Finally, good news from the Bureau of Land Management

friscobob Jul 26, 2019

  1. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member

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    A few months ago, my local BLM agent (well, the wife) said that since my son & girlfriend moved out into their own apartment, the den was no longer a converted bedroom. It has become the new home of my new HO scale Frisco-themed layout

    The space I have to work with will be 17 by 8 feet, which will give me 3feel along one side for access to a closet and access to the garage. I am looking at Blenheim no wider than 18 inches along 3 walls with a layout height of 52 inches from floor to top of track. I may get model the Paris, Tx area in the mid-70s, which will allow me to include Mopac, Santa Fe and SO (all of which serves Paris back then). I will be focusing on shippers served by Frisco and using the other 3 roads as interchange. Santa Fe and Frisco shared a single yard, and swapped switching duties, so that should be fun.

    Motive power will be 4-axle, and all EMD. If I move past the mid-70s to the latter part of the decade, SP is gone.

    This is still in the planning stages, but it should be fun to operate.

    I will have updates and hopefully a rough sketch of a track plan later on.
     
  2. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Great news, Bob!
    I look forward to seeing your progress.
     
  3. Shortround

    Shortround TrainBoard Member

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    I'll be waiting for your updates. I'm divorced/widowed, the two girls are long on there ways and I'm long retired so am trying to figure out how to work it out in a two bedroom apartment. So I hope us all the best.
     
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  4. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    I've always found Paris interesting. The Frisco and Santa Fe built to it during the short period when the Santa Fe owned the Frisco. That's why they shared a yard--that was built as one continuous route.

    In the 1906-1910 period they jointly operated a St. Louis-Dallas passenger train via Ft. Smith and Paris. Later the Frisco partnered with the Katy. The Texas Special route was less direct, but stayed out of the Ozarks, and had less curves and grades. So, it might have been faster before the Katy turned into "two streaks of rust". In any case, San Antonio was more of a destination than Houston back then, and the Frisco could outrun the MoPac to San Antonio. Houston, not so much. The Katy did San Antonio; the Santa Fe did not. So the Katy was a better partner for the service, even if it didn't pass through any city as big as Ft. Smith on the way to Dallas.

    So the Frisco partnered with the Katy, and the Santa Fe developed their " Santa Fe All the Way" attitude. They did interchange passengers at Paris for many years afterward, but never again jointly operated a passenger train.

    But it does stimulate my imagination. What if the Frisco had been motivated to find a new partner for St. Louis-Dallas passenger service after they gave up on the declining Katy? What if the bureaucrats of Anthrax had been blessed with more knowledge and more imagination?
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2019
    Joe Lovett likes this.
  5. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Yup. Two bedrooms here as well. Always reading to see what folks come up with as their solutions.
     
  6. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member

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    The room is a 17x11 feet. To keep access to a storage spider's I am going with a 17 x8 good layout. I envision maximum benchmark width to be 18 inches, with a 24" radius minimum on mains and 2 2" minimum radius on spurs. .

    Frisco will be the featured railroad I model, but I will have MP (ex-T&P), Santa Fe (ex- Gulf Colorado & Santa Fe) and SO (ex-Texas Midland, who by this time was running the SP Denison Branch to Sherman and the MP to Paris account a washout North of Commerce).each of the non-Frisco trains will run from staging to the joint Santa Fe-Frisco yard. All Frisco trains ( of which there were three switch jobs a day from Hugo, OK to Paris and return) will come from a separate staging area. I also want to include Tower 79, which protected the Santa Fe-MP crossing South of the yard.

    And yes, since I am modeling 1975 to 1977, I will be running GP7s on Frisco and Santa Fe, GP9s on the SP, and a GP18 on the. MP. I have a couple of Frisco switchers and a Santa Fe CF7 that will also see service.


    The biggest shipper was, and still is, Campbell Soup, served by Frisco. Other shippers include Precision Packaging and Printing, a feed mill, Merico (maker of Earth Grains baked goods) and Flex-o-Lite. All the railroads got Campbell business. At the yard, there will be a ramp for whatever LOL business Frisco had.

    I plan on using code 100 in staging and codes 83 and 70 for visible trackage.

    The fun part should be modeling the ATSF/Frisco depot and part of the rather massive Campbell Soup complex.the latter will obviously be selectively compressed, and most likely the depot may just be a building flat.

    DCC will be my friend here, with enough work for 2 to 3 operators.

    That is pretty much my "Givens and Druthers" list. If anyone familiar with the area railroads has anything to add, I'm willing to listen.For instance, how often the Santa Fe ran for Dallas up to Paris, and when SP finally have up on Paris altogether..
     
    BoxcabE50 likes this.
  7. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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  8. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member

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    Few delays, such as roof replacement, some replacing of sheetrock on the ceiling, and (the saddest of all) laying my sister to rest. That hit me hard for a while........

    Now that I'm back in track, I have also been weighing transplants and staging tracks for all the railroads I'm going to model. I have also had pictures of Santa Fe motive power sent to me- how about an F7 and GP7 for motive power? Or a Frisco 44-tonner?

    My benchwork will be 18" wide with track elevation at 5 2 inches above the floor. Minimum radius should be no less than 22 in. I have code 83 and 70 track for the visible lines, and code 100 for the staging (which I may use to depict Hugo, OK on the Frisco and Dallas on the Santa Fe).

    I have been looking at trackplans, and an expanded version of Iain Rice's "Small Town in the Prairie" plan ( from his book Model Railroading in Small Spaces, available from Kalmbach - and no, that isn't a plug) looks good.
     
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  9. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Condolences to you, loved ones and family. :(

    Glad you are making further progress.
     
    Hardcoaler likes this.
  10. VinceP

    VinceP TrainBoard Member

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    Thoughts are with you.

    Be interesting to see this progress.
     
  11. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    My condolences, Bob, and good to see you back.
     
  12. dalebaker

    dalebaker TrainBoard Member

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    Hi Bob,

    I’m sorry to hear of your loss. Please accept my sympathy.

    A couple of questions, what scale are you modeling in? I can’t remember. Are you planning to have operations on the layout? Are you doing point to point or a Rail Fanning style, or both?

    If I remember correctly, your space is about the same size as mine.

    Take care,
    Dale
     
  13. bremner

    bremner Staff Member

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    I am sorry for your loss
     
  14. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    Hobbies are the best medicine at a time like this.

    A 44 tonner sounds like a perfect switcher for the Santa Fe-Frisco joint yard. For a time, switching duties there were actually done by an old Santa Fe doodlebug. If that could do the job, a 44 ton wouldn't have any trouble.
     

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