First, let's set up the match:
In the east corner, Tonopah & Tidewater:
In the west corner, Virginia and Truckee:
So, the decision becomes, which railroad do YOU want to model? Too bad there was never a direct interchange between them.
Of course, by shifting to the Cyrano de Bergerac universe, you can make one...
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - in the Ballox O'Malley universe)
OK What happened here? This sounds like a frustrated protofreelance operation in the making! I'm modeling a system that could've existed if some people thought about it. Can't you just put the two together as if they amalgamated? I would bet you wouldn't feel as if your brain became a warehouse...
Seriously though I would give it a consideration that you combine the two. Are they really that far apart? If not then...
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
Do you want to model a railroad?
Then model the railroad you want to.
If the actual modelling is unimportant, then make a dog's breakfast out of it as I and many others have done. Where did the N&W, C&O, PRR, NYC, UP, and CPR all share a turntable except on my layout? The answer probably, by this point in the hobby's history, is....lots of places. Or, more accurately, lots of fanciful layouts.
You could put your current stuff away for a future layout, or sell it on ebay, Then start off on the journey that I suspect is more appealing to you (or you wouldn't have posted the question).
If practical sense tells you that it would be wrong to discontinue your current approach, with all the investment of various resources to date, will you be happy with your choice if it is to launch in this alluring direction?
Ask yourself what is important to you today in your modelling, and how is it qualitatively different from what it was six months ago? There-in lies our answer...what will make you happiest in an undertaking meant to give you pleasure? If pleasure is the prime consideration, of course. If something else is, or ought to be more important, then your answer lies there.
Hi!
Like the previous posters wrote, its your railroad and you can do what you want. Both of those wonderful narrow gauge prototypes can be meshed together in some form or fashion that will allow them to keep their individuality, and still be side by side. As said, they did not have an interchange in reality, but you can surely make one. I say do them both - either 90/10 or 50/50 or whatever. ENJOY !!!
I say this because I "know your pain". I have big soft spots for two railroads - ATSF & IC. Now they do cross tracks in various places - Joliet Illinois being the one I'm most familiar with. But my locos and layout have always been Santa Fe, until one day a number of years ago I said "why not?", and got some IC E and GP units and several passenger cars, and a couple of steamers. So my layout is now classified as a "major in ATSF, with a minor in IC". It works for me, it makes me happy, and I've yet to have anyone give me grief over it.
Please, do what works for you - cause when it comes right down to it - its YOUR railroad!!!!
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
There's nothing wrong with modeling two railroads on the same layout, and; taking a modeler's license to give two railroads a common interchange junction is a time-honored model railroading tradition.
My Conemaugh Road & Traction never existed, but will interchange with the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
What do you mean "never existed"? It exists now, doesn't it.
To quote a famous Alaskan: "You Betcha!"
CR&T is loosely incorporating aspects of the Johnstown Traction Company which had the USA's largest PCC fleet for any "small" city, and; the Conemaugh & Black Lick Railroad which was Bethlehem Steel's industrial switching shortline for its 12 miles of steel operations along the Conemaugh River. As to local Class I protoptype: B&O had a small shortline freight-only interchange presence while the Pennsy rolled through the valley on its heavy-duty 4-track mainline.
mobilman44 Hi! Both of those wonderful narrow gauge prototypes can be meshed together in some form or fashion that will allow them to keep their individuality, and still be side by side. Mobilman44
Both of those wonderful narrow gauge prototypes can be meshed together in some form or fashion that will allow them to keep their individuality, and still be side by side.
Narrow gauge? Only if you model the pre-Civil War South, the Erie or Sir Isambard's 7'1/2" broad gauge!
The V&T is, and always has been, 1435mm gauge (56.5", aka 'standard.') You might be thinking of the Carson and Colorado, whose narrow gauge engines frequently rode a special V&T flat to the V&T's Carson City shops.
The T&T was also standard gauge.
In my (admittedly biased) opinion, the V&T ran in a more scenically interesting area. I don't know if the T&T ever had any tunnels. There's no question that the V&T had, and has, several.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with more tunnels than the V&T)
For myself if I get it in my head that I need something different in a layout and it can't be accomplished in my present layout well then I don't think twice about tearing down and starting over , after all its not suppose to be work , it's a hobby.
Lynn
Present Layout progress
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/p/290127/3372174.aspx#3372174
Chuck,
You caught me daydreaming while I was typing............. I had narrow gauge on my mind.
NevinWI have been building my HO Tonopah and Tidewater and I am to the point where I am running trains and starting scenery. The problem is that I have always loved the V&T and I have collected some V&T equipment - I have a brass V&T #25 that runs perfect and just needs a good paint job and sound. Rio Grande Models has been coming out with V&T kits right and left. I designed a V&T layout that would depict it from about American Flats to Virginia City. I even have a V&T turntable from Freshwater Models. It would be definitely easier to model than the T&T. Type in V&T on Google and you will see that it has considerably more stuff available. Virginia City is only about 45 minutes from my house. On there other hand there aren't too many people modeling the T&T. Talk me out of this madness!! Please! - Nevin
Ok, so what is the issue? If you want to model the V&T then it sounds to me like you need to start building a second railroad, maybe a shelf layout or one in the attic. I have a garden railroad based on a fanciful tourist line, a uber prototype HO shelf layout in the garage, and a 3 rail fun line (OK, I'll say it, TOY- there are you happy now- I am ) in the room over. One does not preclude the other. One does not supplant the other. Both can have a home in your home. This is how we become "train nuts". This is how, by the time you are 70, that your house and everything in it is somehow related to trains. You are off to a great start......
The Dixie D Short Line "Lux Lucet In Tenebris Nihil Igitur Mors Est Ad Nos 2001"
Let's resort to Model Railroad Planning 2008, on the cover page and I quote, "Design A What If Railroad." What if, these two railroads merged, and you could have yourself the V&T&T&T, ummm.....maybe just the VT&TT
Dwolf; it could be the VITT (veet!!) As in Quick!!!!
Well, how far apart are the two railroads?? I'm a thousand miles away, if you told me the two railroads connected, I'm sure I'd believe you. You could make your layout sort of a generic "western shortline" layout and run both without much trouble. I do a little of that on my iron ore layout. Although I do have a freelanced "St.Paul Route" which much of my equipment is decorated for, I also run equipment from the DM&IR, Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, Soo Line and C&NW. Now some of those railroads had ore lines in Minnesota, and some in Upper Michigan (and one in both!) but I run them together on the same layout and it looks fine to me.
I appreciate everyones comments. I do want to clarify a couple of things. I am very much into prototype historical modeling. My last layout was a depiction of the B&O thru Morgantown WV (home of my employer WVU). That layout only depicted about 3 miles of track but was pretty historically accurate. I even had a depiction of the old football stadium painted on the backdrop. It was neat doing the research and it made for some really neat operations sessions. For example, we could use real early 1950's schedules. It was made easier by the fact that in the east they don't immediately tear every building down. The B&O roadbed was now a bike trail, but most of the buildings including the depot were there and intact.
When I moved to Nevada, I wanted to do the same thing for the T&T or LV&T. It has turned out to be much more dificult. There is much less information available and my trips to Beatty and Rhyolite have not been very helpful. It is all just desert now! The kind of data I had on the B&O and Morgantown is simply unavailable on these roads. There have been more compromises than I would want. For example, there were no turntables, engines were turned on wyes and I have no room for wyes. So I have really enjoyed modeling the T&T but it really is proto-freelancing since so little information is available. Not really the kind of modeling I like to do best.
The advantage of the V&T is that it is SO much better documented that I could model the portion between Gold Hill and Virginia City and come up with something that anyone would recognize. The yard in VC is so compact that one could duplicated it pretty exactly in the space I have available. I spent Sunday in VC and it really could be modeled pretty closely. I haven't made up my mind yet but I am leaning towards the V&T. I'll not act to rashly though, I may change my mind. I'll I would have to do is reroute some tracks to it isn't like I am starting over. I can use 80%-90% of the current track, benchwork and lighting. My wife thinks I am really nuts! - Nevin
Why not just reletter your existing stock? If you don't want to, though, and want to give away all that crummy T&T stock, shoot me an email. I'll even pop for shipping...
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
I just got off the phone with Madam DuPré and she assures me that if you change railroads you will instantly turn into a toad!
There are aspects of being a freelancer that keeps things so utterly simple!
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
I still don't see what's wrong with starting a second railroad, having two layouts is a great thing and does not require compromise in any way. One layout can have one railroad, the second can have another railroad, and never the two shall conflict in prototype, era, or scale.
Nevin
If you stick to the T&T the amount of "prototype structures" you have to construct is minimum, and can easily be kitbashed.
If you do the V&T in Virginia City, depending on time frame, you are going to have to make structures that faithfully reproduce St Mary in the Mountains and at least one of the mine head frames or it won't be recognizable to those that know.
I'd say model what you want, but I'd lean to the T&T as then it will just be please yourself, the rivet counters won't have much information to get you on. Also, although there is a lot of information on the V&T time frames for some of the information is not that definitive.
Thats why I never got my MSTS V&T route beyond the track laying stage.
I'm faced with the same thing.... keep the T&P going or move on to modeling the WP from Orovile to Portola.
Jack W
Ah yes, the OTHER railroad. You were happily going along with your chosen railroad and then you slipped off the straight and narrow. Seductively the other railroad beckons - come, model me, I'm sexier and available. At first its a boxcar, then a passenger car, then a locomotive. And before you quite know how, you have a mistress. And the agony, do you stay true to the first or dump her for the second? Or do you waffle trying to satisfy two railroad loves, splitting your time and cash between the two?
I know this journey well, for hidden in the far reaches of my basement far from the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad is an elfin two foot Forney for the Wiscasset, Waterville, and Farmington Railway.
Enjoy
Paul
You could do both. Some times you run V&T equipment and the layout is the V&T. Sometimes you run T&T equipment and the layout is the T&T. They are both western short lines, scenery and structures appropriate for one are appropriate for the other. Or, say you are modeling a junction between the two roads. I fail to see a problem here.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
dstarr You could do both. Some times you run V&T equipment and the layout is the V&T. Sometimes you run T&T equipment and the layout is the T&T. They are both western short lines, scenery and structures appropriate for one are appropriate for the other. Or, say you are modeling a junction between the two roads. I fail to see a problem here.
If you have ever driven the length of the southwestern angle of Nevada, you are aware that the scenery isn't as similar as some might think. Tonopah and Virginia City are extremely dis-similar, and both have certain landmark structures that clearly identify which one you're looking at.
It might be possible to build both, as two vertically separated layouts with identical footprints. OTOH, the V&T had been built, thrived and was fading before the first spike was driven on the T&T. There was no economic incentive to connect the two cities, especially since SP already owned key parts of the only logical connecting route..
Chuck (Nevada resident modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Be true to yourself. I would suggest you model the Virginia and Truckee. Are you still in the exercise room? I would model Virginia City and if you have room Gold Hill. At the west end I would put a staging yard with a turntable at the far end. Not having to build a second switch ladder was a real space saver. I did this on my latest railroad and it operates very well.
Having visited the T&T right of way it is so true that there is so little left. Also the lack of information is very frustrating. One of the wonders is seeing pictures of a busy town and visiting the site and seeing nothing but desert.
Build the V&T
Ralph H
NevinWI haven't made up my mind yet but I am leaning towards the V&T. I'll not act to rashly though, I may change my mind. I'll I would have to do is reroute some tracks to it isn't like I am starting over. I can use 80%-90% of the current track, benchwork and lighting. My wife thinks I am really nuts!
My tip is: never say never. I though I would never dismantle an operating and partically scenicked layout to build a new one, but what I did was to change from an European layout set in Austria in present day to a North American layout set in California in 1974. I had to change everything: tracks, rolling stock, structures, even trees (I had lots of conifers).
I was lucky enough to sell 90% of my rolling stock and tracks, but eventually I made the right decision: now I'm a happier model railroader :)
It is your world. Do with it what you want.
Imagine the V&T and the T&T merged, but kept separate corporate identites. Locomotives and equipment would be transferred to where it was needed most. Although it wouldn't be necessary for that scenario, perhaps the SP allowed trackage rights over its line and that the V&T/T&T acquired and standard gauged the old C&C line which connected to the V&T at Dayton that connected with the V&T so there would be a direct route between V&T and T&T running over the standard-gauged SP. Thus, it doesn't necessarily have to be an either/or decision.
Mark
Nevin--
At one time in Nevada there were plans for a north-south railroad called the Midland Continental that encompassed the Las Vegas and Tonopah, the Tonopah and Tidewater, the Bullfrog Goldfield, Tonapah and Goldfield, parts of the Carson & Colorado and the Virginia and Truckee into one rather sizeable regional road that would connect the Los Angeles & Salt Lake (UP) in the south to the Southern Pacific in the north near Reno, with a projected line north into Idaho to connect with the UP line in Boise. Though nothing came of it (unfortunately), it might prove a possible prototype for you. From what I've read in David Myrick's RAILROADS OF NEVADA AND EASTERN CALIFORNIA, VOL 1, each railroad would retain its identity as far as locomotives and rolling stock, but be used system wide.
It's something to think about. And if I were you, I'd certainly hunt up a copy of Myrick's book--it's got absolutely invaluable information on the various railroads in eastern Nevada.
PS: According to TRAINS magazine, there may be a railroad running near Tonopah again in the near future to carry nuclear waste to an underground site near Las Vegas.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
dstarrThey are both western short lines, scenery and structures appropriate for one are appropriate for the other
Come out west sometime and we'll show you how wrong that statement actually is.