When I finally got into a larger house where I had room for something more than my usual plywood pacific, I thought I would model the Canadian Pacific from Vancouver to the prairies. It didn't take long for me to realize that modeling the port of Vancouver to scale would require a 300' long room alone and I should have bought a bigger house. In the end I have my version of the CPR going through my version of the Rogers Pass in the Canadian Rockies.
One end of the layout is a small town in the Rockies that maybe services and provides the pushers required to get those trains over the continental divide. The other is a small prairie Elevator town that will have lots of my friends and families names on the small town businesses.
The layout will have the things on it that you may have seen along the CPR mainline in the 1950s.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Conemaugh Road & Traction's "layout what ifs"...
What If #1: What if PRR had completed Harrisburg to Pittsburgh electrification?
What If #2: Local city traction was a passenger & short-haul freight interurban?
1956 Prototype Reality...
-- PRR had a 4-track mainline through the Conemaugh Valley including the Broadway Limited pulled by EMD E7s & Alco PAs while interchanging with Bethlehem Steel.
-- Johnstown Traction Company ran the largest PCC fleet in a USA 3rd-class city.
-- B&O GP7s & GP9s interchanged freight.
-- Bethlehem Steel ran its Conemaugh & Black Lick (industrial railroad) serving its various mills, freight car division, and coal mines interchanging with the Pennsy.
-- (Channel 6 NBC) WJAC TV was busy "Serving Millions from Atop the Alleghenies."
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
I am modeling Montana Rail Link and the Great Northern through western Montana in the 1950's and 60's. I know MRL did not exist in that time frame (began in 1987) but I spent 22 years in Helena, MT and daily saw the MRL locomotives and switching yard there. My existing 5 x 10 HO layout will cover the Helena, MT area with Last Chance Gulch, Sleeping Giant Mountain, Gates of the Mountains and Mullan Pass tunnel. Eventually, I will expand off both sides to include branches to Bozeman/Livingston, MT and west to Missoula, MT. The Great Northern station was torn down in late 80's early 90's to build the new Federal Reserve Bank but the area just north of the station area is still called "Great Northern." Great Northern merged with several other lines in the 1970's to form Burlington Northern and I will surely have a few of their locos and cars running also. I would like to scratch build the original Great Northern Station and several of my wife's and my hangouts on Last Chance Gulch including Bert and Ernies, The Parrott Confectionary, The Montana Club, etc. Now living in Montgomery, TX it will be a great conversation piece when family and friends visit.
Everything you ever wanted to know about my layout, but were afraid to ask...
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
My model railroad is a fictional divison of the Burlington Route in the 1945-1965 era. It includes CB&Q, C&S, and FW&D, Also, GN and NP have running rights. Santa Fe and other railroads occasionally are detoured on my line.
The layout includes the rural Midwest and a smal area representing the high plains region. There are some towns and small cities. The steel mill is the largest industry. There are several other industries, too.
Passenger trains are normally "pike sized", and they include some prototypically correct cars.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
My layout will have two real railroads (C&O and B&O) running through a WV town (not named yet) on the Ohio River a bit north of Kenova in 1944. Both those roads cross the Ohio in Kenova, as well as the N&W. In my tale the B&O already served this town but didn't cross here, but when the government built a large munitions plant just across the river in Ohio right before WWII, they wanted at least two shippers so the C&O built a new line to the plant through the town and the B&O built a new river crossing. The B&O has the water-level route through the older part of town, while the C&O has the high ground above where the newer part of town is rapidly growing to support the war effort.
Sean
HO Scale CSX Modeler
My version of the Turtle Creek Central is based in Northern Ontario. It has close ties with the CanPac and the Algoma Central. The line between Sault Saint Marie and Sudbury was built on a route surveyed by the ACR to join it with the Algoma Eastern Railway. The TCC bought the AER and incorperated it into its system. Once reaching Sudbury, the railway turns north to end up in the grain port of Churchill Manitoba. My layout is based in the late 70s to the late 80s. The town of Turtle Creek is based north of Sudbury.
The Lone Geep
Lone Geep
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I model a freelance bridge RR The Missouri & Arkansas Railway used by the CB&Q & MKT. The location is in Eastern Missouri. The line starts out at Old Monroe Mo. on the Cuivre River at MO. State Highway 79, then goes west to Hawk Point Mo. From Hawk Point the line swings south along MO. State Highway 47 where it crosses the old Wabash / Norfolk & Western RR line near Warrenton Mo. The line continues south thru Missouri Wine Country to connect with MKT near Marthasville Mo. near State Highway 94. Since this is "My" railroad most places will have the "flavor" of this area but may not be perfect to the prototype. Time is pre Burlington Northern (1970). The location & time frame gives me a lot of room of the type of motive power I can use plus pre-merger freight cars from so many different Railroads from all over the country. As with many railroads built in the 1800’s they never reached all the way as planned. So they never made it all the way to Arkansas.
#1 This will be a point to point RR built on Hollow-core doors (about $24 ea) along two walls, so it will be in sections.
#2 It's going to be less track, no large yards, no switch machines, open staging, & simple engine service area.
#3 Just a few small towns with one or two sidings.
#4 More open scenery between towns.
#5 Interchange with the MKT on the West end & the CB&Q on the East end.
My Back Story for the Port Destiny Terminal is as follows . It was built at the Beginning of WW 1 , to serve the navy by the US Goverment . Port Destiny was orginally a small fishing port in North Florida about 60 miles East of Pensicola , FLA . , that has a deep port the Navy wanted to use after WW 2 the Port became a Copmercial port serving the Gulf and the Caribean . It is jointly operated by the L&N and the Southern RY . The Line was built off of the L&N Main line and the Southern reaches it by trackage rights , both Railroads help maintain the tracks and loan the RR equipment . The PDT does have it's own locomotives .
The rail road is set in the 1970's , business is not what it was but it is still a busy road with a passenger Train that makes a stop plus 2 transfer trains from each of the parent RR's.
I used to live in So.Cal for 13 years when my dad was transferred out there in the late 70's. I lived in Tustin, Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove, Anaheim, Huntington Beach and Irvine. I know that terrain all too well. Use to take the Amtrak to San Diego from Fullerton as well as spending many a weekend in L.A. Used to go the Newport Beach all the time to the spagetti factory for dinners and hang out on the beach with friend at a fire ring pit and listen to tunes with my gf and watch the "submarine" races at night. lol It's been over 20 years since I in So. Cal. Graduated HS in Tustin, so did my wife. Joined the service and never went back to So. Cal except S.D. to see my brother when he was in the service as well. Thanks for giving me a moment to remember those days again.
Ray
B&O Blue Ridge Division "Where the Iron Horse never sleeps"
I am modeling another "what if" scenario based on the short lived Santa Ana & Newport Railway in Southern California. The real history of this line started when the McFadden family built the railroad in the early 1890's to haul lumber from their wharf in Newport (which still exists as a pier in the City of Newport Beach) to a connection with the Santa Fe Railroad in the City of Santa Ana. This line operated for a few years until the McFaddens decided they no longer wanted to operate a railroad. Having enjoyed a good relationship with the ATSF, they offered to sell the line to the Santa Fe. However, the Santa Fe was recovering from a recent bankruptcy and could not take advantage of the situation. Thus, the line was sold to another family who owned a sugar beet refinery in nearby Los Alamitos. This family tried to extend the SA&N line from Huntington Beach out to Los Alamitos but gave up due to difficult construction conditions and steady pressure from the Southern Pacific Railroad. The line was eventually sold to the Southern Pacific who finished the SA&N extension to their main line. This extension created a complete loop from Anahiem south through Santa Ana to Newport Beach, west to Huntington Beach then north through Westminster and back to Anahiem. The SP actually ran a mixed train (dubbed "the merry-go-round train") around this loop for a period during the 1920's. However, Newport never developed as a commercial port and the McFaddens, who hated the owners of the SP, moved their lumber operations to San Diego where they could continue to deal with the ATSF. Thus, freight traffic never grew to a point to make the former SA&N profitable and most of the coastal portion of the line was abandoned by the early 1930's (this portion of the line paralleled the Pacific Electric's Newport line so was already redundant). The only portion of the SA&N that still survives is about half of the SP's (now UP) extension toward Huntington Beach. A portion of the SA&N was used by the SP south of Santa Ana to service the Holly Sugar Refinery into the late 1970's.
My fictitious history assumes that the line was indeed purchased by the ATSF in the 1890's but had to be operated independently to hide the transaction from the bankruptcy courts. This allowed the SA&N to survive into the late 1950's (the setting of my layout). Because the major freight traffic generator did not leave town, the port of Newport did achieve enough commercial development to prove profitable. In exchange for trackage rights to connect with it's Pacific Electric line in Huntington Beach, the SP extended the SA&N tracks out to the SP main line. Thus, my layout incorporates both point to point operations between Santa Ana and Huntington Beach, plus prototypical continuous running through Westminster and Anahiem (off-layout), as well as the presence of four different railroads (ATSF, PE, SA&N, SP).
Hornblower
Oops! I meant NORTHWESTERN Ohio. Everybody knows that Toledo is in northwestern, not northeastern Ohio.
Well, my road has it's roots in the coal mines in the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada.
There was a mine and town near present day Banff called Bankhead. My layout will be a somewhat smaller version, the main purpose for it's existance is the six to eight cars of coal is produces daily. The coal is trasfered to the Canadian Pacific and is used mainly as a fuel source for CP locomotives. It is set in the early 1900s. I have a single 2-8-0 that is the backbone, doing everything from hauling coal, logs for lumber (shorings inside the mine) freight (explosives and supplies for the mine and miners) and even a little bit of passenger service and whatever else there is that needs doing.
My mine head and associated buildings are based on instructions published in Model Railroader, October to December 1959, by Jack Work.
It is a small branchline owned and operated by the Hat River Coal and Navigation Company.
At this point, it is a work in progress. I have had two large layouts in the past that had to be dismantled for various reasons. This one will be rather smaller, a sort of shelf layout, occupying about 6' 6" in length and 12 to 18" in width.
There will not be a turntable, so my engine will run tender first for some trips. I am incorporating a kinda, sorta inglenook switching puzzle for interest. The rest will be mostly single track, with, maybe, a passing siding. The coal will be transfered to the CP by running the cars over a trestle where the coal can be dumped into bins the will empty in to the waiting cars below.
I model in n scale. I have a Athearn old time 2-8-0 (which will be my power of choice on this layout), I have 2 Bachmann Spectrum USRA 2-8-0s, and a Walthers Proto 2000 0-8-0.
I'm not yet decided if I will use DCC or just DC. It will depend on how hard it is to intalls a decoder in the Athearn 2-8-0.
I think that about covers it. As time goes on and I get some results, I'll post a few pictures when I get the chance.
Cheers.
Jim R
My freelanced/proto road The Leelanau County Railway is based on a series of series of C&O/PM, M&NE, Ann Arbor and Empire Southeastern branchs that once operated in Northwestern Michigan counties of Leelanau and Benzie. The amount of track is 87 miles. The towns served by my HO scale line will be Lake Leelanau, Cedar City, Solon, Lake Ann, Empire, Honor, Benzonia, and Thompsonville. You can follow the route of my fictional shortline by looking through SPV's Great Lakes East revised railroad atlas.
Motive power for my line is 3 RSC2's, 2 GP15-1's (internal filters), 1 2-10-0, 1 4-6-0 (52" drivers), 1 USRA 0-8-0, 1 44 tonner, 1 CF7, 1 H10-44, and 1 high hood GP20.
Would an administrator please be kind enough to fix the glitch on the first page of this thread that is stretching the page off to the right?
Thank-you.
Dan
The Toledo Erie Central is a fictitious, free-lanced RR set in northeastern Ohio in the '70's. It represents about a 12 mile industrial corridor between Sandusky and Toledo that is former Norfolk and Western trackage that once also shared trackage rights with the Pennsy and the Erie Lackawanna RR's. Tthe line would have been abandoned except the local rail-served industries in the area bought this segment which connects with the EL and the Chessie System. It is an 'L' shaped switching layout a total of 14 feet long by 2 feet wide. Presently building the major rail-served structures, tracked, wired (DC, two throttles) and not yet senicked.
UncBob Click on my web site in my sig
Click on my web site in my sig
tHANKS - JUST MADE MY DAY (STRASBURG RAILROAD ) I cannot wait until I get home this evening and show my girls the 0-6-0. I bought them some in HO to run on my layout. They will be sooooo excited! I am going to make the trip just so they can ride that train!
After the carnage and destruction in Charleston during the Civil War, Alan Wright decided it was time to go West (along with so many others). Not having any particular reason or destination, he took the right fork to stay on the Oregon trail instead of going to California.
He was taken by the beauty of the Blue Mountains, and the Picture Gorge section of the John Day River. But Alan had salt water in his veins, and railroading as his destiny. Exploring the Oregon Coast, he discovered a great natural harbor and the most passable bar between San Francisco and Seattle at the mouth of what is now Coos Bay. Alan foresaw another great West Coast port that could compete with San Francisco and Seattle. Such a port would need transcontinental rail service to develop it. So Charleston, Oregon was started, and the Picture Gorge & Western Railway was chartered to cross Oregon and tie with a to-be-determined partner railroad in Idaho or Wyoming.
Unfortunately Alan saw the Coos Bay bar on a rare fogless summer day. The perpetual summer fog made sailing ship skippers rather nervous about calling at Charleston. In fact, all but a very few would refuse to go there. So Charleston remained a fishing port rather than a center of West Coast commerce. The impact on the PG&W was considerable. Funds ran out before the railroad could cross the Cascades; construction got as far as a tie to the Oregon & California at Roseburg.
Meanwhile, the Cooper family had discovered the groves of Port Orford cedar mixed with some redwood in the coastal mountains in Southern Oregon. How to get the valued wood to market in San Francisco and the rest of California was the question. Roy Cooper ended up building a narrow gauge railway linking the saw mill on the Elk River, the landings in the forest, and the dog hole harbor at Port Orford. Without the fog in Charleston, and providing reasonable protection from storm, Port Orford was a choice port for the sailing schooners working the West Coast.
Roy saw a chance to really make his railway pay by expanding through the mountains to tie to the PG&W at Lebanon. But the Lebanon city fathers insisted as part of the land grant into town that all freight would have to be trans-loaded between the 2 railways by Lebanon labor - thus guaranteeing jobs for the isolated town - and that it wouldn't pay for Roy to convert the Port Orford & Elk River to standard gauge.
Despite the inefficiency of the trans-load, the connection of the 2 railways proved beneficial for both. Coal and ice from the Oregon interior were accessible to Port Orford, while the logs could go south by rail or ship. Ships with more general cargo started calling at Port Orford as a way to supply interior Oregon.
that's my story and I'm sticking to it
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900....
I always enjoy these threads.
My fictional Missouri Valley Western is a line born out of a "what if" scenario. What if two real railroads -- the Sioux City & Pacific and the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley -- merged and avoided being absorbed into the rapidly growing Chicago & North Western system in the 19th century?
The Missouri Valley Western is primarily a bridge route between the Union Pacific at Omaha and the C&NW's line to Chicago. Set in 1954, the line sees tons of fast freight (including the "new" TOFCs) as well as crack passenger trains like the City of Los Angeles, the City of San Francisco, the Challenger, etc.
Way back in the day, the Missouri Valley Western also purchased another real shortline (I believe it was the Council Bluffs & St. Joseph, but I don't have my notes handy) to provide access to Kansas City and -- via the Missouri Pacific -- St. Louis. So the railroad's main purpose is tying together the UP's western connections with two of the major intercontinental portals, Chicago & St. Louis.
My layout is centered around the fictional city of Cedricsburg (named after my late uncle who turned me on to the hobby) in southwestern Iowa. Cedricsburg, with a population of about 100,000, is a division point. Eastbound traffic is dispatched to Minneapolis/St. Paul or to Chicago and beyond to anywhere in the northeast. Westbound traffic out of Cedricsburg is headed for the UP, or re-routed southward to Kansas City and then back east toward St. Louis and beyond to the mid-Atlantic.
The layout is being built in N scale as a sectional on hollow-core doors. Eventually, it will represent Cedricsburg and about 20 miles of trackage in either direction. The eastern and western lines will meet in a shared staging yard.
I am trying to model the Modern up to date NS,however keeping up with modern times and new HO products is difficult. I am also influenced by other model railroaders and their free-lanced ideas as well. So Im between modeling a prototype,free-lanced,modern up to date railroad in central Ohio. Im from Toledo,so the northern parts of OHIO and southern Michigan are hard to pass-up. After seeing David Barrow and Gary Hoover change their Layout concepts so many times,Im somewhat hesitant,The backstory will unfold with time.
History of the Penn Lake System
During the mid 1920s, the Delaware & Hudson and the Reading Company, began to purchase the stock of an anthracite shortline named the Penn Lake Railway, in an attempt to increase their anthracite traffic. While neither road was successful in gaining complete control of the line, together they acquired the majority stake in it and were able to prevent the PL from falling into the hands of either the Lehigh Valley, or Lackawanna. However, the ICC prevented either company from exercising operational control. As a result, the Penn Lake continued to operate independently, much like the ACL and L&N's Clinchfield. The acquisition also provided a connection to the New Haven for both roads.
Originally, the line carried mostly anthracite. Iron ore and cement soon eclipsed coal as PL's money makers. Following World War II, Penn Lake became a crucial link for bridge traffic between D&H's Canadian connection at Montreal, and Reading's Midwest and South connections at Hagerstown. Soon after Norfolk & Western acquired a direct connection to Reading, CP Rail and Norfolk & Western began the Canada Direct expedited run through trains. Similar New England Direct trains operated in conjunction with New Haven.
Penn Lake's locomotives carried Penn Lake marking, but followed the motive power policies of it's parents. It's diesels sported Reading's unique equipment and D&H's black paint scheme. By the late 1960s, PL operated with hand me down RS3s and S2s. Penn Lake quickly gained a reputation as an Alco lovers paradise. Increasingly though, the priority trains ran with the parent's front line power. The Canada Direct trains used CP and N&W run though power almost exclusively.
On April 1st 1976, the Reading's interest in the PL transferred to Conrail. Conrail, uninterested in the line, soon sold it's holdings to the D&H. The D&H integrated PL's operations into it's own, but never bothered to formally merge company . During it's purchase by Guilford, D&H lost control of the PL to a group of Pennsylvania and New York investors.
The new ownership consolidated the Penn Lake Railway with other Conrail spin offs and renamed the line the Penn Lake System. Built during the late 19th Century, the PL had generous clearances. The PLS quickly rehabbed the track and instituted double stack service from the Port of New York/New Jersey.
The PLS, using it's Anthracite Speedway slogan, developed a reputation for fast, on time service, and prospered. By the early 1990s, PLS and it's lucrative traffic from the Port of New York/New Jersey attracted the attention of the expansionist CP Rail. CP began to acquire interest in the PLS. In 1996, CP acquired 100 percent of the PLS, and merged it back into the D&H.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
The Port Able Railroad is a shortline located on the Massachusetts shoreline that took over an abandoned branchline of the Atlantic Lines in 1937. The end of passenger service after the closure of Neptune Park amusement park in 1935 and low freight traffic spelled doom for the Port Able Branch. The line was originally 8 miles long, but it was cut back to 6 miles where the lines freight customers were located. Trains went up the branch to Port Able locomotive first and returned to East Haven caboose first. Fearing that shutting down the rail line would put them out of business in an already depressed economy, the two freight customers on the line, Whist Manufacturing & Regina Distributors, purchased the branch from the Atlantic Lines. Along with the purchase were an 0-4-0 tank engine and an old wood caboose. The railroad has 8 miles of trackage (6 route miles) and serves the original 2 customers. Carloadings are over 200 cars per year. Trains run twice a week (usually Monday and Thursday, or as needed). An interesting feature of the railroad is that it has no runaround track. Since it branched off of the mainline at East Haven and continued on into Port Able's waterfront for the Port Able Ship Yard and ending at the beach/amusement park (Neptune's Park). The layout is basically going to be a 66 inch by 45 inch loop of track with 5 turnouts, thus explaining the lack of a runaround track. Trains will be between 1 to 3 cars long plus the engine and caboose.
I'm modeling the summer of 1979 because I love the shortline Incentive Per Diem box cars that were all over American rails during the 1970's. I also have a few steam switchers around (I love those Varney diecast Lil Joes), so I can switch to a steam era with very few changes. The name of the railroad explains its concept. The layout comes apart into 3 22 inch by 45 inch pieces to be (portable) and it will sit on my dining room table (por table). I've been toying with this layout design for 10 years and came to the realization that I was over designing my layout. I then decided to keep everything simple in design, concept, and cost. While it's not a groundbreaking design, it will keep me happy for many years to come.
The Port Able Railway has only 2 customers, Whist Manufacturing Corp. and Regina Distributors Inc. Whist Manufacturing receives up to 4 box cars (hardware, parts, and packaging) and ships out up to 3 box cars per week. Regina Distributors receives up to 2 box cars per week (merchandise). The engine house has its fuel delivered by a local fuel company.
__________________________________________________________________
Mike Kieran
Port Able Railway
I just do what the majority of the voices in my head vote on.
My "St.Paul Route" would be a "what if" railroad I guess. It's based on two real railroads, the St.Paul & Duluth which ran between...well, St.Paul and Duluth, oddly enough, and the Port Arthur Duluth & Western. The real StP&D was bought by Northern Pacific in 1900, because of their much shorter line between their namesake towns, and the PAD&W went bankrupt in the 1930's. (Port Arthur and Fort William, Ontario, merged in 1970 to become Thunder Bay.)
In my version, instead of buying the StP&D the NP worked out a trackage rights agreement to use the line, and in return granted trackage rights to the St.P&D from Duluth to Brainerd MN - meaning the road would be in position to haul iron ore once the Cuyuna Range opened up in 1903. The StP&D merged with the PAD&W (which had in real life built down from Canada in northern Minnesota) and connected what's now Thunder Bay to Duluth/Superior with a line along the north shore of Lake Superior. The RR name became St.Paul Duluth and Canadian Ry.
I use info from the real St.P&D as much as possible, borrowing train names and consists to show what this railroad might have looked like had it lasted into the mid-20th century.
In the early days, Moose Bay was a small backwater community in the upper Midwest somewhere. The Brad family were "prominent" in the town, but only by comparison to those who were less so. The Brads owned the majority of the sheep that grazed on the low-grade pastures. When the Civil War came around, their lazy son John Buford Brad arranged to join the Quartermaster Corps, figuring that would keep him in the back lines and out of harm's way. With his education and guile, he was made an officer, and soon found himself procuring food for the troops. He figured that he could enrich his family with this position, so one cold December day he arranged for the Army of the Republic to purchase several boxcars full of Haggis from the Brad family. The Haggis arrived at the front lines on Christmas Eve. After opening the cars and smelling its pungent aroma, the Union troops, in "the spirit of the holidays," decided to donate the Haggis to their starving Confederate counterparts. The Rebels sent it back.
When news of this debacle reached Washington, the commandant of the Quartermaster Corp summoned John Buford Brad to headquarters. They were so disgusted with the incident that, after his summary court-martial, he was ordered to remove his uniform right then and there in the courtroom. With his coat and trousers at his feet, Brad stood at attention for what he thought would be his sentencing, but the assembled officers began whispering among themselves, and soon began asking questions about, of all things, his underwear.
You see, one of the problems that faced the Union Army was keeping the troops warm in the field, and John Buford Brad was wearing the underwear his sisters had made for him - a neck-to-ankle garment made of wool from the family's sheep. They were so excited by the design and execution of this garment that they not only cancelled the demotion, but actually promoted him. And, to this day, the garment is known as a "Union Suit," or as "Long Johns."
The business brought much prosperity to Moose Bay, and a statue of John Buford Brad was erected in the park that bears his name.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I'm modelling a twist on the City of Madison Port Authority and Madison Railroad. (That's Madison Indiana not some cheesehead home. Some Came Runnign was filmed there. This is the first Railroad in Indiana, and home to the 6% standard gauge non-rack Incline.
CMPA is attached to the CSX at North Vernon, INand that's about it. In my world though, the CSX decided that CSX was a carppy name, and a waste of resources aftewr having just gotten Chessie all nice and unified, and decided to stick with Chessie. Around 1994, when the Incline was restored to allow movement of a large power tranfromer to a Madison Powerplant (this really happened) the city opted to rearvew thew old rail back to the station and use it as a tourism gig. (This didn't happen, though it should have. And did, in my universe) A few companies then in Madison, and a few that moved in, through their weight in with the rails, which turned the finacncially underwater CMPA around much earlier than really happened. There's a lot of pieces in this CMPA that are refrences to characters in stoies that Dad and I came up with, most of them represented in industriues. Or will whren the layout gets built. However, while the names will be wrong, 90% of them all had some counterpart in Madison at some point in time. For example, there wasa ruber duck collection who sold toy boats in a bathtub. "Ducky Bill's" never existed, but there was a "Madison Speedboat Company" in the 1920s, that Ducky will be filling into.
Also added to the History are a few industries to the currently underutilized Jefferson Proving Grounds. A couple of trucking companies for example ralled up, and the CMPA now has it's own Intermodal dock, and a contract with TripleCrown, whoch can also be handled by Amtrak's Kentucky Cardinal at Seymour Indiana. There's also a rail rebuild compan that does Private Varnish and museum restoratiuons in ts spare time, and operates a museum. The vast starge facility has also allowd them room to do lease equpment, and seasonal trains, includign a hub for a Christmas Gift Express train to be loaded with donations and things from liquidation sales that otherwise woul've been thrown away. True Story: Walmart had to throw out a good number of patio chairs due to being in the weather. Nothing wrong with them, but they couldn't sell them. In this modeling world, they can at least get tax-right off out of them, and people with NO furniture can get soemthing donated.
Beyond that, CMPA serves prototypical customers in the plastics industry (Meese Orbitron-Dunn and one I've forgotten at the moment), scrap, and a transload industry in North Vernon. They also store cars in the fromer jefferson Proving Grounds. Adjacent companies that either could or are in buildings that used to be served by the rails include Envirex, Phizer Distribution, IMI, an unnamed Co-Op in Dupont, IN, and two currently abandonded warehouses. I've added in a trucking dock, the rail rebuild, Ducky Bill's (getting parts in, and occasionalyl sahipping out large vessels on flatcars, think the Athearn model) a brewery in Madison (probably going to be Frizz since Dad & I always loved Looney Tunes, or named for his German re-enacting character) and an in-renovation formwer Cotton Mill may be sending out scrap by rail and getting heavy machinery brought in. There's also going to be a wood-working company of some kind, and since the US Army really did test depleted uranium shells, there may be infrequent. shipments of "Dirty Dirt" hazmat cars. Oh, and I'm just crazy enough to want to run a Schnabel car down a 6% incline. MWAHAHAHA!
My CMPA right now, is looking into whtehr they cpould stir up interest in unbanking the right of way from North Vernon to Columbus, opening up the switichin gindustry there and in Elizabethtown. It would also gien them a North-South interchange to go with their East-West link at North Vernon, so tor drug all the way to St. Louis, Terre Haute, or Cinncinati to be sent North-South, the CMPA would be able to intewrchange with the INRD and/through the LIRC, and the kentucky Card, surviving in my world on ExpressTrak business in Louiville primarily with an Amfleet car tacked on to remind people this is Amtrak, could make direct pickup of Expresstrak cars and PV coaches and cut up the CMPA to Columbus, instead of backtracking or haivn to use Chessie as an intermediary. The Board doesn'twant to, but most likely, it will happen.
Roster wise, my CMPA is using an ex-Army SW8, a GP10, and the two ex-PRR SD7s, plus 4 RDCs operated in pairs for the tourism side. If that seems like a lot of locos, it breaks down like this: Three road engien squalified to go down the Madison INcline plus the SW8, or one road switcher, one switcher for the Proving Grounds, plus two backup engiens or engines that can be hauling seasonal cars like Grain Hoppers or Autoracks out of storage and up to North Vernon while the switcher hides in a siding to let them pass. The Board got a grant from the State of Indiana though, and is on the Ops to replace the 60yr old locos with Gensets, using free money from the state. Right now, hey will be testing an NRE unit, and though I do in fact want to paint CMPA gensetlocos, we'll see how that plays out when I get that far in the story.
-Morgan
To understand my layout (Atm it's basic track mock up) and it's backstory, I guess you have to understand a bit about me. I was born on the Chicago-Aurora Racetrack. I don't mean physically. I mean, for a good part of my childhood, that was all I knew. I was able to be one of the last to be there for Burlington Northern's end. In fact that quote down below on my signature was what a gentleman said to me as we stood and watched the E-9 Retirement Parade. It was something that in later years, I'd understand.
My layout is to/and will be a what if. What if the during the BNSF Merger, the ATSF disappeared under Cascade Green. What Burlington Northern had continued on. Would we have still taken those green engines for granted? I have 2 setups. Outdoors in G-Scale is BN's lifespan 1970 to 1995. But in HO, because it's cheaper on my wallet, I decided to take a Proto-Freelance take. Prototypical BN Equipment, but freelancing their exsistance as a Railroad into today's modern age. I want to keep the BN's legacy alive even if by a fictional means. I bleed green, among other colors. I miss sitting at the town station and watching those cascade green monsters fly through the racetrack. I miss that small last 5 years of which I can remember the Burlington Northern. So in my HO Setup, my backstory is to keep it alive. To say 'what if they did survive, what would it be like today?'
DragonFyreGT aka Snowball aka Nate.
WolfCreek & Iron Mountain (Keeping The Burlington Northern Alive since 1995)
"We took those Cascade Green engines for granted. Every Age. All of us. And in the blink of an eye, the era ended as quickly as it began."
The Legend of Santa Vaca
In one of the early Spanish missions established in Texas to convert the Indians, a priest was telling his congregation they should give to the church even though they didn't have much to give. He said that God can use our gifts more than we know, and he told the story of the cow who gave up her feeding stall to make a place for the Baby Jesus to lay. He said the cow's gift-- the manger-- became more a part of the Christmas scene than even the expensive gifts of the Wise Men.
But the Indians confused the cow in the priest's Christmas story with a buffalo cow who was worshipped in their pre-Christian native religion and they began to bring back the cult of the Holy Cow. The Church tried to discourage the practice but could not stop it entirely. The village near the mission took on the name Santa Vaca, and it grew into a major city served by a subsidiary of the Santa Fe Railway.
At the cathedral in Santa Vaca near where the mission once stood is a stained glass window with the manger scene featuring the Baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Holy Cow, each with a halo.
The Columbus & Hocking Valley Ry is owned and operated by the CDB Industries and is one of 7 short lines owned by CDBI.The C&HV came into existence in 1978 when CDBI bought the old Athens sub-division of the Chessie System.During this purchase 2 other short lines was bought,the Parkersburg & Ohio Valley RR that ran from Parkersburg WV to Athens Oh and the Ohio Midland Ry that ran from Jackson,Oh to Newark,Oh.These 2 roads was quickly merged into the new C&HV.By purchasing these roads the CBDI finally had the long sought after southern Ohio coal fields and industries.The CDBI relaid the track from Nelsonville to Athens which had been removed by the C&O some years ago.The old Logan yards was rebuilt and upgraded during this time as it would serve as the home shops and the only major yard on the C&HV since it was centrally located on the line.The second yard would be located in the old C&O(nee CHV&T) Mound Street yard and would require trackage rights over the Chessie to reach..A agreement was struck with the Chessie for those rights.The former P&OV yard in Parkersburg was upgraded as was the OM yards at Jackson and Newark.The C&HV connects with the following roads.Chessie(c&o) at Columbus.N&W at Columbus.DT&I at JacksonChessie(b&o) at Newark.Scioto Valley Lines at Lancaster.Chessie(b&o) at Athens.
Commodities haul: Grain,Lumber,coal,coke,steel,fly-ash,food stuffs,sand,glass,corn sweetener,corn starch,vegetable oils,scrap,pipe,chemicals,paints,news print,pulpwood,wood chips and other general freight.Total cars handle 32,584 a yearThanks to a aggressive marketing team freight traffic has climb a staggering 33% since the CDBI started the C&HV. CDBI owns the following roads.Cumberland,Dickersonville & Bristol Ry.Cumberland to Bristol VA.The CD&B is the flagship road.The CDB in CDB Industries is the same.Kentucky Central.Cumberland Ky to Maysville Ky.Artemus-Jellico Artemus,Ky to Jellico TN.Toledo & Southwestern. Maumee Oh to Fort Wayne INCincinnati & Lake Erie.Cincinnati to Toledo.Detroit Connecting.Detroit MI.Columbus & Hocking Valley Ry.Huron River.Huron,Oh to Barberton,Oh.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
For me, mine has alot of 'custom' history.
The towns of Elwood and Joliet England were railway towns with American counterparts. To connect these two towns to the main lines of the Great Northern Railway, a branchline was built by a private company. Thus formed the Elwood and Joliet Railway company.
After the 1923 grouping act, the E&JR operated as it's own company, but had some management was taken over by the LNER, along with the management, Sir Nigel Gresely tested radically new small build locomotives on this branch line. Some of which were never acknowledged by the LNER management. Some of these included preliminary tests on the experimental W1. Many claim that Gresely built a second W1 and put it in long term storage in an abandoned engine shed, or built a new station building around it.
One management decision thought that made the E&JR management catch alot of flaq was the decision to build a branch line extension to the LMS lines several miles away. The extension was completed by 1935.
Skipping WWII, British Railways took control of the E&JR, but left the existing management to their own devises. By 1955, aging Eastern region along with Scottish and ex-LMS locomotives were left to run down their final miles before being pulled out for the cutter's torch.
Thankfully though, BR management lost count of the many locomotives there thanks to an office fire that completely destroyed any modern records of the E&JR outside of historically preserved documents. So many pieces of motive power and rolling stock that were meant to be scrapped stayed there. until, in many cases they were the last of their class.
The line remained operational hauling materials around the line until 1970. At this point, a historical society was formed and took control of the E&JR, obtaining all the equipment and rolling stock along with operation of modern rail equipment on the line along side of the moderisation survivors. Still operating as a profitable railway but using the profits to maintain the fleet of last of their kind locomotives. Caldonian 812 locomotives frequently hauled small trains of modern wagons along side modern Network Rail diesel electrics and electric. LNER J18's double head to haul container trains, and small tank engines switch industries along the line on short switching run
Passenger service still requires passengers to switch trains, but the passengers don't mind.
If you can read this... thank a teacher. If you are reading this in english... thank a veteran
When in doubt. grab a hammer.
If it moves and isn't supposed to, get a hammer
If it doesn't move and is supposed to, get a hammer
If it's broken, get a hammer
If it can't be fixed with a hammer... DUCK TAPE!