Rich, DJ, neither of you have cause to claim the high ground in this thread. Go to your corners.
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
mobilman44 Inquiring minds want to know and respectfully ask.......... Where will we find the "structures forum"? Thank you!
Inquiring minds want to know and respectfully ask..........
Where will we find the "structures forum"?
Thank you!
Sorry about that. I put it in Prototype because I am going to build one from scratch as an example. I used Pidgeon Creek in the thread title. DJ
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
That's it. My next posts on this layout will be in the structures forum.
I: Freight trains exit the oval in the north to Osprey Valley. Another line will enter the oval but it's placement will depend on how my basement gets rearranged so I'll add it at a later time.
H: Several trackside industries are located along the south siding. Fruit, shale products, metal scrapyard, and plywood products for example. Rolling stock to service these industries include boxcars, container well cars, bulkhead flats, and gondolas.
G: Pidgeon Creek turns into a small saltmarsh just northeast of the gypsum staging track. A metal culvert passes under the track. The marsh is a protected waterfowl area between the two gypsum tracks.
F: A small rail bridge passes over Pidgeon Creek where the barite hoppers join the main oval.
E: Pidgeon Creek is a tidal waterway like those off the Bay of Fundy. Seawater moves in and out twice a day. I will model the main curved oval bridge so my longest rolling stock can pass over and the creek will be modelled at low tide.
D: Barite processing plant has a track for loading processed barite. The access road to the plant is in the southwest corner with a level crossing.
C: open pit and shaft barite mine is based on photos and public archive documents I have collected on the old mine in Walton, Nova Scotia. It no longer exists and the pit is flooded. Ore from the mine is moved by dump truck to the barite processing plant. The mine has a track to load hoppers with unprocessed barite.
B: Open pit gypsum quarry will be based on my notes from my personal tour of the operational quarry in Milford, Nova Scotia a few years ago. This entire 6' x 12' layout will be on high ground to allow for a deep pit. The quarry has two tracks, one for loading gypsum hoppers and another for staging loaded hoppers. Access road to the quarry is on the north side through a level crossing.
A (northwest corner): All the curves on the main oval and trackside industries siding have to have 22"-minimum curves because my 53' NSC well cars will derail on anything less. The well cars are needed for the containers used by the trackside industries.
Layout sheet is fine for the bigger picture that I am working on right now but I will go to a finer grid as you suggest for the details. Thanks.
The one drawback to the Layout Design Sheet is that it does not provide room for enough detail for such things as the placement of the gypsum quarry, barite mine, storage silos, highway, wind turbine, lighthouse, etc.
Consider using quadrille paper which is a sheet of one quarter inch squares. That way, you can also get a better sense of how turnouts fit, especially the angle of the diverging track.
Rich
Alton Junction
Found some old Layout Design Sheets in the back room of Maritime Hobbies & Crafts in Halifax and bought them. Made several copies of this 11"x17" size and sketched out the modified Pidgeon Creek layout before I take it apart tomorrow. Love drawing by hand - old school. I do drawing art as well so this is a nice fit. When I had my heart attack I was studying euphonium at the Maritime Conservatory so while I was recovering I drew a piece with my heart connected to the four valves of the euphonium.
In the sketch, one square inch on paper is one square foot on the layout. Now I can finess the tracks, add a gypsum quarry, barite mine and storage silos, highway, wind turbine, lighthouse, and a few other smaller structures, all on paper. That's it for certain on this thread. DJ
Found the layout (Dexter & Sinister Railroad) I need to go from Pidgeon Creek to Osprey Valley in the article Railroad Model Craftsman, Vol. 34(5), October 1965, pp. 40-41. I have room to make the entire D&SRR bigger and will only use HO instead of both HO and narrow gauge. Once I reassemble a modified Pidgeon Creek in its proper location in the basement, I'll connect to Osprey Valley. I should have two more new Costco tables in the latter part of next week. DJ
Thanks Fred. Good note to end Pidgeon Creek on. Tables are coming down today in order to rearrange everything in the basement. I'll be back with the Osprey Valley coal field extension to Pidgeon Creek in a new thread. DJ
Pigeon Creek starts out as an oval. The final configuration is a loop-to-loop folded onto a 4x8. So there are 2 reversing loops connected by a section of single track. IIRC, all the spurs are located inside the loops. There was an optional add-on yard as well. I believe the oval connection remains in the final configuration.
I was attracted to the plan as much by the 1900-era theme the original article proposed as the plan design. The Portage Hill & Communipaw is also one of my favorite project layouts because of the early rail theme. The Pigeon Creek is probably not a great plan for a person that enjoys switching, as the only run-arounds are around the oval, or around a reversing loop. And because of the loop-to-loop, it begs for DCC and auto-reversers.
Fred W
...modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900...
I did answer your question Rich. don't be so lazy. Look up the article or leave my thread. If you don't leave my thread I will report you for harrassment. Your choice.
fwright Congratulations on your progress. I always liked the Pigeon Hill layout article, and thought it was a great track plan - until I started building it. I got Phase I completed, just like you. First time hand laying track - this was in Fall 1975 - when we poor and just getting started. I had a train running. Then we realized the rent for our nice duplex was more than we could afford, and had to move across town to an older house. The older house couldn't fit a 4x8 in the 2nd bedroom (no basements in coastal Oregon), so I had to chop it down to 4x6. I had also realized that the Pigeon Creek has no passing sidings in the original plan. To perform any facing point switching would require going around one of the reversing loops or around the oval. At the time, I hadn't realized the toggle flipping involved with using small reversing loops as runarounds in DC unless some complex relay auto-reversing scheme was come up with. With only 4x6 in HO, reversing loops are pretty much out of the question. So I built an adapted version of the Tidewater Central - another MR project layout from 10 years earlier. Although there is only one passing siding, and most of the switching is on the other side of the oval, I was OK with pushing the cars to be spotted from one side to the other. just my thoughts and experiences Fred W ....modeling foggy coastal Oregon in HO and HOn3, where it's always 1900....
Congratulations on your progress. I always liked the Pigeon Hill layout article, and thought it was a great track plan - until I started building it. I got Phase I completed, just like you. First time hand laying track - this was in Fall 1975 - when we poor and just getting started. I had a train running.
Then we realized the rent for our nice duplex was more than we could afford, and had to move across town to an older house. The older house couldn't fit a 4x8 in the 2nd bedroom (no basements in coastal Oregon), so I had to chop it down to 4x6.
I had also realized that the Pigeon Creek has no passing sidings in the original plan. To perform any facing point switching would require going around one of the reversing loops or around the oval. At the time, I hadn't realized the toggle flipping involved with using small reversing loops as runarounds in DC unless some complex relay auto-reversing scheme was come up with.
With only 4x6 in HO, reversing loops are pretty much out of the question. So I built an adapted version of the Tidewater Central - another MR project layout from 10 years earlier. Although there is only one passing siding, and most of the switching is on the other side of the oval, I was OK with pushing the cars to be spotted from one side to the other.
just my thoughts and experiences
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon in HO and HOn3, where it's always 1900....
richhotrain Good lord, can you not answer a simple question? I'm not gonna go looking for a 50 year old article. I simply cannot believe that you won't provide an answer. Do you not understand how a forum works? Someone asks a legitimate question and you blow them off. What is so hard about answering the question, do you intend to provide a reverse loop? Earlier you stated that "for the first time I have my train moving in the opposite direction". Which begs the question, how are you going to return it in the opposite direction once again?
Good lord, can you not answer a simple question? I'm not gonna go looking for a 50 year old article. I simply cannot believe that you won't provide an answer. Do you not understand how a forum works? Someone asks a legitimate question and you blow them off. What is so hard about answering the question, do you intend to provide a reverse loop? Earlier you stated that "for the first time I have my train moving in the opposite direction". Which begs the question, how are you going to return it in the opposite direction once again?
You have no respect for MR articles of the past. Too bad, you're missing out on tons of outstanding articles.
Rich, all of that is taken care of in the next two stages. I suggest you find a copy of the articles I quoted.
OldSchoolScratchbuilder richhotrain Once you run a train through that diagonal, you aren't going to be able to change the direction again unless you back the train through the diagonal. Are you going to add a reverse loop to solve that problem? Nope. I am only half finished. Still have Stages 3 and 4 to build.
richhotrain Once you run a train through that diagonal, you aren't going to be able to change the direction again unless you back the train through the diagonal. Are you going to add a reverse loop to solve that problem?
Once you run a train through that diagonal, you aren't going to be able to change the direction again unless you back the train through the diagonal. Are you going to add a reverse loop to solve that problem?
Nope. I am only half finished. Still have Stages 3 and 4 to build.
Conversion of this modified Pidgeon Creek layout to a freelance Walton Rock & Mineral Railroad (WR&MR) layout only involves moving interior tracks to accommodate Walton industries. They include a gypsum quarry, barite mine, processing plant and storage silos, shale quarry and shale products company. Also needed are the Walton River, Hwy 215 with bridge over the river, Minas Basin shoreline, Walton lighthouse, wind turbine, Walton Variety Store, and cattle farm.
OldSchoolScratchbuilder Wow! Just completed the Pidgeon Creek diagonal and for the first time I have my train moving in the opposite direction. Love this layout. DJ
Wow! Just completed the Pidgeon Creek diagonal and for the first time I have my train moving in the opposite direction. Love this layout. DJ
Hobby shop was out of this mat so I placed one roll on order. Changed more couplers to metal and bought two used Roundhouse 60' bulkhead flat cars. Also bought a whole bunch of used track for $5.00. After an afternoon nap I'm going to start designing my own elevated track piers From articles and pictures in the literature.