Simple MR lessons learned from a great railfan trip

[shawnee]

Please indulge me in my enthusiasm here, cuz, well, now I "get it", about the allure and why some modelers closely follow a prototype.  Just returned from a "camping trip" with the family to Douthat State Park in Alleghany county, VA, which of course was a carefully planned subterfuge so that I could roadtrip to follow various NS and CSX mountain lines...the NS Valley Line, CSX North Mountain Sub (now leased by a shortline) and the CSX James River mainline.

Wow.  How cool was this, whats a great experience. Hundreds of miles plotting a route to parallel the tracks, taking in the scenery and trackside signals and details, checking out rail-served industries big and small.  Seeing how the rails shaped the towns and history.  Went to the top of Lewis Mountain to search out in the fabled (in my mind) Allgehany tunnels...sitting there alone in this beautiful, heart-aching spot, with the broken down, out-of-use tower and abandoned side track looking back to what once was, and the photos and history I've seen on of it.  Visits to Clifton Forge and Covington, two Appalachians rail and industry towns with tons of C&O history and faded Victorian-era charm, albeit quite down from their heyday.  A couple of hours spent at the big Clifton Forge CSX yard, the busy NS yard at Waynesboro and a small NS mountain yard at Shenandoah. Even saw an NS engine with an old N&W caboose making switching moves.  An incredible, rich experience, one that my modeling will benefit from immensely.  A couple of humble observations...

1)  I never knew (d-oh!) how much rewarding it would be to take  the time to visit actual rail yards and observe their operations.  Seeing what types of cars, the huge variety of shapes, sizes, ages and conditions, from far and wide, LOTS with fallen flag markings (esp. Southern and Conrail), shortline private owner markings and other class 1 railroads (UP engines in the Shenandoah!)..at the yards, how they classify and move them about and work the switches, the types of modern trackage...i humbly submit to all those like me who read about this stuff and don't actually visit...one really needs to do so if one plans a realistic layout.  I have a whole new appreciation for yards and how cool they are!  And what a great diversity of scenes they offer.  They may be the coolest thing about railroading.  Man, my layout plan is changin' today...plenty of yard!

The cool thing was the difference in types.  Clifton Forge seemed a classic intra-line classification yard, heavy on coal and woodchips, while Waynesboro is an interchange yard and more boxcar, covered hopper and industry-specific, with the huge polyesyter plant there.  And Shenandoh is what i really needed to see...a small mountain yard, with all sorts of freight.

2)  Prototypers....I understand now.  I went to Alleghany to take in the old C&O lines, but running through route 340 in the northern Shenandoah, I fell in love with the NS Valley line...what a cool, beautiful railroad.  Tons of different types of mountain and valley scenery, cool towns and high bridges, especially to the north, and big rail-served industries from aggregates to breweries, drug plants and lumber yards interspersed along the lines.  It's phenomenal.  I was actually surprised to see how active the line is now.  Now I've got to think about this and incorporate elements.  I just wish I was advanced enough in modeling to model this precise line and do it justice.  The NS Valley Line.  My favorite.

I was surprised to see how well the Valley line is maintained by NS, especially in relation to the conditions of the CSX lines in western Virginia.  NS really has the Valley line in great shape.

3) I was also surprised to see the variety of freight traffic throughout the NS and CSX lines, especially for CSX which I thought would be mostly coal drags.  Lots of boxcars, the 50 foot variety, at Clifton Forge.  Saw lots of coal trains, yes...interestingly, far fewer rotary dump cars than I thought would be the case...by far most of the coal hoppers were bottom droppers, lots of Trinity RD-4s....thought time had passed them by.  Saw some bethgon rotaries, but few and far between.  That's kinda odd, huh?  So if you're modeling coal haulers today, there's a lot of variety of cars that can be used.

And I'm standing on the CSX North Mountain line, this beautiful spot with a crackling river and the sun dappling off the crevices of the sharp, almost vertical limestone rock cut the track takes on the side of the hill, and suddenly the Amtrack Cardinal swooshes by.  "YES~!!!"   

4)  Man, all the vegetation to the sides of the track is d-e-a-d!  Now that's a "d-oh!" modeling moment to me.  Layouts with greenery to the side of the ballast?  Nuh-uh. Now the question for y'all is...do they kill trackside vegetation with industrial strength Round-Up, or does it die off because of the harsh soil conditions associated with ballast and rail traffic?  But a nice lane of dead plants next to the track for my layout.

5)  I was also surprised to see how many time roads, especially small ones and driveways, cross the track constantly, all with ample RR signage.  Of course I knew there were crossings, but it seems to me the RRs do a pretty good job of NOT hitting people more often, given the number of intersections involved..all of which crossings seem to be paved and maintained by the RRs.  That must be expensive and a must to keep the lawsuits down.

6)  Perhaps the most interesting thing was driving around and observing rai-served industries, and their variety...how they set up and use the track and sidings, the different industrial settings for different industries.  I'll really be able to use this when planning out my paper mill, sawmill and factory settings.  And yes, the littlest of them are rather huge in scope.  So I get compression now too.

The railroad people seemed pretty friendly, friendlier than I thought they'd be to a railfanner, since it must be kind of annoying yo have people gape as they work.  Always got waves, and they seemed to take a small delight that my 8 year old was so interested by what they did.  My daughter, well she thought it was boring, but she got to swim in a lake. 

Geez, i went on and on here.  Again, forgive my enthusiasm as I advance a bit in the hobby, but this trip was incredibly fun, exciting and rewarding, and I understand more now, and where a lot of you are coming from in your experiences and observations.  What a cool and expansive hobby this is!

And why is it that I love trains so much? 

 

 

 

 

 

[tstage]

Shawnee,

You won't get any qualms from me.  Enthusiasm forgiven and accepted.  I've gone on mini-trips like you've described.  The sad thing is that I know that I missed far much more than I soaked in.

I'm glad you had a great time, Shawnee!  Thanks for sharing it (and your enthusiam) with us.  

Tom

[WCfan]

Railfanning is a great tool for model Railroaders. That's why I say that most Model Railroaders are railfans, but not all Railfans are Model Railroaders. Now I'm not saying that to every one. But I'm lucky enough to be in a town with a yard. Now it isn't a big yard, but it still shows movements and planning of trains. Now I've also learned the Varity of Foreign equipment varies on the Railroad, and the line you live on. WC (on our Subdivision) basically had all there equipment and not much Foreign roads. But when CN Showed up them started bringing in NS locos. Which was a surprise to me. It also depends on where you live and how geography affects the traffic. Large cities probably have intermodal and/or piggy back, and/or coal, ect, ect. But the smaller branch lines have traffic that reflects it's online industries. So I've learned allot from railfaning. Railfanning can reflect allot on how your layout is built.