you have already been told about for modules) and another modular type settup which may suit you even better called Ttrack.This is a modular system set up on tables T=Tabletop.there was an article a few months back on it in MR and it is very popular in Japan.each module is built aproximatly 12 x 16" and they connect to each other(a many as you want.You could of course do a size variation if you wanted but these would be easily moved with you and could be arranged differantly everytime you set up.Also with this method you could have a single lil module for each member of the family to work on.Buy 1 folding table to start or build one.you can buy table hardware kits and make each table any size you want. One nice shop to check out which has a great website for ideas and great pictures is brooklyn locomotive works or BLW Petes done an outstanding job on this site which is dedicated to the N modeler.Check out the structures section and look for the McCabe logging structures(there are several)These are nice laser cut kits and a great starting point for a logging boom town
Thanks for the info TileGuy. Very helpful. I have been looking at a number of module systems and building methods. There is a great modules building step-by-step guide on railwaybob.com (http://www.railwaybob.com) plus another on the Four County Society of Model Engineers site (http://www.fcsme.org). [ 15. November 2003, 02:04: Message edited by: racedirector ]
