Hi all, I am finally after many years getting around to starting a layout based on the Milwaukee and need some ideas on some good locations to model. This layout will be in N scale and will fit in the room shown on the upper LEFT hand side of the plan below. The room is 13' x 16' and offers quite a bit of space, however I am limited to using only the top, left and bottom walls since the space must be used for other things as well. I would like to double deck the layout and add a helix to one end to get the separation I need. That would give me close to 100' plus the helix worth of layout which is great. I would also like a good mixture of mainline running and some switching en-route and maybe some yard work. I love to work on scenery as well. What I am hoping you all can help with is what area would be a good candidate to model. I lived in Great Falls for 3 years (Malmstrom AFB RED HORSE) but never really had any time to explore the area unfortunately as I was deployed a lot so I am not sure what that area may offer as far as a layout is concerned. I would prefer a mountainous area versus the upper mid-west but would not mind either. Any comments and suggestions are very much appreciated. John Martin Fort Mill, SC
John- We have a member at Malmstrom right now. He's been out and about with a camera. Lot's of photos in his RailImages albums. http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/ppuser/574/cat/500 Boxcab E50
The Milwaukee's North Montana Line is a highly scenic area, and not modeled very often. I would love to see a Rocky Mountain Division layout as well. A 13x16' N scale layout would offer lots of running room. You could build a section of the electrification, in the wonderfully scenic area of western Montana (better buy stock in a company that builds scale trees), or the NML, and have a rolling prairie railroad, with a section of rougher terrain. There's a section 15 miles east of GF that has 4 tunnels and 2 tall trestles. East of there is Surprise Creek Canyon with a horseshoe loop, another tunnel and a set of MONSTROUS trestles crossing Judith River, Sage Creek and another tributary. If you do RMD, I would suggest Alberton- St Regis or Haugan. Mountains surround the valley, and tunnels, trestles and electrical substations abound. I would do the 1955-1974 timeframe for 'Joes, Boxcabs, Bipolars, the Oly Hi, at the height of Milwaukee's career. After the mid 70's things really went south fast, but I'd recreate the road in its best years. Only problem is that you'd have to remortgage the house to buy enough overland Little Joes to run the layout!
Mountains= Montana, Idaho or Washington? Some good possibilities. Era of interest? Electrified? Steam? Diesel? Transition? Hmmm. Boxcab E50
I would love to include Great Falls in my layout if possible so the North Montana line looks better everytime I look at it. I was just looking at Google Earth and I saw something I never saw before. It looks as if there was a yard, wye and roundhouse just northwest of Malmstrom at one point. I had never known there was one there other than over by the west side of town. Was this yard Milwaukee or GN? Just curious I am looking at the era of the 1960s to 70s when things were good. I really do not want to go older than that, and going west to electrified country and all those Joes is WAY out of the budget. With the late 60s I am not sure if the depot was being used in GF or not. If not I could still model it and run the track behind as it currently is. My thought is to use the GF hump yard as partially visible staging on the upper deck. I would travel around the room clockwise from the bottom wall with GF as the primary scenic element on the upper deck (bottom and left walls) and add transitioning into the area between GF and Lewiston, possibly Geraldine. I could the elevators there for interest good operational and scenic interest. I could then enter a helix down to the bottom deck where it will be all scenery until Lewiston. Crossing the Judith, Denton, and a bit of Lewiston, and on into lower staging. Comments on this plan as always are appreciated. John
Which room is your prospective layout area? I saw the plan, and it's somewhat unclear where the room is to be. At any rate, the depot still proudly stands in GTF, and would make a fantastic addition. I would build a helix from staging, leading to a small section of Lewistown; the monster trestle over the Judith River would be appropriate, and the tunnel as well. Use that tunnel as a view block, and the other portal exits to Belt Creek area, into Lacey Tunnel 3, some sinuous curves, Amphitheatre Tunnel 4's remains (it was daylighted in the 70's), another set of curves, and cuts/fills, Belt Creek Tunnel 5, and the trestle over Belt Creek, then immediately into Red Coulee Tunnel 6, and around some more curves to Red Coulee Trestle. Following another 150 degree curve, the long tangent leads to Falls Yard (the main yard, just west of the base on 10th Ave N). The associated trackage from the depot to the bridge over the Missouri River could lead to a view block which would lead to a helix or something to route trains up and down from staging. Geraldine is located in the middle of nowhere, and the elevators would serve as a view block. That view block could lead to the Judith River area. Double decking would add tons of running room! You could then build a peninsula with Surprise Creek canyon. You're making my mouth water....
If you need information on trackage, blueprints are available for most of Montana. There is a source in Billings. Covers all the RMD Harlowton and west. And all of the NMD. Boxcab E50
I'm confused, as the top right room - the one with the round table - doesn't have much of a left wall at all. Is the plan supposed to be oriented differently?
With 18" wide benchwork, double-decked, you could easily have a 4' wide peninsula in the center, and still maintain 3' aisles. The helix and return loop ends would eat up some space, but double-decking it would maximize that space. It's cool spending someone elses' money, and living vicariously thru them! Actually, a staging deck would be best, making 3 decks. Surprise Creek canyon would be excellent in that peninsula! Is this what you envision? Not to scale....
Hemi/Triplex/All, You are all correct. It is the large empty room on the LEFT. I mis-type in my first post and have since edited the post correctly. As far as staging goes, I am OK with using a staging deck. I can not however add a peninsula to the room (as much as I would like to). The center of the room MUST remain open for other uses (aka my sons' wrestling mat and ping pong table). Not the best things to share a room with a railroad but it is what it is. I am looking to the future though. The ping pong table has a large crack in it so I am hoping that goes away soon. And the wrestling mat is only used during wrestling season. Maybe it will go away too. My wife knows I wanted to build a railroad but everyone keeps getting crap that is taking my space I am starting to think I should have forgone the home theater and I would have my layout room If I do end up getting the whole room I could get nearly 200LF of VISIBLE mainline in that space with WIDE aisles and double decks, virtually exactly as Hemi has shown. Without the peninsula I lose about 40LF or so. I am wondering if double decking ONLY the outer walls and single deck the peninsula would work. I could put it on casters and make it movable so I can disconnect it when the room is being used for other functions. The only problem I see is that when you are following a train on the upper deck you would have to walk around the lower peninsula to get to the other side but I think I could live with that. If I have to live with only the outer walls then so be it. It is better than nothing. I will spend some time at lunch sketching something out and post it later. Thanks for all the replies so far. John
Hi John "The Milwaukee Railroader" magazine,published by Milwaukee Road Historical Association has alot of information on the NMD. 1st quarter 2000, second quarter, 2006 and Fourt quarter, 1999 mainly cover the NMB. Maps, diesel info, even some b/w pictures of some small towns taken from the air.(Moore, Denton, Square Butte, Highwood, Waltham, Lewistown) Excellent resource for the modeler. (I have no relationship with the publication btw). You can get these back issues here. http://www.mrha.com/catlist.cfm?passid=BI Some of the color pictures are amazing, such as a airplane picture of a grain train crossing Red Coulee trestle. I will keep these magazines in a safe place, they are truly very good. I like to also use Wikimapia, here is Harlowton. http://wikimapia.org/#lat=46.430611&lon=-109.828992&z=16&l=0&m=a&v=1
Belt Creek area: 47.553° -110.933° Lacey Tunnel 3: 47.5498° -110.917° Amphitheatre Tunnel 4 : 47.5516° -110.928° Belt Creek Tunnel 5: 47.555° -110.947° Belt Creek Trestle: 47.5542° -110.95° Red Coulee Tunnel 6: 47.554° -110.953° Red Coulee Trestle: 47.5479° -110.961° Falls Yard: 47.5172° -111.232° Great Falls depot: 47.5073° -111.309° Missouri River trestle: 47.5072° -111.313° A cool removed trestle site at Sun River, MT, west of GTF: 47.5331° -111.716° Trestle west of Danvers: Sage Creek? 47.2563° -109.755° Trestle east of Danvers: Indian Creek? 47.2143° -109.702° Judith River Trestle: 47.1697° -109.647° Tunnel east of Denton: 47.2721° -109.792°
Again to everyone thanks for the help so far. I am pretty well set on what I am going to model now. I will be sticking with an around the walls layout and NO peninsula since that just isn't going to happen. That leaves me with about 48' linear feet of wall (19', 16' and 13' respectively). Here are the plans for each deck on each wall Not necessarily in order until I really look at a topographic map: Upper deck: 19' wall: bridge over the Missouri from the staging, GF Depot, a couple industries, Falls yard (a seriously compressed version) 16' wall: Red Coulee Trestle, Tunnel 6, Belt Creek Trestle, Tunnel 5 13' wall: lots of curves, Tunnel 3 into helix down Lower deck: 13' wall: tunnel out to Judith River trestle 16' wall: Maybe Spring Creek trestle, Geraldine, Denton 19' wall: scenery, Lewiston and off layout east (staging) Comment as always are appreciated. John
John- Selby's Essco: http://www.selbys.com/ You'll want to contact their Billings office, which is where they have the maps. Person to speak with is Neal Gray. What you get are blueprints made off original Milw engineering maps. There are two types. Usually both available for a given location. 1"=100' Lands, Tracks & Structures. And there are 1'=400' Right-Of-Way. Hopefully you are familiar with the types of details shown on these? Boxcab E50
To build Judith River Trestle to scale would require almost all of that long wall... I think the daylighted remains of Tunnel 4 would be a neat thing to model. I would have to include it. Using one tunnel to exit into another is a neat idea, one I'm using heavily on my own layout. 2 decks, plus staging? Where do you plan on adding your sidings?
And to model Judith trestle in its entirety would be AWESOME!!! I do not mind devoting a whole wall to that once scenic element. As far as sidings go are you talking industry of passing sidings? If passing I am still working that out. I may add some where none existed before just to give myself some for operations. Where I am not sure yet but if you have a recommendation I am all ears. John
