Any other turn of the last century modelers here? I am planning a new layout, well trying as track and benchwork planning is one of my poor spots. I am basing my proposed layout on the ICRR near and thru Vaughn MS in the 1895 thru 1901 period. If your a good student of railroad history, you know what happened in Vaughn in the early morning hours of April 30th 1900. I have most of that train already modeled. I am working on taking one of the new MDC 2-8-0's in the RTR form and making it close to the 638 of the ICRR as well as a few sister engines, including taking a second AHM 4-6-0 and renumbering it to the 384, that was Jones's assigned engine, he wrecked Sam Tate's machine on that night. Cheers Mike
LHS mechanic and geniune train and antique garden tractor nut case!
Wilmington & Northern Branch of the Philadelphia and Reading, Reading, PA to Wilmington, DE in the 1900-1905 era.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I model the 1900 ear in HO. Here are some others.
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/whats_new/page2.html
http://www.housatonicrr.com/
http://www.cwrail.com/index.html
This Yahoo Early Rail Group covers the 1900 era. Lots of info in the Files, Photos and Links sections when you join the group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EarlyRail/
This Yahoo Group is part of the Early Rail Group. The concentrate on 1900 era resin models.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ER_Kits/
There is one fellow in the Early Rail group who has over a thousand different 1900 era decals and photos.
Google books has many downloadable books of the 1900 era. Some books are listed in the Links section of the Early Rail Group.
Jeff Stone who owns Bitter Creek Models is resurrecting the BC Models models which are 1880 to 1900 HO and a few HOn3 models. Rather than offend those with tender sensibilities, do a Google search for Bitter Creek Models. Jeff told me he should have the rolling stock sometime in 2009. He also works a regular job. Right now he has trucks and car parts.
This ought to keep you busy for a while.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
I'm modeling the 1890s-1910 period. my line connects a medium sized New England seaport with an inland city combining characteristics of several actual railroads. The centerpiece of the layout is the mill village of Carolina RI which is located at the end of a penninsula. I've posted pics of building Carolina at Railfan.net model railroads scratchbuilding.
The motive power runs toward 4-4-0s,4-6-0s, 2-6-0s and 2-8-0s. and just because i have a Little River 2-4-4-2 mallet. Rolling stock is about 50% scratchbuilt, with a smattering of kits from LaBelle, Central Valley, Ambroid, Binkley and others.
Kewl, sounds like some neat layouts. I wish I had more room for a layout, but what I have is 111 inches deep by 115 inches wide. Quite a small room. I am hoping to squeeze in a folded dogbone layout with a 18" radius curve at each end. The main modeled area will be the Vaughn, MS depot, passing siding and house track. While it wont be totaly to scale, I hope to capture what it looked like during that era. For now my small Marklin layout takes up the space where the new layout will go. Hopefully I can sell this layout soon. So, I work on the models that make up Casey's train. I plan to regear the AHM loco to run slower and more prototypicaly and not 200mph as it was built. I have added frosted windows to the passenger cars, and am working on interior lighting with LED's and batteries. Unless I find a short wheelbase diecast sprung truck to go under my cars. I so wish someone would redo the 382 with a better drive, heck make it all diecast to so it will pull good. Cheers Mike
I have moved all my 1905 material that was on the Pacific Coast Air Line Railway site to:
http://www.1905railroadmodeling.com/
Having discovered the Sanborn Insurance maps the railroad has moved to a virgin arena, Southern New Jeresey in 1905, the railroad will be developed as the West Jersey and Seashore Railway. All the new material will be on the new 1905 site. I grew up in Southern New Jersey and it will be nice to develop a railroad in an area I really know.
The Sanborn maps give track layouts but model railroads are too small to utilize them. I just needed the maps for the industries served by the railroad in 1905. The industries that thrived in 1905 are long gone.
Thank you if you visit
Harold
I model the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut RR in late September 1899. The ND&C was a shortline that transferred cars from Newburgh, NY - across the Hudson River - to Dutchess Junction, NY (just south of Beacon, NY). The road then ran some 56 miles, through Hopewell Junction, to State Line, CT. This railroad took over after the demise of the Dutchess & Columbia in 1877 and was eventually absorbed into the Central New England in 1906 (which was, itself, absorbed into the NH in the 1920s).
The ND&C ran mostly American 4-4-0s (a couple were still woodburners!) and had one Atlantic type as its largest engine. Milk, coal and farm produce were its major commodities. Anyone, having interest in this road, should obtain a copy of Bernie Rudberg's excellent book Twenty-five Years on the ND&C which is published by Purple Mountain Press.
Sadly, the ND&C/CNE served its purpose when the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge was opened in about 1888 - negating the need for the expensive (and unreliable) car ferry system. The road hung in there until the 1930s when trucking made it completely obsolete - and the brass hats at the NH decided to scrap the whole thing (much of it was carted off to Japan...who returned it at Pearl Harbor...in a different form).
Thanks for starting this thread as I have picked up some additional references for my research.
Ray
"Keeping my hand on the throttle...and my eyes on rail."
A timely thread, as I'm just collecting some bits and bobs to make a small 1890-1900 era layout based somewhere in the southwest.
I've collected a few Campbell wood kits, Cactii and several American 4-4-0's so far, and am looking at ways to shoe-horn DCC and sound into the locos. It's great being at the bottom of the learning curve again.
Jon
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jon grantand several American 4-4-0's so far, and am looking at ways to shoe-horn DCC and sound into the locos.
Jon, I decided to go with the new Bachmann Spectrum 4-4-0s that come with DCC/sound. I now have two of these gems and they run extremely well. The first American I purchased (from Micro Mark) was DCC and no sound. As is my luck, a year later Bachmann made the same engine available with or without sound (my plans are to send the original engine to Tony's Train Exchange to have a sound decoder and speaker installed). I purchased these locomotives painted/undecorated and have since decorated them for the N.D.& C.
Unfortunately these fine Richmond locomotives are a bit "new" for the year I model (1899). If you check on the Bachmann website (www.bachmanntrains.com) you will see that these are coal burners that also have steam-powered electrical generators - dating them to the early part of the 20th century. I certainly wish Bachmann would offer some of their earlier era engines with sound and DCC. Bachmann does offer a really nice Ten-wheeler that I have been "hinting about" for my birthday (the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut RR never owned a Ten-wheeler but what the hey...). Roundhouse/MDC/Horizon makes American, and Mogul engines; but I have not seen too many positive comments as these are remakes of earlier models. From my experience, you can't go very wrong with the Bachmann Spectrum locomotives.
Welcome to our esteemed group (19th century modelers). I envy someone from the land of Peco track (I use Peco Code 75 and it is rather pricey...but well worth the cost).
Comparison of a Spectrum 4-4-0 and Roundhouse 4-4-0.
Be advised, the Roundhouse steamers, 4-4-0, 2-6-0, 2-8-0 have identical boilers and tenders. The headlights and drivers vary.
Also, the Roundhouse steamers have the air compressor on the left side. I have seen many 1889 loco pictures and they had the air compressors on the right side.
sparkyjay31There are volumes posted here about the MRC decoder and it's faults.
All the more reason to seriously consider the Bachmann Spectrum 4-4-0...which is equipped with a Soundtraxx decoder. The only slight problem with this decoder is that my MRC Prodigy Advanced will not program it on the main (I bought a Soundtraxx booster and all CVs programmed prefectly).
Take a good look at Rich's fine photographs and you will see a considerable difference between the Bachmann engine and the Roundhouse. Personally the Roundhouse locomotive is too large for my purposes not to mention their unreliable decoder. As an aside: a fellow modeler was quite disappointed when he bought the Roundhouse Consolidation - only to discover the same boiler as on his [Roundhouse] American.
My plan is to accept my wife's gracious birthday gift (next month) of a Bachmann Spectrum Ten-wheeler and eagerly await Bachmann's release of their Mogul (which, Mr. Bachmann, I really really need). Before I get anyone's interest out of control, as far as I know Bachmann has NO plans on producing a Mogul...but it does make good sense. If you have occasion to visit the Bachmann forum, ask Mr. Bachmann to pass along our request for a Mogul...you never know.
The Roundhouse pull a little better than the Spectrum 4-4-0 and 4-6-0. The Roundhouse 4-4-0 and 2-8-0 have traction tires on the rear driver set. The 2-6-0 has the tire on the center driver set. The tires are not the "O" ring style. They are the flat type tire.
I have stuffed a Micro-Tsunami and speaker into the Roundhouse tenders. The DCC ready are ready for a 1.1 inch speaker. The tenders pick up from all eight wheels. The locos form the drivers.
The Spectrum's pick up from four wheels in the tender. I added wipers to pick up from eight wheels. Drivers have pickups also.
Spectrum's are noted to have quite dim headlights as the circuit uses more than 1k resistance plus have a diode in series with one LED lead. I measured about 3.8ma current.
I converted my Spectrum's to Micros by hard wiring and using 1k resistors. This is not for everyone. You can see the unlit LED in the photos if you look carefully. Some people do not like this.
Since there are six wire passing between the loco and tender, you can make them look like hose with a little work.