Apple Valley Road

[Anonymous]

Hey man, I'm building a layout of my freelance line, the Ashville, French Broad,and Mt. Airy, better known as the Apple Valley Road. Its set in 1950,with three 2-6-0 camelbacks, a cab foward, two berkshires, a mountain and a consolidation, plus four 2-10-0's. The line hauls timber, paper, gravel, and of course apples. The line runs from Hendersonville NC toMt.Airy NC, crossing the great craggy and black mountains. The Blacks are home to Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Misissippi river, at 6,684 ft. It interchanges with the southern, the clinchfield, and the Norfolk and Western's Shenandoah extension that was built to Mt. Airy. The AVR, N&W, and Southern run a joint train called the Cherokee, that runs from Hagerstown to Atlanta. The layout will include the Great Craggy viaduct, the "Rio Grande rock", and the crosing of the linnville gorge on a massive arch bridge. Thelayout will be built in an 8 x 16 foot space with a mushroom design. Along with that will be a beautiful B&O blue pacific with a nearly all dome consist. The cherokee will have modern amtrak two level equipment for tha modern look, that being pulled by an N&W class J


The point is, I'd like you to give your opinions comments anything that might be of help. Perhaps you modelers that aren't thirteen and working in an unheated, unairconditioned garage can give me some additional inspiration before I lay down the first spike.

[Anonymous]

I like the well-thought-out concept of this, moreso because I am a NW modeller, and what's more, my parents own a time-share condo in the Hendersonville area. The thing I would call into question is your mention of modern Amtrak two-level equipment for a layout set in the 50's. Amtrak was formed in 1971, and they inherited a lot of underutilized passenger equipment at the time. The "full-dome" two-level equipment got introduced later, along with other modern passenger equipment that was never lettered for any road other than Amtrak. In the 50's the state of the art would be the Budd fluted lightweights, with gleaming silver/chrome finish, and the "vista dome" observations such as on the California Zephyr. The domes were a unique feature which was advertised on the CZ, not that they weren't used elsewhere, but just to say that they were not in common use on smaller roads. I've been having to come to terms with this myself, since I have domed passenger equipment that to my educated eye now seems out of place rolling through West Virginia hollers.

Nothing says you can't be running vista dome scenery trains across your line; that section of NC may very well justify them. But, I think you should give up on Amtrak, and think more "Pullman". A passenger train of the 50's was a railroad's chance to strut its stuff in as elegant a manner as possible, and they painted their sleek trains like peacock's feathers. Having your own small railroad means you get the chance to indulge your creative whim, and come up with the most attractive or flamboyant or vivid color scheme you can think of. Just include silver!

Now, since you're interchanging with the southern end of my Shenandoah division, and I've got the connections at the northern end covered, perhaps once you've envisaged this color scheme we should consider building in some interchange traffic between our lines. Trouble is, my city of Winchester, VA, is also well known for its apple production, so no-go there. Unless... maybe the company "Winchester Apples" somehow owns the growers in NC, and collects from both, hauling over the Shenandoah to distribution houses in or near Roanoke (midway, and on NW's east-west mainline). This way, form time to time, the same reefers might get routed to either of our pikes... and I'd have an excuse for having an Apple Valley lettered car in the consist.

I do like the thought of running equipment lettered for other fictional roads on my layout, such as the Virginian & Ohio hoppers I recently found (hard to find stuff in N-scale).

[Anonymous]

LItte:

You certainly have some heavy duty steam power. I wonder if the 'camelbacks' are apt for the period? I ask because i don't really know when they were phased out. You could make a case for them as 'legacy engines'.

You have put considerable thought into the motive power but do not mention the likely freight car mix. I assume you will be using gondolas for the gravel and perhaps flats if the paper is in newsprint rolls, apples shipped in reefters and some of the paper products in box cars.

Have you considered including an apple processing plant which would give you some inbound glassware and cans and perhaps outbound bulk juice concentrate in tanks? You could justify a 'private label' set of dedicated tanks and reefers in your own livery.

I'd love to see a Prairie winding up over your viaduct with a string of fast freight reefers in tow.

Just my thoughts, let me know if you find them helpful.

Randy

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rda1964
You certainly have some heavy duty steam power. I wonder if the 'camelbacks' are apt for the period? I ask because i don't really know when they were phased out. You could make a case for them as 'legacy engines'.

I would imagine that all camelbacks were retired long before the 1950s. They had a safety issue -- if a side rod broke, it wrecked havoc in the cab killing the engineer.

However, just because camelbacks were not operating in the 1950s, that shouldn't stop you from running camelbacks on the Apple Valley if you like them. Just make up a story such as the Apple Valley got a good deal on used camelbacks from railroads that were phasing them out. The Apple Valley found that they really like the camelbacks, and have kept them in good repair ever since. You can also add that no one has ever been killed on the Apple Valley due to the stringent safety precautions by the crews.

Its your railway, run what you want. If history doesn't match, make up your own history. That's what freelancing is all about. I like your senerio. The apple idea is excellent. I think the camelbacks would fit right in.

Enjoy,

Dale B.

[Anonymous]

Well folks, thanks for the hints above, I sure appreciate it, especially the apple proccessing plant thats a good idea. As for the amtrak cars, they're being repainted to my own livery, and were saying that the AVR turned out " superliner" cars before the ATSF did with the EL Capitan in the late 60's early 70's. And yes, all the AVR's equipment is used, from SP, B&O, DM&IR, PFE,N&W, Cinchfeild, and the DRGW narrow guage( converted to standard of course)

P.S. The passenger cars color scheme at this point is ATSF Red sides with D&H Avon Blue on the roof and car ends.
Gravel will be hauled in black and white ore cars ( cause it looks cool)
and yellow and red reefers. The rest will be ATSF red raised side hopers, pulpwood cars, boxes and flats.
I hope that clears up some of your questions

Thanks a mil.
LIttemon

Keep the opinions coming![:D]