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The Montana and Puget Sound Railroad. Comments by Derick Cullen. The Model Railroader magazine published a John Armstrong trackplan article, the HO M&PS, in the December 1959 issue. In its November and December 2004 issues, articles by Robert L. Warren “re-cycled” the M&PS design, in the guise of an N scale granger layout (Rock Island and Minneapolis & St Louis, November 2004) and HO Appalachins layout (Western Maryland, December 2004). Unfortunately, the publication of the November 2004 issue coincided with the announcement of John Armstrong’s death, a blow to me as a lifelong fan of his work. The M&PS was the second ever Armstrong plan I had seen. The first was the SP inspired Oakland / Bay Area plan published in the 1958 25th anniversary edition of MR. To an impressionable teenager these plans opened up the possibilities of melding prototype situations into manageable spaces. Whilst the SP effort was way beyond practical consideration, the M&PS looked achievable, and reflected what little I knew about US transcontinental railroads in the northwest, mainly gleaned from “boys own” picture books borrowed from the local library. Over the years, the M&PS made cameo appearances in Armstrong’s track planning books, and every so often these prompted a scrounge for my well-thumbed copy of the December 1959 MR for a re-read. I usually learned something new with each re-read, and it was with some anticipation that I saw the first of Warren’s recycling articles. Perhaps because of familiarity with the original, there are some things which I noted on reading Warren’s articles. I hope the following comments serve to better understand the original, and that the suggestions about the “spin-offs” are helpful. Critique of the spin-offs Size, shape, relocatability, access The original was designed to be dismantled and relocated. Careful thought about this requirement determined the layout size and shape and how it occupied the room space. In particular, the “island” scheme was a percentage play against the new location being most unlikely to have widows and doors in the same locations. The spin-offs do not take this into account, and in fact the extension to provide staging more in keeping with modern notions detracts from both relocatability and people access. The compromised relocatability may not be a fatal flaw, depending on expectations about moving and likely new location. On the other hand, if moving is not an expectation, then one wonders if a better use of the space is possible with a round the wall design as a starting point. The accessibility issue generated by the staging extensions may be solved by a duckunder (under the Elkins/Thomas benchwork, HO, or North Manly/Albert Lea, N). Otherwise it’s a long trip around the perimeter to retrieve train/tool, etc. The convenience or otherwise of the duckunder is a personal trade-off to be made. Choice of prototype The M&PS used pacific northwest railroading in a variety of flavours, including Canadian, to “justify” the loops, tunnels and parallel tracks of the plan. Given the prairie character of the RI/M&StL, loop backs and parallel tracks through the same scene cannot be “justified”, and perforce a hidden helix is employed to attain vertical separation. I have only done a little railfanning in the mid-west, enough to know that overlapping routes, crossings and trackage rights hold some attraction. This may be enough to offset the non-scenic helix. I guess this is a matter of taste. On the other hand the WM out of Elkins on the Black Fork grade is more to my taste and the grade and action are satisfyingly up front on the spin off. A good choice of prototype to justify the convolutions of the plan. Warren avoided the loops and parallel tracks, however, in keeping with their absence on the prototype. There is one significant issue though. The WM hauled coal uphill on the Thomas subdivision. On a coal road logic dictates loads in one direction have to be balanced by empties in the other. The M&PS point to point schema is retained in both spin offs, and this is not a problem on the RI/M&StL where the traffic moves predominantly in “house” cars or containers which are not obviously empty or full. But on the WM we will have to wrassle coal loads down hill, glaringly obvious and unprototypical. I can think of some options to avoid this. One is to return the coal loads accumulating in the “Cumberland” staging and the empties accumulating in the “Webster Springs” staging to the other end of the railroad when no-one is looking, for example between operating sessions. If this strategy is employed, I would recommend increasing the staging at both ends to give the ability to run more trains during an operating session. Another is to equip the coal hopper fleet with removable loads, so after a surreptitious removal or replacement of the loads in the staging, the loaded trains can be returned empty (and vice versa) during the operating session. Access to the staging might have to be improved in the Elkins area to facilitate this. Personally, I think the load removal/replacement would be a chore to be avoided, and would detract from the operating session. Alternatively, the track plan needs to provide for a way to “sneak” loads and empties back to the other end unseen during an operating session. The classic is to provide a continuous run schema with the connection between both ends hidden. Another is a hidden helix connection. Armstrong has published a track plan for the WM Thomas subdivision (and a chunk of the Cumberland Division) where hidden helix AND continuous run connections between “Cherry Run”, “Cumberland” and “Elkins” enabled empties and loads to reappear appropriately (see Kalmbach “Twelve Custom Trackplans”). This has not been done on the WM M&PS spin off. After I had thought about this over a number of days, I recalled Armstrong also had a solution other than a continuous run or helix. On his own Canandaigua Southern he had a “vertical turnout” hidden under scenery which functioned as a loads-in, empties out connection between mine and consumer for iron ore, which were located at different elevations and different ends of his road. Elsewhere he had postulated a “dry canal lock” to connect trackage at different levels in an elevator type arrangement. The Cumberland staging is directly above the Webster Springs staging in the WM spin off. If we had a dry canal lock / elevator / vertical drawer arrangement for two tracks in the staging we could send coal loads down and empties up between the staging during an operating session. Critique of the original Lest it be said I am being harsh on Warren, I have some issues with the original M&PS as well. Curve radius The first is the minimum (and predominant) curve radius of 24 inches. Armstrong had us imagining 4-8-4s and 4-6-6-4s conquering both sides of the big hill, and very pleasant it was to contemplate this, too. However, such large power comes with prodigious overhang on curves this sharp, and the mental picture he conjured up probably can’t be attained in 3-D. One solution is to increase the minimum radius to 30 inches or better, at least on the visible curves. This may warrant a complete rethink about the size and shape of the railroad and the individual chunks into which it can be dismantled, to maintain the relocatability objective. Another solution is to restrict the motive power to something more suitable for the radius. I can imagine that the M&PS would be very satisfying with 4-6-2s and 2-8-2s as frontline power backed up by light 4-6-2s, 2-8-0s and perhaps some special purpose 2-10-0s or 2-6-6-2s in helper service. Control system The M&PS was made for DCC. Unfortunately, DCC had not been invented in 1959. Walk-around control as a concept was in its infancy then, and the most common form was a hand-crafted throttle on a tether. This served on many of Armstrong’s walk-in plans, and he usually devoted a paragraph or two and a graphic to control systems for his innovative designs. Atypically, nothing was said about control on the M&PS. Tethered throttles were certainly better than a series of speed and direction controls at fixed locations around the layout. In this case “panel hopping” crews would clash in the aisle of the many-armed M&PS, not to mention the distraction from watching their trains in the spectacular scenery. But moment’s contemplation would show that two tethered cabs, with tethers long enough to provide access to all of that mainline would be very unweildly and most likely to tangle each other up hopelessly. Radio-controlled throttles would have been a technologically feasible solution in 1959, but would have required some design, scratch building and experimentation using model airplane/boat components. Perhaps the M&PS is an “old theme” whose time has finally arrived. Thanks to Bob Warren for letting us revisit the M&PS.
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