Hi all you N scalers out there! I'm starting a new thread to following along as I attempt to build an 1880-1910 horse to steam transition era logging tram. I'm going to follow logging practices found in this time period in North Central Pa. The layout is 2' x 4' using a base from a previous un finished western mining railroad. The layout currently has code 80 Peco flex track that will be replaced with code 40 hand laid track possibly on hand hewn timber ties, if I can get the building technique up to my standards for the layout. Here are some pictures of the layou prior to removing the code 80 track. I'll post updates as progress and time permit, Logging Loco
Very cool! There's a pro on handlaying track around here, I am sure he'll chime in at some point. What kind of loco do you plan on using? Those grades (4+%?) might challenge most turn-of-century steamers..... regardless, I am looking forward to what you do with it!
I have two as yet unbuilt Randgust Class A Climax kits and an Aspen Class B Climax. I also have a Micro Ace 2-6-0 for the fictitious branch line to haul out lumber. Logging Loco
I'm still working on how I'm going to model the track. I'm playing with techniques used by O scalers that use bamboo skewers for hand hewn log ties. I'm adapting the method to use round bamboo from a sliding patio door shade. If it works out I'll have enough tie material to build an early logging line without any selective compression! LOL! The round bamboo salvaged from the shade is about 0.060 in diameter. I need to trim it down so the hieght is less than 0.032 to be the same height as the PC ties I'm using. For now I've been doing this by hand sanding, just to get enough for trying out different stains on the ties. When I need to produce a big batch I'll probably rip them on the mini table saw. I'll try to get some photos latter in the week. Logging Loco
check your local hobby shop for small dowels. I know mine has them down to that size, it's 1/32". It may save you some time, although they wouldn't be bamboo and would be more uniform.
Getting Started and still learning my way around TB Here is an overall picture of the layout as it is now. When I began it a few years ago I was going to build a western mining layout. Then it sat for a few years. I've since decided to switch to an early logging operation. It will feature a small mill woth no pond. The track is going to be taken up shortly and be replaced with code 40 rail on hand laid ties. I'm also going to add a short passing siding. It is hard to tell from the overhead photo, but the area with very few ties is actually a stub ended trestle. It was going to be for coaling locomotives, but will now become the elevated log unloading area. The mill will be between this and the opposing spur track in the white area. The white area is the mill and town site and is a removable piece of foam core reinforced with strip wood. The mountain is also removable, but maynot remain this way. The mill is going to be a modified Muir kit built as a left hand mill using a mirror image set of instructions. The saw will cut when the carriage is traveling to the left when facing the saw blade, instead of to the right wich is the normal practice. This is not a typical mill arangement, but it was done on rare occasions. Instead of starting the layout all over as a mirror image and building a right hand mill I'll settle for this comprimise. This is a pratice layout after all. The switch in the lower center of the photo is the log landing. It will be a roll on type landing and also have a bark or cord wood loading area to provide for some loads going beyond the layout or to another not yet one or two car spur on the left side of the photo. That's about it for now. I'm going to start staining some hand hewn ties and see if I can make some log looking PC ties to match them. Logging Loco .
making rough cut ties ties I'm still playing around with making ties. I've worked out the stain I think will look good. Now I'm working on getting the right texture for the ties. The ties are from .028 to .032 thick to be close to the thickness of the PC ties I'm using. I haven't worked on getting the proper cross section or texture on the PC ties yet, but I have gotten the color match close enough. At least to the naked eye it looks good. I haven't photographed it up close yet. I've also picked up some .030 flat nickle wire from RLW to play around with some other types of track besides the common tee rail on tie type construction. I might try some strap iron on wooden rail, but the .030 wire will probably way out of scale. Sorry the photos are so small, i'm new to this stuf. I'll try to get more Photos latter in the week.
If you haven't done the 18-tonner kit yet, I've finally perfected doing cast metal boilers. I still have a scrap rate of about 50%, but unlike resin, I just remelt them and try again. That certainly helps both pickup and tractive effort. I had to come up with something for the DCC guys when I was cutting the weight in half in the cab to fit in the receivers. Contact me if interested, I now offer the metal boiler as a kit option. The other thing you should be interested in on a module this small is the GM15 gearhead options - you'll get a top speed of about 9mph on the Class A Climax, and torque that just won't quit. Normally I send out the supplemental instructions on working with this gearhead motor on my kits - if you didn't get it, just ask. I have a few videos out on YouTube of this mechanism running - just search for Randgust. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5c8Wfu5PyM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0asubG48Lg
I've been cutting and staining ties. Still need to put some iron overthem to see how they will really look. Still haven't gotten the camera thing figured out yet. The stain is homemade, a mixture of craft acrylics, india ink, artists acrylics and alcohol. I like these the formulas best. I'm going to randomly mix these ties when I lay some test track and see how it looks. I have a piece of .030" flat wire I'm going to use for rail on my next test section. I've already laid some track on my test diarama just to test the stain colors. Thats how I selected these three formulas. I did not use rough cut ties on the diarama and so I'm going to relay these short sections of track. I also did not roughen up the PC ties on the three way so I'm going to have to replace the ties on it also. Fortunately it is not glued down.
Hi Randy, I'll get back to you soon on this via email. I'm also going to need the link and pin coupler castings I had email you about. I'm going to do a little boxcab for the challenge. It will be nice on my Englenook diarama. I guess it could be called an Englerama. Sounds like a good subject for a future challenge!
Love that low gear effect. I wish more makers would go that route, but I guess they think the higher noise level is bad. This is a cool project. I've always wanted to do an old-time logging or mining RR. I'm also sort of a closet Gn15 fan.
There are no actual surviving Class A Climaxes, except one in parts somewhere in the Seattle area. But a guy in West Virginia has a chain-drive 'darn near' Class A (full size) that he has built that captures the 13-ton vertical feel pretty darn well. This was your classic 'tram road engine' where even steel rails were a luxury: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Jt5WQnwxU I can't believe they are coupling link and pin and sticking their hand in there. makes me cringe as a railroader.
That is awsome!!! Love the trucks and spoked wheels. I rode the Durbin Rocket and it was a blast. THE LOCUST HEIGHTS & WESTERN RAILROAD would be right up my alley! Thanks for the link Randy.
Logging Loco, I look forward to watching this develop. For towing logs, will you be using teams of horses pulling high wheels? There's an issue or two of Timber Times back there that have loading options for earlier era logging like what you're talking about. Adam
They used the high-wheels a lot out west, but in the east it was just teams pulling logs. Here's a 1918 shot on my prototype: http://gustafson.home.westpa.net/WDlanding1918.jpg That's pretty much what I'll be modeling at the 'landing' on my logging module. Horse skidding to a landing. Heck, my father was still doing horse skidding during WWII due to lack of skidder fuel and truck tires, with the 'old timers' in charge for his lumber company. Before they had loaders, they built up a deck level with the cars and rolled them on with peaveys. Not sure of the year on this one, but the locomotive is the Porter 0-6-4t. http://gustafson.home.westpa.net/WD3_logging1.jpg
That's an interesting note. I knew that high wheels were used in places as far east (east being a relative term here, me being all the way out in Oregon) as Michigan. I know to you easterners that Michigan probably seems "out west." That's a really interesting photo to me. I suppose that spar pole loading was probably a lot easier where trees were huge, like in our western states (redwoods, sequoias, Doug Firs, etc.).
One of the oddest things about eastern logging - particularly my prototype - was that it wasn't the huge log diameter that was impressive, it was the length. PA White Pine was in demand for sailing ship masting all the way up to the Depression. The sawmill that I model was equipped to rough-cut 120' timbers for masting. I have a blurry old shot of a three-flatcar load of a single log with two loaders working it, one from either end. They added additional carriages and temporary carriage tracks (on a trestle out over the log pond) when they cut those orders. The mill was designed to 'shoot it right out the ends' by opening temporary doors and walls, and right out the back to a flatcar loading dock. Again, a 3-flatcar load outbound. How in the devil you handle a 120' log in the woods - load it, cut it, and ship it - is astounding. The legacy of this practice is that W&D did extensive selective cutting and saved the biggest trees for those special orders. That resulted in a majority if the logging railroad system lasting much longer than normal to be able to get to those tracts. When the depression hit they still had some remaining tracts of virgin white pine that had never been touched. That was donated to the Forest Service (under my father's time) and now is a wilderness area nearly unique in the east. Here's a link to the remaining forest area: http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/oldgrowth/heartscontent.aspx If you look on my prototype web page, you'll see a photo of the track construction right into this area. And they never cut it.
I'm going to have horses trail logs to a roll on log load where logs are loaded by hand. From here I'm going to use small steam power and disconnects. This is going to be a tram that just converted over from horses to steam. Pennsylvania didn't have a lot of equipment that was used out west. I think it was a combination of timber for the most part being smaller, and Pa being logged a bit earlier. As Randy pointed out high wheels were more of a western thing. I'm not an authority, but I've read and re-read everything I can get my hands on that covers pre truck Pa logging and I don't recall high wheels being used in Pa, but there may be an exception. The same goes for steam donkeys. Camp cars were used very rarely. Stringer track, wooden track, strap rail, and pole roads were used quite a bit early on. I'd love to do something with strap iron on stringer track, but this would be a real challege in N scale.
When the depression hit they still had some remaining tracts of virgin white pine that had never been touched. That was donated to the Forest Service (under my father's time) and now is a wilderness area nearly unique in the east. About twenty years ago I visited a very small patch of virgin hemlock forest just of of PA 42 North of Bloomsburg. It is an isolated part of the PA State Forest System. I believe what was then Wyoming State Forest, now Loyalsock State Forest. It was a cool little patch of woods, had a small stream with stiarcase water falls. There was barely any under growth below the hemlocks. This area was hit very hard by the September Flooding caused by tropical storm Lee. Rt 42 was closed, parts of it totally destroed. Hope the hemlocks survived.
