If my eyesight gets any worse, I just might jump ff the HO bandwagon and go for a larger scale. I love narrow gauge & could consider East Broad Top (nearby for me) or Tweetsie, or Ohio River & Western. But most likely I'd stay with standard gauge. We'll see.
Tom
So, you guys who know something about the Rio Grande Southern, what are the places along the line, North of Lizard Head Pass that you have an interest in. My thoughts are now: Lizard Head, Ophir Loop and Ridgway. I would have room for maybe a couple other LDEs.
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
I've always thought Placerville is a scene that lends itself well to modeling - it could make a good small switching layout in its own right, and the prototype almost looks selectively compressed, especially with how the river is literally only feet away from the depot across the tracks.
I'll put in a word again for Vanadium. There was a large mill, but I've not yet discovered a trackplan. Pics and a pretty good discussion on freight traffic in and out is available here: http://www.riograndesouthern.com/RGSTechPages/_bdwhite/atomic.htm
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
mlehman I'll put in a word again for Vanadium. There was a large mill, but I've not yet discovered a trackplan. Pics and a pretty good discussion on freight traffic in and out is available here: http://www.riograndesouthern.com/RGSTechPages/_bdwhite/atomic.htm
For Vanadium, there's likely more in one or more of the many volumes of TheRGS Story. I only have the one for the far south end at Durango for reference.
Certainly, by 1942, photography was likely discouraged by the war in general. By 1943, there were more specific concerns about photos of what the RGS might be hauling and from where
But I suspect that general coporate secrecy associated with Vanadium had something to do with the dearth of pics. Even in WWI, vanadium was a strategic metal used in making various alloys useful in building the machinery of war.
What really got the trade going was the radium that could be extracted from its association with the vanadium ore. That stuff went for tens of thousands of dollars a gram. It was medically useful, but also obviously potentially very profitable. In fact, WWI set of something of a fad for glow in the dark watches, which were very useful in those dark trenches in France. Radium became widely used for painting watch dials, while other more faddish uses for decoration and patent medicines became more widespread. That was a BAD idea.
The dial-painters eventually became known as the "radium girls" and there is a book by the same name that goes into detail about the trade in general and the tortured government response to the fact that these young women were coming down with horrible injuries to the jaw and other bones, due to the practice of licking the brush to get a fine point on it when painting the dials. After a few years, that practice was stopped, which seemed to solve the worst of it. Probelm is that radium fissions into radon gas as one of its duaghter products. Radon takes somewhat longer to cause problems, but still led to a very high rate of cancer and premature death. Thtis part of the story went on for several more decades before the last of the dial painting industry shut down in Illinois, moving to NYC for a last gasp before ending there in the early 1980s.
So Vanadium has a lot of history to it, if not a lot of pics. Sorry to go on about it, but I wrote a research paper on the response by the state of Illinois to the problem of what to do about cleaning up the old factory -- and various spots around town where the tailings from the refining process were used as fill dirt in numerous buildings and locations. What a mess. But makes great history.
Mike,
This must be where the joke about people exposed to radiation glowing in the dark, comes from.
I hope no one gets their “Knickers in a Bunch”, over my flippant comments on the potential ill effects of radiation!
Mark,
Yeah, there are a number of historic aircraft in museum whose cockpits used to be open to visitors, but are now off limits due to the low level radiation and daughter products produced by the radium used in instrument dials. The Navy submarine force was another big user of such instruments. It was ideal for when things get dark and you're worried about needing to read instruments in an emergency without electrical power.
People do sometimes believe there's no danger in any of this. There clearly was for those who produced such items. The main issue with radiation -- and one that is generally accepted by radiation specialists of various kinds -- is that its damage is cumulative. Yes, we're exposed to a certain level of natural radiation, depending on where we live, whether we have a basement -- think of how many layouts are in basements -- and what our medical history is. Less is definitely better. But, really no need to get in a panic if you're spending lots of time in the basement
I won't go on at length other than to note, with Veteran's Day just past, that veterans who were exposed to radiation in connection with their service are eligible for treatment as atomic veterans, a category that presumes certain cancers, diabetes, and a number of other health issues are service-related and permits benefits to be given and paid without some of that famous VA paperwork. Some veterans may not even be aware of their exposures.
I assisted one veteran in making a sucessful claim some years back by documenting that his service with a certain weather reconnaisance unit did involve exposure to radiation. "Weather reconnaisance" often served as cover for missions recovering samples of fallout from Soviet tests. They never told him exactly what he was doing, but it was clear that his maintenance work exposed him to radiation because to get to his work he had to pull the sampler pods installed in the bomb bays of the aircraft involved. He would often find a fine dust present, which seemed to irritate his hands and arms.
I was able to place that in the wider context of the unit's secret mission -- those were most likely beta burns, a well-known phenomemon among those pulling sampler filters that by the date of his service they understood but didn't always faithfully address and protect against, despite the fact that his service records showed no obvious connection to radiation. He was able to use that info to make a successful claim on review and receive substantial partial disability due to his health issues being on the presumptive illness list that applies to atomic veterans.
Well that's my public service announcment for the day. If anyone would like to know more about potentially falling into this category, I'd be glad to either help with more info or suggest who to contact as I'm a Life Associate member of the National Association of Atomic Veterans due to my father's own service. We historians do our best to try to be useful -- the issue of fallout and national security policy is my actual research area -- and in this case it's actually useful for the living.
To bring this full circle and back to model railroading, much of the increased traffic I "invented" to add enough traffic to the Silverton Branch to make it the busy little RR it is was premised on a sardonic look at the nuclear fuel cycle. From the mines to the mills to my hypothetical URACAM/AEC plant, there is a little bit -- sometimes a lot! -- of uranium in the traffic base. Also makes it easy to invent mysterious, uninformative stuff to put into the "Lading" blank on the waybills.
SPV I tried to find a map of Ridgway online and didn't have much luck. It was actually featured as an layout design element in Tony Koester's book on LDEs. Chris
I tried to find a map of Ridgway online and didn't have much luck. It was actually featured as an layout design element in Tony Koester's book on LDEs.
Chris
Chris, What book on Layout Design Elements by Tony Koester are you referring to? I just looked through all the special issues at the Kalmbach Store and don't see a special book on this topic there.
Thanks for the interesting reading Mike and the photos of the Durango smelter. When I get some time one of these days I want to do some digging at Ft Lewis and see what I can find for mines, mills, and smelters of the area. Always looking for higher resolution images maps and drawings.
I remember on the show, "1000 ways to die", they did a segment on the dial painters. The show depicted a number of the women who used the paint on themselves as make up and body paint. This ended up supposedly killing one of the women and injuring some of the others. I have no idea if this was actually true though.
One tidbit about vanadium (the metal) is that, and Im going on memory here, it probably was not smelted down to the metal at the works at Vanadium (the town). Rather, it was roasted to the oxide which when used to make steel combines with carbon to make a fine grained strong steel. The complex at Vanadium (the town) looks like probably an ore dressing mill with perhaps a roasting furnace. I think it would make a fine model with its interesting roof lines and operational function.
Yeah, I was referring to ASARCO in general as a smelter. You're right about the vanadium, as I believe all that was done by the time ASARCO left the scene as the smelter buildings were gone. They were the tall buildings with the big tubes going into the top. Here's a pic of my model of that, with the smelter on the left and the VCA plant on the right. They didn't co-exist in real time, though.
You can see the glow of the furnaces at night.
VCA had a much smaller footprint than the old plant. I found some great pics of it that were on the Colorado School of Mines website that I went by in mocking up my plant, but can't locate them right now. I have them saved, but probably best just to post links of those until I can confirm no copyright issues, but can't do either until I track them down again on the web.
There's definitely good stuff at Ft. Lewis. I looked through the finding aids online, but haven't done any work there, so not sure how things are in person. Definitely worth at least checking out.
Yeah, this radium stuff definitely killed people. In fact, the research done on these women is one of the bases of knowledge that was used to define exposure standards that the Manhattan Project promulgated during WWII. The licking of the brushes was really bad and everyone recognized that needed to stop and it did, for the most part. A few of the women died within a few years of starting work there, but this was before the scientists got involved so less was known about that other than the bone cancers came on fast.
There was also it's use in patent medicines. Mostly this was fraudulent, fortunately, and it was just advertised as containing radium -- but it didn't. The most expensive one did, though. A rather famous playboy of the time thought it was great stuff and could afford a lot of it; his girlfriend drank her share, too. They were both dead within a couple of years, but that involved drinking significant quantities, not simply licking the brushes.
I've been thinking about RR applications to somehow keep this mess on topic I'm sure the glowing watch dial had an attraction for railroaders, who had a real need for knowing the time, even in the dark. There may be some insights gained by looking at changing styles in RR watches, for instance. I'm not sure it was used in casb instruments, but it could have been.
I did find a bit of related RR info in this discussion at the NGDF:
http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,277857,277857#msg-277857
It appears salt was transferred from the Rio Grande at Ridgway to go south on the RGS to Durango. The specualtion is that it was to process vanadium ore at Durango, but they still haven't pinned that down. I'm all ears, though, as I'd like to know where the salt was coming from, too. I haven't done a lot of research on the processing except for pictures needed to build with. I'm still working on getting my inbound loads of various inputs figured out.
Thanks again, Mike! As always great information. Keep it coming! I know this thread is on the RGS, but anything Colorado Narrow Gauge is interesting stuff to read!
Glad I'm keeping it interesting, if not as on-topic as maybe it should be. Like my dissertation, stay with it long enough and it eventually wanders back on track.
You may have seen them in one of the soruces I cited. Pretty sure they're in the Dorman pic collection somewhere, but VCA (IIRC and I'm still on my 1st ) or whoever owned the mill at Vanadium ran some interestingly decorated "billboard" tank cars. I'd like to eventually do at least one if I can ever find decals for them, although I've not really looked yet. Like the salt traffic, this sort of interchange is important to my layout's (very) imaginary ops scheme.
I have a staging track that can serve as RGS staging to run trains to and from Durango. It doubles as a test loop if I need a continuous HOn3 run for breaking-in, etc. Recently I started using it as staging for Durango, which is very convenient, as it can easily hold my longest trains, while the yard gets tied up if I don't break it down.
Now I fear that I'll find that so convenient that I'll just forget about doing the RGS at all. I've had a Goose since ConCor came out with them years back. I did finally come up with a RGS loco, so they don't have to depend on leased Rio Grande power, when I received my weathered RGS 40 in a recent run from Blackstone. Short as RGS trains were, though, should be room for both it and a Durango staged train to coexist back-to-back on that hidden loop.
I bring this up, in part, to point out how you make fortuitous discoveries about operating your layout along the way. I'd never thought of using the RGS staging for Durango staging, too, until last week, even though it was right there in front of me all along. Good thing it wasn't a snake, it would've bit me... Between that and some recent work I documented in WPF on yard tracks in Durango, I'm feeling really good about the basic design and how it works. Wish there was more room, but I can run 20+ car trains if I want, while shorter 9 or 10 car trains can happne all day long.
It's also a reminder to err on the side of leaving the possibility of extending spur tracks and sidings, reconfiguring yard tracks, etc in your plans if possible. That turf may come in handy later.
Some people make a big deal about threads staying on topic. As the starter of this one, I like that the thread meanders a little bit, it's all still about the general subject; so, everyone, as long as what you want to say has something generally to do with narrow gauge, you are "Spot On" the topic I want to talk about.
I am still after information on the general track layout at Ridgway, CO. I'm also finding that the daily life of the Rio Grande Southern was rather depressing! It seemed that bankruptcy was like the wolves nipping at the heels of this line since almost its’ inception.
However, anything about Otto Mears is still interesting stuff!
I agree a little meandering is nice, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. On the Trains forum, we had a recent thread discussing a fatal RR accident. Before long, a discussion of music had taken over and squeezed out any discussion of the original topic. I thought that was over the top & said so. I think I'm now considered a music-hating troglodyte.
The very subject of the RGS, or almost any narrow gauge railroad, almost innately implies that there will be a bit of "subject drift". Just so we keep it from straying too far for too long.
The layout drawings are done and the layout would certainly be doable in the space I have to use. I don't have the actual Ridgway track drawings; but, figured, it would use up more space than the Telluride LDE would and know I could fit it in. The layout would need to be a double decked, walk along, layout to get it all the way I would want it. Basically, on the north wall on the top level would be the Lizard Head Pass LDE. On the east wall would be a curved Trout lake siding and tank with Ophir Loop on the south side of the room looping back. In the middle of the Ophir loop area; but before the loop, which would be in the Southwest corner, there would need to be a lift-out; or, swing out, gate to allow easy access to the middle area of the layout. Here, the tracks would be close to each other with the track closest to the middle of the layout, being lower. There would be room enough for either Vance Junction, Vanadium or Placerville lower than; but, near the return part of the loop and under Trout Lake. Finally, under Lizard Head pass is where I would put Ridgway. In a "Nut-Shell" this is a verbal description of what I would have to take a photo of to post here. It would be an end point (Lizard Head) out and back returning to the lower terminal area at Ridgway.
That sounds like a pretty good chunk of the RGS. I doubt Ridgway would really be much or any bigger than Telluride, given it was rather compact and Telluride was kinda strung along through town from what I remember. So you're probably good in general terms.
NP2626Chris, What book on Layout Design Elements by Tony Koester are you referring to? I just looked through all the special issues at the Kalmbach Store and don't see a special book on this topic there.
I think it's in "Realistic Model Railroad Building Blocks" but I'll have to double check. In any event, your best bet for information on Ridgway is still Volume 1 of "The RGS Story."
Thanks Chris! I have had a look through the Kalmbach Library and Tony's Book on "Realistic M.R. Building Blocks" must no longer be offered. As far as buying Vol. #1 "The RGS Story", this would need to wait as I just bought Rio Grande Southern, Chasing the Narrow Gauge by Robert Richardson. This is a great book about the RGS, more of a general pictorial, as opposed to specifics. I'm surprised at the amount of books available on the RGS! It seems to be a fairly popular railroad and I'm sort of surprised that there isn't a historical society for the line!
So, right now I need to answer the question that I have been asking myself since I first started thinking about a new layout and that is: do I want to do this? Certainly the designing process is not complete enough to simply jump into it; however, it is complete enough for a cursory look at whether an Sn3 layout would work in the space I have available.
Answering this question will take some time and head scratching.
Yeah, give it some time. If it's a good idea now, it still will be in two or six months. And you'll be more certain of your decision, whatever it is. If you ponder long enough, even the imponderables come into focus.
You may know this, but for out-of-print books, abebooks.com works great. In this case, you may want to hope for a reprint. Tony's book starts at $68 and goes up, so there's quite the demand for it.
My HOn3, the Paradox Uravan & Placerville is all about Uranium and its role in WWII and its transport from the U mines to the smelters and back east for processing.
I have found images on lines of piled up sacks of rich uranium ore stacked up on a Placerville platform circa 1910. Brought there by mules and wagons. I have a good deal of experience with radiation and Uranium in my work and this is why I themed my road as a U hauler.
Radium was a big deal as Mike said. During the time frame of 1905 to 1925 the US was a significant source of uranium ore for the production of radium. The entire effort collapsed and the first uranium boom in the US ended with the discovery of millions of tons of ultra high grade ore in the Belgian Congo in the 1920's. Uranium as a reduced chemical, by itself, was a true waste product from radium production as the only use for it was pottery glazes and depression glass manufacture. So the Uranium was a worthless separated material after radium extraction.
My little narrow gauge road is about the second uranium boom beginning in WWII as all those old Uranium waste piles were scooped up and shipped out from Uravan and Vandium and countless smelters/refiners on the plateau and new mines were opened up for the sole purpose of getting Uranium. (for the bomb).
The first two bombs we dropped on Japan used up all the old wastes and new mines were opened in a fever to get the Uranium for future bombs and defense work.
Just like the first boom, Placerville would be the PU&P ("pup") connection to the Durango/Vandium smelter/refiner. No costly transfer of ore would be needed as every thing was narrow gauged, mine to where the ore was first-pass processed.
Uranium came out of the chemical refiners as the oxide in barrels and later, after the war, as yellow cake in large mills in Rifle, Co. and Monticello in Utah and other places.
Lots of good small mining scenics with only the large Urivan operation on my road. I will not need to model a smelter or chemical refiner as there was never one anywhere along my 60 mile shortline. Uravan did ship some chemically reduced oxides, however. The PUP would drop the ore cars with U rock and box cars with reduced oxides off at Placerville and the RGS would take them from there.
I have not modeled Placerville yet and figure I will not have to go to extremes as it is end of line. I will not do any RGS trackage modeling beyond Placerville. Switching only.
Richard Hull
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
Just to keep those RGS fires stoked, got my Nov/Dec Gazette today. On the front cover is a Jan Rons watercolor of 452 at Ophir Loop. Inside, an old online acquaintance, Steve Harris, builds a Placerville Barn, part of a series he's doing on his layout's version of the town.
narrow gauge nuclearMy HOn3, the Paradox Uravan & Placerville is all about Uranium and its role in WWII and its transport from the U mines to the smelters and back east for processing.
Richard,
Thanks for chiming in. Yours is a marvelous interleaving of fact and fiction that reminds us great concepts don't have to be strictly prototypical, so long as they're well-grounded in physical realities of the area. Some of the more interesting lines are those never built, sometimes never really even considered in real life, but couldabeen. Certainly, the RGS has characteristics of all of that, plus it was even real, which can be a special attraction or a special frustration, depending on what you can squeeze in.
I checked and the Ridgway yard is featured in "Realistic Model Railroad Building Blocks" on pages 58-60. I didn't realize it was out of print and going for such high prices - for that kind of money, you're much better off going with "The RGS Story." There are certainly a lot of resources out there on the RGS, and quite a few people modeling it.
Richard, your back story is definitely very interesting. I'm planning on modeling a network of freelanced narrow gauge shortlines in southeastern Utah and northeastern Arizona. My premise is based on the historical fact that General Palmer left the D&RG in the early 1880s but stayed on in the leadership of the D&RGW (Ry) (later RGW) in Utah, before the two lines merged into the D&RG in 1908 and later reorganized into the D&RGW (RR) in 1924. I presuppose that in a last attempt to fulfill his dream of a narrow gauge mainline to Mexico City, the general convinced the board to finance the San Pablo Valley RR from the Rio Grande mainline in the Utah desert to Moab and the mines of the La Sal Mountains, and eventually on to a connection with the Utah Arizona & Pacific RR, which connected with the AT&SF in eastern Arizona. One of the small additional lines I plan to include is the Paradox & La Sal, which interchanges with the SPV and runs northeast into the Paradox Valley. Uranium mining will also play a roll on my railroad(s), although the exact details of that have yet to be fleshed out. I'm modeling somewhat earlier - the fall of 1907 - so the first uranium boom is just beginning.
Chris thanks for your thoughts on your planned road. By going into the Utah paradox valley, you will go through where U mining would ultimately end up in the 50's as Colorado quickly took a back seat to the Moab/La Sal/Paradox mining area.
If you are doing the narrow gauge in your road, you will be limited in motive power to consolidations, moguls and ten wheelers though the mudhens were around then, (circa 1907), and you can figure out a way to get one on your road with a clever back story. All the best on your effort.
narrow gauge nuclearIf you are doing the narrow gauge in your road, you will be limited in motive power to consolidations, moguls and ten wheelers though the mudhens were around then, (circa 1907), and you can figure out a way to get one on your road with a clever back story. All the best on your effort.
Thanks Richard. I have a pretty good handful of locomotives waiting to take their place on the respective rosters of the SPV, UA&P, and P&LS, as well as the Castle Valley & La Sal and an as-yet-unnamed logging railroad connecting near Monticello. The roster is heavily dominated by Consolidations - mostly Blackstone C-19s and brass C-16s - but there also a few oddballs in there, including a pair of T-12s, a pair of Moguls, and an American. An early K-27 (or Class 125, in the 1907 parlance) will also make some appearances, likely as a leased D&RG engine being evaluated for a possible new order from Baldwin.
Of course, modeling the turn of the century involves lots of backdating on commercially available engines, and most of the brass will need remotoring in addition to DCC and sound, so it's a slow process. Thus far, a pair of C-19s are completed, as well as a standard gauge 4-4-0 that will serve on the SPV's northernmost rails - in my version of history, the line between Moab and the RGW mainline at Whitehouse was dual-gauged in 1895 to enable a direct connection to the standard gauge for a newly-built smelter.
Do you chronicle your layout's progress online anywhere? I'd certainly enjoy watching it.
P.S. Sorry for sidetracking away from the RGS discussion!
SPV P.S. Sorry for sidetracking away from the RGS discussion!
Not a problem, I am enjoying you guy's thoughts and ideas!
What both of you are doing, I would consider to be Free Lancing. For some reason it seems that Free Lancing has fallen from favor, over prototype modeling. Just another thing about some Model Rails that I do not understand, and that’s their strict adherence to how they think everyone should think! For all practical purposes my current layout really is Free Lanced although my rolling stock, power and cabooses are Northern Pacific. I grew up close to both the N.P. and Great Northern, so when I decided to change from a Free Lanced line to a real railroad, I chose the Northern Pacific, having liked there locomotives, shorty wood cabooses and the N.P. Monad. The setting of the railroad is completely fictitious and I would not change much, if I where to start over again. My Layout is actually based more on the geography that the Narrow Gauges had to negotiate and is one of the reasons the idea of doing a new layout is somewhat hard to swallow.
Mark
NP2626What both of you are doing, I would consider to be Free Lancing.
Yep, I am definitely in the freelance camp, although I am striving to keep things realistic and plausible. I actually wound up on this path because there were too many prototypes I was interested in - primarily Otto Mears' shortlines north from Silverton and the D&RG's Santa Fe Branch, the Chili Line. Modeling both of those in a plausible way and a reasonable size just didn't seem feasible. Then I found a book called "Utah Ghost Rails" that covered a wide variety of lines in Colorado's western neighbor which were largely forgotten by history. I realized that it might be possible to sneak a few fictional chapters into the pantheon of western narrow gauge history unnoticed. And when I learned that the fantastically-varied geography of Utah's southeast corner was never served by any railroad until the late 20th century, I had my (fictional) prototype - a remote network of narrow gauge shortlines that connected with the outside world at the loneliest spot of the Rio Grande system: the Utah desert.
The actual truth of the matter (in my opinion, of course) is that all model railroads are "free lanced” Even those who tout how closely their layout is to the prototype, must take huge liberties with the distances their trains travel.
I see nothing wrong with using imagination to fill in blank spots; or, embellishing a particular location to better suit our needs. This is a hobby, something where we can use our imagination and artistic abilities to express ourselves. You guys coming up with these re-written histories about how things came about on your railroad are far better at justifying what you do, than you really need to. However, I believe you are having fun doing it! So, I say have at'r!