Port layout discussion: Mississippi, Alabama & Gulf, April05 MR

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I thought the trains.com/Model Railroader/Layouts forum would be an appropriate place to discuss layouts that appear in Model Railroader magazine.

The article on Cliff Powers’ Mississippi, Alabama and Gulf Railroad with its Beaumont port scene interested me especially, because it has so many similarities to a layout I am planning, yet a few differences. I wi***he article had more information on how the layout operates.

MA&G is described as a route that goes through Beaumont on its way to and from New Orleans. The staging, hidden inside the massive Municipal warehouse (great idea!), appears accessible from one end only. Trains set up in staging can run counterclockwise onto the visible layout, but then cannot continue through Beaumont to go back into staging unless they stop and use a runaround track to reverse-- or back into staging. The runaround move would be appropriate for modeling a local train that comes from a nearby yard on the mainline, switches the Beaumont port area and then returns to the yard. It would not be as “graceful” for modeling a through train running between Meridian and New Orleans that simply passes through the scene, since the through train would need a backing movement either to get in or out of staging.

I wonder if long-distance through trains are regularly run on the layout. Perhaps the layout represents a port branch that is off the mainline. Or perhaps, in a limited space solution for the time being, the layout represents a section of the main line, but mainline through trains are not normally run. Of course, for a limited space layout, one could always make up a mainline train, run it around a couple of times and break it up again.

I saw some comments elsewhere about the discrepancy in the article where the room size is listed on the track plane on page 57 as 12 x 13 feet and the layout size is listed as 24 x 27 feet in “Layout at a glance” on p.56. I assume that refers to the overall “big” layout Cliff plans to build someday and it just got slipped into the specifications list. Of course, nearly all of us wish we knew a way to fit our 24 x 27 dream layout into the available 12 x 13 room!

Kenneth L. Anthony

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MORE on Mississippi, Alabama & Gulf Railroad

Cliff Powers said Beaumont, Mississippi, subject of his room-size layout, was fictitious port. However, Beaumont, Mississippi is a real town of 900 people on a small river, probably not navigable, and some distance from the Gulf Coast.

Satellite picture of Beaumont, Mississippi
http://www.city-data.com/city/tmap/tr14477.gif

Two railroads served Beaumont in the 1950s accord to an old Official Guide, the Gulf Mobile and Ohio (NOT on a route to New Orleans) and a short line with the intriguing name of Bonhomie and Hattiesburg Southern. A 2-6-2 steam locomotive from the B&HS was preserved at a place called Hobo Junction, a rail museum site in New England. Don’t know what period the steamer operated.

Other railroads running in the same vicinity from New Orleans north and east into Mississippi, in an area which would have been generally near the MA&G were Illinois Central, Southern, and L&N (mentioned in Cliff’s article).

I see another way Cliff might be able to operate on his layout, besides shifting cars from an unmodeled MA&G yard (staging) to the industries and port facilities that are modeled. The staging area could also represent foreign railroads that interchange with the MA&G at the port area, so an L&N switcher or an IC or Southern switcher--or even the Bonhomie and Hattiesburg Southern--- might bring in a cut of cars to deliver to the MA&G and reverse directions to take out an interchange cut to staging. Some cars might be to go to an industry in the immediate area, some might be going to other spots on the MA&G. In that case, even though there would be no through trains, there would be through CARS, coming from someplace off the layout and going to someplace else off the layout.

I couldn’t find a Henderson Bay on the Mississippi Coast. I found a reference to a Henderson Bay in Louisiana (a Louisiana Wildlife ranger website described a rescue there) but I could never found it on a map or any indication of a location. Must be an obscure small bay. Actually, that is an excellent way to name a freelanced place-- for one in an adjacent state so it sounds right for that part of the country but can’t be pinned down as a specific place.

This looks like a really fun room-sized railroad.

By the way, I traced various rail lines and found that the MA&G would fill a real niche in direct and one-carrier service between Houston and the MidSouth. Can't find any rr that did that. SP and MoPac both got to the Mississippi River at New Orleans and didn't go further east there.

[leighant]

3rd installment on this layout:
I am fascinated by how much the room-sized Beaumont port layout on Cliff Powers’ Mississippi, Alabama and Gulf Railroad is LIKE the layout I am planning, and at the same time, how DIFFERENT it is.

Both layouts represent urban railroading in a Gulf Coast port, his somewhere in Mississippi northeast of New Orleans, mine on Galveston Island. Cliff’s room is 12x13, mine is 11x12. Both layouts are intended to have something to run now, while planning a more extensive railroad for the future.

Both layouts are generally a shelf running around the four walls of the room, operated from a center reached by a duckunder or opening. Coincidentally, both layout have a dead end spur peninsula coming into the center of the room and, even more coincidentally, both peninsulas use that for a cotton compress.

One of the four sides of both layouts has visible switching trackage in the operator’s foreground, backed by a long row of port warehouse buildings which hide layover staging tracks. Another of the four sides is devoted largely to a railroad bridge across part of a bay. Half of one side is a long export grain terminal.

DIFFERENCES:
Cliff’s layout is oriented so that the operator is standing in what would be the water area, looking toward the shore. Cliff has a tugboat model but it looks as if big ocean-going ships have to be imagined as being somewhere in the aisle space, or just not in port that day. (Of course, it is always hard to find space to model big ocean going ships but articles in Model Railroader and Model Railroad Planning 2005 show some folks have done it.) My layout would be oriented with the operator looking past the modeled scene at the water area on the background. Outlines of the upper portion of ships a scale 400 to 600 feet long would be visible over the roofs of port sheds. (That is what a visitor to Galveston typically sees.)

Cliff’s layout represents a port city that the railroad passes through on the way between New Orleans and points north and east. Mine represents a port city on an island that is the end of the line.

The visible foreground trackage on Cliff’s layout forms a continuous loop and the hidden staging track is dead-ended. On my layout, the visible foreground trackage would enter the island seaport over a long causeway bridge and come to a dead-end in the port scene. On the mainland end of the causeway, the track would disappear behind the background into hidden staging tracks and have a disguised sneak-back connection to the visible trackage for continuous running.

Cliff’s layout in HO appears devoted mainly to switching. Mine, in N scale, would originate and terminate 18 car freights and 8 car passenger trains. (Of course, even in N, the trains wouldn’t have far to run before they disappear….

The most important difference: Cliff has actually built his and can run it, while mine is only on paper. My hat is off to you, Cliff. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

I have added one picture to some computer visualizations of my planned layout I have posted previously…I will just put in links, except for the new picture, to avoid taking loading time for people who have already seen them.

Passenger terminal with cargo sheds in background hiding staging tracks.


night renderings:
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abt.jpg
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abv.jpg

Mile and a half long prototype causeway with an excursion passenger train in 1990.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/aca.jpg


Causeway represented by 7 foot model made up of top half of 9 sets of Atlas viaducts (36 arches) and lift span center.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abx.jpg
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/aby.jpg

Layout would not be all industry: pleasure pier with dancing pavilion, dining over the water, etc.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abz.jpg
This paper feasibility and concept development model shows that the amusement district’s roller coaster could be squeezed into a 7 x 12 inch corner.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/acx.jpg