Mark & Dave,
The Mouse has a valid point to consider here, so do you you 2 guys also. The picture that Stein has shown are what was there, drawing are scans from old documents that I have from years ago from a book that my grandma wrote with here class of 1933. I spent my childhood and later years in and around this town and like I said everyone knew each other. As some stated, trains had a a curtain amount of time they could stop at each town and needed to be on their way. I called my dad this morning early and he told me that most of the freight that was unloaded in Thawville at that time was small and was handled buy no more than 4 men, and they had a curtain amount of time to unload it. I asked him about a possible piano being unloaded, he told me maybe it could be done, but it would more than typically be unloaded in Gilman, because they could handle it better their do to unloading docks and proper help and tools to move it. This was in the late 1940's. It then would fall under the responsability of the store to contact the person who bought the piano to pick it up or help them get it to there home from Gilman.
Here is good example my father told me this morning on the phone this morning. Back in the late 1940s a corn sheller came in on a short flat car, Gilman refused to unload it I guess. The Depot agent was informed of this and sent a young boy to alert the people in the town to see what could be done. Oh by the way the young boy was my dad, the station agent hired boys in Thawville for messengers, cleaning, and running general arrends at the time. A corn sheller was pulled behind a powered tractor and transported to crib sites for shelling corn, a truck, small grain truck that is, was used to haul the corn drag's, as many as 10 to 12 drags at times, these were heavy also. So I would imagine the drag's came with the corn sheller also. Dad said the train engineer gave them 10 minutes to unload the object from the flat car, refusing to pull into or dropping the car into the siding. From what My dad said it did get done in less than 10 minutes with a gang of men and 3 flat bed grain trucks, this included the drags also. I have no clue as to how they did it, but my father said there were over 30 men there helping. And here is a funny for everyone, the engineer and his crew were yelling at everyone to hurry up and never helped in any manner. So the young boys were throwing cinders at the loco, and no one tried to stop them from the town.
My dad told me by the late 1940's that train shipments had started to fade somewhat, do to the trucking industry starting to take off. As for having 2 elevators at the time, the south one was the newer on, the north unit is the original one. I told Stein that they were both used until the 1950's, then the north unit was left due to being out of date and left to rot. some of the smaller buildings were moved to the south site and the old elevator demolished in later years along with the water tower for steamers, this happened in the mid to late 1950's when they were demolished. Up until just 10 years ago the foundation for the elevator and the concrete footings for the water tower were still there, The RR removed them along with the siding.
You have to also remember and I tried to point this out earlier, the town was just 200 to 250 people at the time, and everyone knew everyone. Most of the local worked close to home for the local farmers, RR, business district, and Grain CO.
Stein did some nice drawings and did show me the long veiw so to speak of the layout of the town, but we needed more length to capture this which would not work as far as the rules Spacemouse put up. So we compressed it some to make things just as real but still functional. We had to make some changes, so this is what we did. And trust me, I was trying to get it all in the 2' by 8' area, and it just could not work.
We are willing to see or here what your comments are, so erase or add what you think should be there. And remeber guys all small towns are not created equal.
ICRR1964
Hi Stein,
Is this a design exercise, or the plan for a real set of modules? If it's the latter, scrap Thawville and model Roberts: for about the same amount of space you get twice the switching and three times the number of sidings. That translates into more realistic switching of the scene, sinc eyou won't have to break your train as often to move cars into their appropriate spot locations (notice that you're BARELY meeting one of the contest design parameters, namely being able to work the siding from on the modules themselves: this branch never saw an SW, so you'd need to appropriately work it with either a 2100-series Mike (BIG!) or a Geep, both of which take up far more space than that dinky diesel switcher.
(By the way: I'm modeling 20 miles down the line: the upper deck of my layout will be dominated by the Central Soya plant in Gibson City)
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943
orsonroy wrote: Hi Stein, Is this a design exercise, or the plan for a real set of modules? If it's the latter, scrap Thawville and model Roberts: for about the same amount of space you get twice the switching and three times the number of sidings. That translates into more realistic switching of the scene, sinc eyou won't have to break your train as often to move cars into their appropriate spot locations
Is this a design exercise, or the plan for a real set of modules? If it's the latter, scrap Thawville and model Roberts: for about the same amount of space you get twice the switching and three times the number of sidings. That translates into more realistic switching of the scene, sinc eyou won't have to break your train as often to move cars into their appropriate spot locations
Design exercise. I am not planning to build it. I agree that Roberts would make a more interesting place to actually model.
Or this place:
More info on the prototype this design is based on at:
http://home.online.no/~steinjr/trains/modelling/fergus/
That one is also a 2x8 design exercise - I am not planning to build that one either.
The one I am actually building is this one:
orsonroy wrote: (notice that you're BARELY meeting one of the contest design parameters, namely being able to work the siding from on the modules themselves: this branch never saw an SW, so you'd need to appropriately work it with either a 2100-series Mike (BIG!) or a Geep, both of which take up far more space than that dinky diesel switcher.
(notice that you're BARELY meeting one of the contest design parameters, namely being able to work the siding from on the modules themselves: this branch never saw an SW, so you'd need to appropriately work it with either a 2100-series Mike (BIG!) or a Geep, both of which take up far more space than that dinky diesel switcher.
I know. It was designed to just barely squeak within the rules - it can be operated, but not necessarily with prototypically engines. But I rationalized than in a real life operation, where it was just part of a bigger layout, there very likely would have been a few feet extra available on either side of the LDE for _realistic_ operations.
Smile, Stein
Every time I see that 30" diameter operator I think of the president of the club I used to belong to. There was just no getting around that boy until he backed into a siding.
I have a question. Why doesn't the cassette extend to the wall?
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
dehusman wrote: SpaceMouse wrote: I know you have experience with this stuff while what I have to work with is conjecture, so I'll just plain ask. When the train makes an LCL delivery, does it take the time to wait while the parcels are being unloaded then move the car to the team track to drop off the piano. Two different products here.Freight dock think UPS. Anything you would ship today by UPS would travel by rail to the freight dock. Anything too heavy or big to ship UPS today would go by LTL truck, which would be the same as going to the team track on the model. Any car unloaded at the freight dock is only there 15-20 minutes and stays IN the train.And before it gets more confused NO it won't be UPS doing the shipping. If anything it would be Railway Express Agency.Dave H.
SpaceMouse wrote: I know you have experience with this stuff while what I have to work with is conjecture, so I'll just plain ask. When the train makes an LCL delivery, does it take the time to wait while the parcels are being unloaded then move the car to the team track to drop off the piano.
Two different products here.
Freight dock think UPS. Anything you would ship today by UPS would travel by rail to the freight dock. Anything too heavy or big to ship UPS today would go by LTL truck, which would be the same as going to the team track on the model.
Any car unloaded at the freight dock is only there 15-20 minutes and stays IN the train.
And before it gets more confused NO it won't be UPS doing the shipping. If anything it would be Railway Express Agency.
Dave H.
The Old Dog must question that statement. The Old Hound would picture UPS as being similiar to REA (Railway Express), that is handling express packages. Express would be usually handled by passenger trains in baggage cars. It would normally be handled by baggage carts at the low passenger platform during a station stop.
The LCL freight would be handled at the freight platform. The way freight would include a "trap" car to handle the LCL freight. It would be positioned at the high freight platform while the way freight did other work at the station.
The Team Track would be used for Car Load freight for shippers and consignees who did not have their own private siding or spur.
Have fun
SpaceMouse wrote: Every time I see that 30" diameter operator I think of the president of the club I used to belong to. There was just no getting around that boy until he backed into a siding.
LOL. Guess I am planning for future expansion - you actually cannot see it in the figure, but there is an area about 2 feet long that it is only 24" wide at the narrowest point - where the tool area is. There is room for two people to pass each other otherwise.
SpaceMouse wrote: I have a question. Why doesn't the cassette extend to the wall?
Mostly because the bench under the layout is 24" deep. So a 24" (or shorter) cassette can be stored across the top of the bench under the shelf - ie with the opening of the cassette in towards the wall and out towards the room.
That way I can fit a _lot_ of pre-loaded cassettes under the layout, yet at the same time reach all of them easily. Longer cassettes would have to be stored sideways under the layout.
No matter how long I make the cassette for this part of the layout, I would need either two or three cassette loads of cars to create an full inbound train of 12 cars on the layout when setting up a session - it makes very little difference to me to use three cassettes instead of two.
But if experience shows that it doesn't work, I'll change it and do something else instead.
Grin, Stein
SpaceMouse wrote:Let me ask the question this way. I ordered a piano. It came into the freight station and is waiting to be picked up. How do I get that piano into my flatbed truck?
A lot of big ol' plowboys?
We Illinois boys grow up strong. And if we don't, we know some that did!
Hope you brought a big flatbed Mouse!
BTW, we ain't guaranteeing it will still be in tune! Heck, it might not even have all it's legs. But a little glue will fix that.
Rotor
Jake: How often does the train go by? Elwood: So often you won't even notice ...