anybody have any advise on modeling the wild west
These threads has some info
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/231417.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/227207/2547222.aspx#2547222
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Depends on what you mean by the "wild west", when and where.
If you are modeling prior to the 1880's or 1890's then most of the "wild west" didn't have railroads (unless you are counting Kansas as the wild west).
The big cattle drives of cowboy and "wild west" days were to get the cattle to a railhead or market because there weren't railroads close. Once the railroad came the big cattle drives stopped.
The movie "True Grit" takes place in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
The movie "3:10 to Yuma" would have taken place in the 1890's (when that line was being built).
Most of the train robberies took place in Kansas and Missouri.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
"Wild West" really is time and place dependent. Hollywood generally doesn't care too much about historical realism, so if you really don't care about historical fidelity, there is lots of stuff avaiable. For instance, I know lots of people who want to see a stagecoach on a railroad layout, when actually the railroad replaced the stagecoach as a means of travel, unless you were at the end of the line and the stage was necessary for further travel.
Still, a little more help in what you are considering will enable us to give you some better advice on where to get materials and references. In the meantime, review the thread entitled "Old West Models" referenced by DSchmitt above, where we have been helping a guy in Italy find things he needs.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
CTValleyRR For instance, I know lots of people who want to see a stagecoach on a railroad layout, when actually the railroad replaced the stagecoach as a means of travel, unless you were at the end of the line and the stage was necessary for further travel.
For instance, I know lots of people who want to see a stagecoach on a railroad layout, when actually the railroad replaced the stagecoach as a means of travel, unless you were at the end of the line and the stage was necessary for further travel.
Many stagecoach operations and wagon freight operation connected to intermediate along the railroad to serve communities not along the railroad at least until the early 1900's.. There were often several seperate small companies which did not compete directly with eachn other because they served different communities.
Trips to the offline communites often took a whole day or even several days. Today on the improved paved road systems even the longest of the trips take only a couple hours in a privete automobile.
--------------------
In the early 1960's I met a man who had been a stagecoach driver in his youth (around 1910). There was an uncompleted section on the Southern Pacific Coast Route in central California. Stagecoaches ferried railroad passengers throuh the gap.
I live in the area that is depicted in the map burning at the opening of the TV series 'Bonanza'. I'm in a community called Stagecoach and that's next to another called Mark Twain. This is the wild west...in the modern mode. Old West...Frontier, may be other ways of looking at it. A few places around here can put you into a time warp back to the 1860's.
I would suggest doing some searches related to the Comstock lode, Virginia City, Silver City, even Carson City, and the Virginia and Truckee Railroad and look at old photos. The V&T started laying track in 1869. The Comstock Lode is the root of much of the Old West...Wild West lore. Samuel Clemens...aka Mark Twain, wrote many stories from the Virginia City newspaper 'The Territorial Enterprise' that he worked for.
This might be a good place to start and work upward through time the history timeline. And see what fits your thoughts and ideas.
And one more thing...this is the actual route of the Pony Express. There's sure enough highway markers to tell you.
Mark H
Modeling in HO...Reading and Conrail together in an alternate history.
You mentioning the pony express reminded me that I had a great, great, great, great uncle that was a pony express rider. My grandmother showed me a glass negative picture of him standing next to his horse.
Just can't this one go by. Back in the 1840's, 50's, and 60's, Kansas was about as Wild West as you could get. Wild Bill Hickock was sherif of Abilene when it was the terminus of the Chisolm Trail. The railroad serving the area was the Kansas Pacific. Jesse James and his gang operated mostly in Missouri. The Dalton gang operated in Kansas. Wyatt Earp was sheriff of Wichita, then he tamed Dodge City before moving to Tombstone. And that just starts it.
Most locomotives of that time were 4-4-0 and 2-6-0 wood burners. There were a lot of 36' or smaller cars. No paved roads. Most settlers were farmers, but there was still plenty of open range. Many structures were the typical false front style you've seen in movies.
One point most people aren't aware of is in central Kansas is a region called post Rock country. It was named that because since there were few trees, fence posts were made out of limestone. They were about 6-8' long and about 8-10" square And about half of the post was stuck in the ground. Might make for some interesting modeling Scenes. To my knowledge, this is the only place in the world that practiced this.
Jim (with a nod to Mies Van Der Rohe)
I don´t know where the OP is located, but I assume this to be somewhere outside of the US.
Wild West, the way we in Europe understand it, is what we see in those good old western movies. There is no specific locatiion attached to it, thus it covers a vast area of anything west of Chicago all the way to the Californian Pacific shoreline.
"Gun Smoke" and "Bonanza" aptly describe the atmosphere a European modeler aims to capture when building a Wild West layout.
From a prototype point of view, the Virginia & Truckee RR with the landmark locos Inyo, Genoa, Reno and the rather odd looking Bowker seems to be the epitome of a "Wild West" railroad. Maybe because Rivarossi one marketed those locos.
I had my own illusions about the 'wild west' even when I moved here in 1994...I still thought of the illusion that Hollywood creates. Ironically...towns of notariety, like Virginia City got that wild fame from only a few incidents. Virginia City was actually a pretty uneventful place as a whole...it was a working city, mostly those working in the silver mines. Julia Bulettes death created a stir and the several fires the town had created a fuss. No duels in the streets. May be a couple of drunks taking pot shots at one another in a bar.
The Virginia and Truckee though...was an interesting bird and I always encourage someone interested in the 'wild west' 'old west' whatever. To take a look at the history of the V&T. That was and is probably the most exciting thing in this area. That and maybe...Lake Tahoe.
No...you will not see a Dan Blocker look-a-like coming into town on a horse...a camel maybe...or more likely an HD Dyna Wide Glide.
crhostler61I had my own illusions about the 'wild west' even when I moved here in 1994...I still thought of the illusion that Hollywood creates. Ironically...towns of notariety, like Virginia City got that wild fame from only a few incidents. Virginia City was actually a pretty uneventful place as a whole...it was a working city, mostly those working in the silver mines. Julia Bulettes death created a stir and the several fires the town had created a fuss. No duels in the streets. May be a couple of drunks taking pot shots at one another in a bar. The Virginia and Truckee though...was an interesting bird and I always encourage someone interested in the 'wild west' 'old west' whatever. To take a look at the history of the V&T. That was and is probably the most exciting thing in this area. That and maybe...Lake Tahoe.
wowdeyanybody have any advise on modeling the wild west
Most "big towns" had a simple main line, sometimes with a passing track, and a third track for the "industries" lined up in a row: stock pens, grain/seed, lumber yard, dry goods warehouse, dillary (pickels), and the ubiqutious team track. A bit bigger towns might have two industry tracks (one on each side of the main) and would include a cold storage warehouse, and perhaps an outside end loading dock.
As far as cattle go, the Wild West moved west with the railhead. At one time it was Kansas City, then Abiline, Salina, Wichita, Great Bend, then Dodge City. So yes, for about 20 years Kansas was the defintion of the wild west. Then the Texas Pacific pushed west through Texas making the concept of cattle drives obsolete. Even after the big cattle drives were over the range wars began and it remained wild for a time.
People often ignore the fact that the railroad practices found west of the Mississippi weren't much different from those found farther East. The locomotive and car builders were centered around New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania, and the locos they built for use in the West weren't much different from those used in the East. Many Eastern lines converted to coal fuel earlier than those out West. Passenger cars with open vestibules remained the standard until about the 1890's throughout the country.
The West was characterized by a bit more rustic setting with temporary housing etc. Stations and other railroad facilities were new, and they looked new. Industries were newly built. Sometimes they were roughly built; but very often they were well-designed, state of the art facilities backed by heavy investment from Eastern or overseas sources. The Sergio Leone West is pure fantasy. It is rather ludicrous to watch a film depicting an actor who comes across a run-down, decrepit (or abandoned) desert railroad in the 1880's. Those railreoads were brand new (or nearly new) at the time, and they generally used brand new equipment because there was no nearby source of second-hand equipment.
In many, but not all, areas, the landscape was more arid.
You mentioned the "Cowboy era". It could be said that the cowboy era persists today because cattle ranchjing is still big business. Other important industries involved more traditional farming; mining of precious metals plus copper and other minerals; and forest products.
In short, there is no one "correct" approach to modeling this era because the Cowboy Era was much more than just cows. A few modelers have done some great work on railroads of the Civil War. Bernie Kempinski's O scale railroad comes to mind. His equipment is much like that seen farther west in that era. So there are many ways to believably employ early U.S. railroad equipment.
Tom
Locos up to about 1880 had no air pump on the boiler. About that time, the air pump started showing up on the drivers, engineers, side.
For HO, no one makes one now with an air pump on that side.
Bachmann makes a 4-4-0 with no air pump as it is a 1870/1880's type loco. They have been a tender drive for some years but are going to be released with the motor in the boiler, DCC ready and DCC with sound.
All the other Bachmann 4-4-0 and 4-6-0's are 1915's or a little later.
Searching the Internet with the suggestions given will bring up a lot of useful info. You will get many, many good links to store in Favorites.
I have accumulated about a hundred links about the late 1800's by searching. Many photos of locos and buildings for that era.
Quite a lot can be found on ebay also.
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.
Got carried away with this thread. I believe that one of the best existing examples of a locomotive from the period that the OP was looking for would be the V&T Inyo #22.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=394756&nseq=5
During a period of volunteering for the museum I had the chance to ride this wooburner and for something built in 1875 it was a pretty iimpressive machine. I know the #22, #11 were made in brass a long time ago and Bachmann's offering were close matches. AHM made old timers, I believe...based on V&T including the 2-4-0 Bowker. Some patient seaching on an auction or resale site might yeild a score.
I know the NSRM in Carson City keeps models in their gift shop inventory.
The #11 is still in the Old Tucson theme park last I heard...and come to think of it...that place would also be a great reference for old west since many old west movies where done there.
Another thing just came to mind. The Nevada Museum's public workhorse is actaully an oldie from the east.
The #8 was originally built by Cooke in 1888 and ran on the Dardanelle and Russellville in Arkansas.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2115570
I guess the wild west in perception didn't really have to be that far west. LOL.
Actually, many of the worst towns in the old west were the railroad tboom towns that sprung up while they were building the first Trranscontinental railroad. Cheyenne, Laramie, in Wyoming, Ogden Utah, etc.
DSchmitt CTValleyRR For instance, I know lots of people who want to see a stagecoach on a railroad layout, when actually the railroad replaced the stagecoach as a means of travel, unless you were at the end of the line and the stage was necessary for further travel. Many stagecoach operations and wagon freight operation connected to intermediate along the railroad to serve communities not along the railroad at least until the early 1900's.. There were often several seperate small companies which did not compete directly with eachn other because they served different communities. Trips to the offline communites often took a whole day or even several days. Today on the improved paved road systems even the longest of the trips take only a couple hours in a privete automobile. -------------------- In the early 1960's I met a man who had been a stagecoach driver in his youth (around 1910). There was an uncompleted section on the Southern Pacific Coast Route in central California. Stagecoaches ferried railroad passengers throuh the gap.
I didn't mean to suggest otherwise, just that two towns connected by rrail were no longer served by stagecoach routes, because they couldn't compete. Yet Hollywood loves the image of the stage coach alonside the trian.
I don't know whether this publication is still available, but if you're into scratchbuilding, try to find "HO Wild West Structures You Can Build." Complete plans and material lists for 20 unique and original structures. Includes a list of suppliers for every western detail. Cowboys, wagons, figures. etc.
Distributed by Mark J. Bigelow, DBA James Publications, 1006 Landings Blvd, West Palm Beach, FL 33413. jamespub@aol.com 561-434-2944 Copyright 1999.
A valid architectural resource is Calico Ghost Town, in California not far from Barstow. Originally a silver mining town, it was purchased by the Knott family (of Knott's Berry Farm fame) in the 1950s, then turned over to San Bernardino County as a historical park in the 1970s. Some of the buildings are original. Others were built as copies of the originals by the Knott family (Mr Knott had worked there during a brief mining revival early in the 20th century, which was the reason for his interest.)
There is a 2'6" gauge 'amusement park' railroad, but the working town never had direct rail service.
Apparently, Calico wasn't very wild. Of course, it acquired law enforcement (deputy sheriff and two constables) early on.
Googling Calico Ghost Town Images will give a lot of ideas.
On another note, the Central Pacific Railroad Sacramento Shops built several of the Virginia and Truckee locomotives. Not all far west locomotives came from the East. (The fanciest builder's plate I've ever seen is on V&T #18, Dayton, on display under cover in Virginia City. With its surrounding grillwork it fills the area below the running board between the drivers. It's a Sacramento engine.)
Chuck (Mojave Desert resident modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Chuck, you're absolutely right about locomotive construction in Sacramento. But my point was that the general architecture of North American locos and other RR equipment tended to be fairly consistent. Those Sacramento engines looked very similar to their Baldwin stablemates that had been built in Philadelphia. For that matter, at a somewhat later date the Willamette Iron Works of Oregon built geared locomotives that were basically the same as a Shay from Lima, Ohio.