This Christmas card received from Leonard Bernstein, Assistant to the Operations Vice President for Passegner Service and Company Catering, just before his transition to Liason Officer to Amtrak, might be of use in designing your layout:
And RGS freight with leased D&RGW power
SPV Mark, I was just thinking the other day if you want to keep modeling the NP loosely but would also like a narrow gauge fix, there were some points in Montana where the Northern Pacific connected to 3' gauge lines in the late 19th century. It wouldn't be too farfetched to have some HOn3 on your layout and just imagine one of those lines survived longer. Just a thought. Chris
Mark,
I was just thinking the other day if you want to keep modeling the NP loosely but would also like a narrow gauge fix, there were some points in Montana where the Northern Pacific connected to 3' gauge lines in the late 19th century. It wouldn't be too farfetched to have some HOn3 on your layout and just imagine one of those lines survived longer.
Just a thought.
Chris
I was aware that there was a Narrow Gauge line(s) that were in Western Montana and joined with the N.P.
My layout really has no usable space left for additional track.
I have been looking at my layout as almost narrow gauge, it has more in common with a narrow gauge than a Class I. So, I don't feel a need to specifically model a narrow gauge line when what I have is close enough.
Thanks for the suggestion, it has peaked my interest in reading up about the narrow gauges lines in Western Montana!
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
I have finished Tony Koester's new "Guide to Narrow Gauge Modeling" book and have a short review elsewhere in this forum topic.
I have read both Tony Koesters article in the December issue and have viewed the video of his layout and I will admitt it is very nicely done and very impressive! Had I started with his knowledge and the room he had available, maybe I would have gone total prototype. Taking the room he had to use, a guy could do a pretty good job of building a lot of the Rio Grande Southern; or, some division on the Northern Pacific.
Like you, I have some artistic needs that need fullfilling. I like where I am with Model Railroading at this point in time. I'm also wondering if I am any much happier, because of technology? I would go back in a heart beat to when I was so amazed when I finished a Bowser; or, Roundhouse loco kit, put it on the tracks and the danged thing actually worked!
Prototype modeling has it's place and it's an important one. Heck, I even do it myself
But it's NOT the only way to conceptualize a layout. Yet that's all many people have any more to go by in making plans, designing, etc. Generally none of that is a bad thing -- but it may not, in the end, result in a viable, interesting to operate layout. It'll be a very nicely done representation of something, but it could easily be rather incomplete and badly organized model railroad.
Then there is the art factor, which I found receives mixed reactions. Some people think I want various Picasso-style layouts -- whatever that means. Some think calling model railroaders "artists" mis simply a way to smear and sneer at all they hold dear.
But this "other stuff" that goes beyond what is strictly prototype to ensure the model world is as interesting and useful as the real version is pretty darn important if you want a model RR that satisfies YOU. You have to know what to model, how, when and where. Some adhere strictly to those rules, others like me take them and run with them. The protype remains important for me, but primarily as a point of reference for what I create that satisfies me. I think your experience on this project likewise suggests there's something important here that prototype modeling doesn't always give you ready access to and that's your creativity
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I watch more TV than you; but, really haven't taken to the reality programs as I don't find anything real about them! I love the nature programs and the wife like here NCIS and that type of programs.
An interesting twist to my modeling interests is my turn back towards freelancing! I started my layout convinced that freelancing was the way to go. My layout followed only my imagination when I designed it. The scenery is on the dramatic side and like John Allen's Gorre & Dephetid Lines, would never have existed in the locations it was depicted in, as its’ being too expensive per mile to build. I had some design elements that I wanted to see in a layout and those became the basis for the design.
About 5 years into its’ construction, I happened upon the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association (NPRHA) quarterly magazine, the Mainsteeter. I grew up watching both the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific run along Highway 10, north of the twin cities and became very interested in the N.P. and joined the NPRHA. I decided to only have Northern Pacific locomotives and got rid of anything that wasn’t N.P., excepting the inclusion of a small logging branch as I knew I wanted a Shay, Climax, and would never get rid of my very old Varney 0-4-0 Docksider “Little Joe”. So, in a nutshell, this is where I have been for about 20 years, “modeling” the Northern Pacific.
While I have always been in touch with freelancing and discussed its’ virtues when the question arose, during the last 20+ years, I considered myself a prototype modeler, as I modeled the N.P. My ride on the Durango and Silverton on the first of October this year, got me to thinking that a change might be fun. As is shown in this thread, I considered long and hard about tearing down the above layout and starting over with the Rio Grande Southern layout in Sn3. I went so far as to design a layout to see if I could fit what I wanted in the space I have available. It finally dawned on me, that the gauge of the line had very little to do with my enjoyment of this hobby. I have a layout that models the type of railroad action I like: mountains, bridges-trestles and tunnels! So, why change gauges. I like my N.P. equipment, I like the layout I’ve built! So, why not just free-up my thinking to include some equipment the N.P. likely did not use during my time period? Due to short yard trackage my trains need to be short, anyway, so why not use shorter open platform passenger cars and as I love to build models, the Labelle 50 foot cars might serve.
Yeah, if there's something to be added to a discussion, then do so. Oftentimes, it's not even that the original comment was wrong, but rather someone thought it wasn't "complete enough." By adding what they have to say, they seem to want to rectify that -- and they do so long as they don't turn it into, "You were so wrong about x...." Hardly the case. That's what they think is important and it's good to say so. But it never really needs to be framed by the other person's "incompleteness" or "failure." Simply add it to the conversation, as that brings far more respect for what is being added than anyone ever does by calling someon eout on something.
Part of the problems may be that folks arte watching too much TV. I watch Saturday Night Live. That's pretty much it. All this reality show yelling at each other over who spilled the milk tends to set a tone, along with much of the useless tumult at the core of our government -- well, that's politics and we won't go there other than to point out there are lots of bad examples of how to have a frinedly and usefull discussion about trains. I try to set a good example of how to do it.
Mike, Totally agree about some of the one-ups-manship that goes on here. In fact there appears to me to be many who simply have little to say, unless they can correct some detail; or, misstatement. It's sort of like they are proving they are the smartest person in the world!
Yeah, that was one of the earlier Shays. IIRC, one could take an appropriate-sized later build model and backdate it with the right details.
I've also gone with your idea of a logging branch to justify having a Shay, which was in part what the Cascade Branch is all about. Still don't have the Shay yet. A sweet 3-truck Shay is what I hope to eventually get for it, but wouldn't mind taking a swing at the SRR Shay, either.
I've probably forgotten more about Colorado narrowgauge than I remember at this point. Fortunately, I've got my library for reference.
I know what you mean about assumptions. I come here to have an interesting discussion I can learn from. A lot of the back-and-forth hair-splitting that goes on is just silly. I suspect, don't want to assume, that it's because knowledge has become such a commodity everyone that knows even a little bit about a particular niche of knowledge fancies themselves an expert. And they may be on a particular point.
But the fact is even those who are experts in one or even many aspects of trains, model or prototype, can't know it all. If you're not willing to have a thoughtful conversation and try to learn from it, displaying that knowledge can come of as rather tenditious. I prefer to simply say "This is what I know..." and then discuss with the goal of either helping others learn or learning myself.
mlehman Mark, There was a Shay in the early history of the RGS. The Silverton RR, another Mears property, bought a Shay, then found it too slow and unsuited for their needs. It was transferred to the RGS, where it possibly served briefly. But the RGS used it even before it arrived after purchase by the SRR in 1890, as Mears diverted it enroute to help with constructing the RGS. The RGS sold it in 1899 and The Rainbow Route indicates it's uncertain it was even used by the RGS the second time around. http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15330coll22/id/30875
There was a Shay in the early history of the RGS. The Silverton RR, another Mears property, bought a Shay, then found it too slow and unsuited for their needs. It was transferred to the RGS, where it possibly served briefly.
But the RGS used it even before it arrived after purchase by the SRR in 1890, as Mears diverted it enroute to help with constructing the RGS. The RGS sold it in 1899 and The Rainbow Route indicates it's uncertain it was even used by the RGS the second time around.
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15330coll22/id/30875
Mike, that Shay would be a neat model to have. It is unlike most of the Shays you see and shows its’ early Shay linage. I don’t think I have ever seen a Shay model like It, offered.
My biggest problem when it comes to posting threads here on the Model Railroader Forums, is assuming things. When you assume, someone will always find a flaw in your assumptions. In this case, I am happy that Mike not only knew that the RGS did at one time have a Shay locomotive; but, also where to find a photo of it, to post with his comeback! Thanks Mike, the depth of you knowledge on Narrow Gauge is impressive.
The Rio Grande Southern went away for the same reasons that almost all the rest of the Narrow Gauge Lines went away. I don't think this has much to do with why, of all the Narrow Gauge lines, the Rio Grande Southern seems so popular. It may be that this supposed popularity is many faceted (Tony Koester even mentions the RGS as being popular in his Narrow Gauge Book). I guess if we take my interest as an example, it’s possible that WHY the line is popular, might become apparent: I am interested in the fact that it would be possible to represent the line with only a few locomotives and therefore I could focus on higher quality locomotives for this smaller line. The Galloping Geese defiantly peek my interest. I am fascinated with trestles and the RGS had a goodly share of them. The Ophir Loop with all of its’ trestles, is an extremely interesting detail to model! The only thing lacking, from my perspective, is the use of a Shay, Climax; or, Heisler type logging locomotive and had I modeled the RGS, I would have gone freelance enough, to have included at least a Shay!
Mike hit the nail on the head about why RGS is so popular among NG roads. The geese saved the RGS in many ways. They could satisfy and keep their mail contracts using them. (a major source of income). No need steaming up a loco with full crew if you have 4 cans of milk to take to Delores, 10 sacks of mail, 2 kegs of nails for a hardware store in Placerville and 3 passengers. Jam them all in a goose and take off. Save the steam, what there was of it in later years, for real revenue earning runs.
The lady that helped organize the government loan for the RGS before and during WWII saved the road until new automotive road construction after the war made the RGS rather useless and only the tourist trade and the mail kept the road going as long as it did. The underdog became cute and homey as the poorly maintained locos and rolling stock virtually fell apart in use.
Tourism kept a lot of NG roads, postwar, limping along.
Not to go off on a tangent, but in a 1979 issue of the Narrow Gauge "Gazette", an interesting return letter from East Broad Top management to a rail fan trying to organize a rail fan trip on that narrow gauge road in 1946 was printed. Wow!
The gist of the letter was that the East Broad Top management would be most happy to provide a Sunday railfan run for this fellow, he just had to give them a bit of notice with lead time.
He was quoted $60.00 for two coaches for the first ten hours pulled by one of their mikes and an additional $30.00 for each additional 10 hours or less. For each additional coach over the standard two, he would have to pay $12.00.
That is what I call working for tourist business! An entire two coach train for 10 hours pulled by steam with crew rented out for $60.00!
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
NP2626I find it interesting that probably the least successful narrow gauge line, is one of the most popular to model and wonder why this is? Is it because of the loop?
I think the RGS is popular for several reasons, which tend to overlap and amplify each other.
After WWII, the RGS still struggled along in comparison to the Rio Grande's also declining narrowgauge lines. people like narrowgauge, but they like the underdog even more.
The RGS really went after the tourist traffic that resulted, while the Rio Grande sort of went "meh." Didn't save the RGS, but the contrast while it lasted was something that people like Bob Richardson picked up on by way of comaparison.
The Goose -- it was the kludge that conquered. Every railfan could almost imagine owning one for personal use. And they certainly facilitated small groups traveling together. While a whole charter train was pretty cool, if you could swing it on the Rio Grande, it was a lot easier to fill a Goose. Any smaller size than a whole train from the Rio Grande was called a "ticket." Not quite the same cachet.
The RGS came preweathered In an era where weathering was just starting to be understood, the RGS offered a great example of that special effect you wanted to achieve.
The RGS was a repository for the equipment of other Colorado lines, so inherited the fans and attention they inspired. The C&S was the biggest such association in terms of numbers, but there were others, too.
Even by the standards of the day, the RGS operated antique and creaky old stuff not seen elsewhere. Heck, if they could have gotten away with it, they'd probably have used link and pins right up until abandonment.
Well, thank you! It has been a fun thread to be a part of.
Mark this is a very interesting topic , wasnice saturday moring reading.
Lynn
Present Layout progress
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/p/290127/3372174.aspx#3372174
I finished reading Bob Richardson's Rio Grande Southern, Chasing the Narrow Gauge Part III and have started on Tony Koester's Book on Narrow Gauge. Although I have decided not to tear down my HO layout to replace with an Sn3 new layout, I am still enjoying reading about narrow gauge.
I find it interesting that probably the least successful narrow gauge line, is one of the most popular to model and wonder why this is? Is it because of the loop?
Really neat distinctive locomotives.
narrow gauge nuclear You could get three guys, a card table and drinks in that smoke stack in the last image and have a poker game! Some of those giant stacks of the 1870's and 80's dwarfed the locos. There certainly were a diverse group of unusual designs during that period. I am just a straight shotgun stack kinda guy, myself. Those old stacks served a real purpose and were not just decorative or odd to just be odd. Not burning down the country side was always a good reason to do an odd looking, but functional stack design. Another was to offer a good draft to those early boilers. One of the most interesting stack treatments, ever, was the C&S "beartrap" stack design with clinker/cinder catcher and ballast level drop pipe. Those little narrow gauge lines ran through a lot of beautiful wooded country that they didn't need to burn to the ground.
You could get three guys, a card table and drinks in that smoke stack in the last image and have a poker game! Some of those giant stacks of the 1870's and 80's dwarfed the locos. There certainly were a diverse group of unusual designs during that period. I am just a straight shotgun stack kinda guy, myself.
Those old stacks served a real purpose and were not just decorative or odd to just be odd. Not burning down the country side was always a good reason to do an odd looking, but functional stack design. Another was to offer a good draft to those early boilers.
One of the most interesting stack treatments, ever, was the C&S "beartrap" stack design with clinker/cinder catcher and ballast level drop pipe.
Those little narrow gauge lines ran through a lot of beautiful wooded country that they didn't need to burn to the ground.
Although the miners loved to dump their tailings; or, overburden into the rivers, which naturally conveyed the materials from their locations, burning the woods down was likely frowned upon form the point of view that it would take buildings bridges and track with it, not because the woods had any intrinsic value; or, the fact that the critters lived there. In my lifetime, I have seen the attitude about the environment change immensely! The Animas river has finally cleaned up enough that trout are making a comeback!
I love those Balloon stacks; however, they were long gone by the era I like to model. I also love the cinder chutes on the C&S locos. #486, the K-36 loco that pulled my train from Silverton to Durango back the 1st of October when I rode, it has some type of spark arrestors on the stack. However, when the woods get very dry, the D&S Narrow Gauge Railroad drops the fires from its’ steam locos and runs diesels on the trips up the creek.
Gotta love that DSP&P route over Alpine Tunnel and the pallisades. This scene inspired a small location on my little layout with its distinctive cliff and wall.
http://www.narrowgauge.org/ngc/graphics/tkierscey/dspp/dspp0022.jpg
NP2626Is there a book that discusses in detail, all the different Colorado based Narrow Gauge lines? I find it very interesting to trace where these line where on Google Earth.
Best book for that is "Tracking Ghost Railroads in Colorado" by Robert Ormes. Copyright is 1975, mine is the 7th printing by Century One Press of Colorado Springs. Lots of detailed maps that shows the relationships between all the lines in each location, as well as in depth attention to construction, operations, and abandonment. The much more recent Steam Powered Video series volume RR Atlas, Colorado-Utah is also useful if you just need a map.
ACY I understood South Park to be a geographical feature, rather than one specific town. Tom
I understood South Park to be a geographical feature, rather than one specific town.
Tom
Tom's right. South Park is the broad, open, relatively flat ground that surrounds Fairplay and stretches to the souther and east from there. There are several "parks" in the Rockies elsewhere in Colorado. The North Park is up near Estes Park IIRC. Middle Park is somewhere in between the other two, but I'm still on my first cup right now, so...
The C&S started as a conglomeration of lines competing with or nearby to the Rio Grande's lines. The UP acquired control and consolidated them, then the CB&Q later acquired them. The Clear Creek lines a la harry Brunk didn't really comepete with the D&RG, though.
The first object of contention of what was then the Denver, South Park & Pacific was getting into Leadville, then next to the Gunnison area. IIRC the DSP&P lost both races, then struggled to hold on, with the last of the NG being converted to standard in WWII. That was the Leadville-Climax line to the molybdenum mine. The rest was mostly abandoned except for a few pieces near Denver, including the line up to Golden to the Coor Brewery (which I think started as NG, but may be wrong about.) There's books by Mac Poor and Mallory Hope Ferrell, plus several new ones out, along with the DSP&P Historical Society.
Despite the now famous "South Park" cartoon show on Comedy Central. I’ve never been able to locate a town in Colorado named South Park. In fact, when I ask Google Earth to look for South Park, it leads me to a town named Fairplay. Is this South Park; but, at some point in time the name was changed to Fairplay?
Also, I don’t see mention of the DS&P or the CS in information on the Narrow Gauge Circle, so I think these lines operated separately from the D&RG(W) and the RGS in different parts of the state. I understand that the Colorado Southern was a consolidation of many previous lines and later became a part of the CB&Q. On our bus trip this past fall, we drove by the Argo Mill and Georgetown. So I've seen these famous locations!
Is there a book that discusses in detail, all the different Colorado based Narrow Gauge lines? I find it very interesting to trace where these line where on Google Earth.
The South Park is definitely an inspiration and certainly doesn't get enough love. If it wasn't for Silverton, that might very well be what I modeled instead of the Rio Grande. Visiting the Alpine Tunnel's west portal is one of my favorite trails when I'm in Colorado.
And there's no doubt that for sheer coolness, it was great to see Harry's UC&N find a permanent home. It's a very good reason to visit Cheyenne again: http://www.cheyennedepotmuseum.org/model-railroad
I also have an interest in the Denver South Park & Pacific and the Colorado Southern and have been amazed at what Harry Brunk has done with his Union Central and Northern!
Mountain railroading is great fun whatever the gauge. I'd suggest looking at two other Colorado prototypes for more inspiration, the Colorado Midland (and its Cripple Creek offshoot) and the Denver & Salt Lake (which the Rio Grande eventually absorbed as its Moffat Route west from Denver.
The CM just went belly up for the most part, struggling to an end that was prolonged physically, if not corporately as the Midland Terminal until after WWII. The associated railroads into the Cripple Creek District make for a really interesting mix. These included the 3' gauge Florence & Cripple Creek, whose roadbed through Phantom Canyon into CC from the south makes a wonderful journey. So you might even find a way to squeeze in a little narrowgauge based on that.
The D&SL might make a better model if you intend the line to be a somewhat independent eventual acquisition of the NP. While nominally independent, the Rio Grande did have some influence in the years before it absorded the D&SL right after WWII.
I have done enough thinking about, studying and have drawn enough of a plan to determine that what I would like to do in Sn3 could be done, although on a fairly tight fitting basis. With all the considering that I have done, knowing how I spend my free time and what is important to me, I have determined that I will not be tearing down my HO layout to make room for a new layout. This has been a fun endeavor and I've found I have a festination with Narrow Gauge, just not enough to throw out 26 years of work on my present layout.
Thanks Mike and thanks for answering my other PMed Questions! I have sent one more PM to you.
Mark
You're welcome. The biggest change was the standard gauge staging I first penciled in under Silverton ended up becoming Dove Creek. The staging ended up mostly in the next room, except for two tracks underneath Rockwood that parallel the rest inside the layout room.
Answered your PM.
Thanks Mike, that goes along ways towards explaining your layout! I have left a PM for you.
Sure, they're not really good images and some changes/additions were made along the way, but here are the trackplans for the narrowgauge and then the standard gauge parts of the layout.
Narrowgauge
Standard gauge
The room is 28' at its longest, along the top edge of these drawings, and 16' wide, on the left hand side.
Here's the track schematics, which are basically up to date, but may not show all the staging or the Cascade Branch, which takes off from Tefft. Chama staging loop is under Durango, while most of the rest of staging is in the adjacent room with the Cascade Branch.
Some pics to illustrate...Red Mountain, just to the right as you enter.
Animas Forks above and Sheridan below
Eureka and the big Sunnyside Mill
Finally, looking past CHattanooga towards Silverton on the left, Durango in the middle of the room.
Mike,
Back when you ran some operations in a thread a couple years back, I became interested in what you're layout actually looks like. In the above post, I get the feeling you are modeling the area around Silverton, is that right; or, is Silverton only a small portion of the layout? Anyway, could you show us all your layout or plans you might have? Is there anyway of doing that?
narrow gauge nuclear That is the great thing about a freelanced road or any road that is not purely protoyped, You can do pretty much what you like, such as locating two towns in real life separated by 30 miles only 1/10 HO gauge scale mile from each other... or... not doing one of them at all if it was insignificant to your theme.
That is the great thing about a freelanced road or any road that is not purely protoyped, You can do pretty much what you like, such as locating two towns in real life separated by 30 miles only 1/10 HO gauge scale mile from each other... or... not doing one of them at all if it was insignificant to your theme.
Richard,
In my head, I always knew that to be true. In my heart, it's been more of a learning curve. Coincidentally, from Silverton I have abbreviated, but nonetheless viable examples of the Silverton RR (to Red Mountain) and the Silverton Northern RR (to Animas Forks). The Silverton, Gladstone & Northerly exists as one leg of the Silverton wye, which leads to one leg of the Red Mountain wye, basically a long staging track.
Now, despite its attractive features as a standalone layout -- I hear you, Chris -- the SG&N gets no respect, even here, and that's too bad. It was the middle sibling of the 3 Little Lines and a charming property, but its near-dependence on the Gold King and Mogul mills and their quick demise doomed it to the shortest life of any among its siblings.
Now, do I miss it? Not really. The SRR and SN provide plenty to do, lots of operational complexity, etc. If I had managed to squeeze it in, it would've squeezed something else out of the room -- and it would've forced too many operators together above Silverton. Even with just the two "little lines"it can get crowded along with the general tightness of aisle space.
What to do? While I am soemwhat freelance in regards to some things, the lines themselves are based on real ones. So I reached into my bag of tricks and came up with the Cascade Branch (http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/219241.aspx?page=1). It uses real topography, but the line is an invention and never existed, maybe never even contemplated. It looks like it might work as a RR, but if it's too steep, I'm OK here. What it will do is eventually take one or two operators and leave more elbow room for those in the main layout room. Six operators is about the limit and if I could keep everyone on task it could really work.
One things for certain, I don't miss the extra branch's worth of traffic from the SG&N, particualrly if I located it where I originally would have put it. I can still build the SG&N locos and cars and run them, which as I've noted before is where much of the interest in prototype modeling often focuses.
For now, there's just enough vestigial SG&N to hold a train on the main back there out of sight. I reworked the layout "legend" so that an exclusive resort and casino now own Gladstone and is the only remaining customer on the branch. There's actually a backcountry ski area up there now, so there's even something of a "prototype" although it's focused more on the young and reckless than it is on conspicuous consumption. Anyway, it's often the favored destination of my San Juan Zephyr luxury cruise train, which regularly plies the Narrowgauge Circle hauling high-rolling railfans and other sybarites to some of Colorado's most enticing entertainment and relaxation venues.
Here's a pic of the SJ Zephyr on a recent rare mileage trip to the decidedly down-market destination of Hesperus.
And if I really do find a need for more traffic, there's room to add a siding back there and hold two trains or allow one to pass others there.
SPV Richard, Very nice progress. I look forward to seeing more of your layout. I'll also be interested in the photos of your trip, as that area - the La Sals in particular - will be the main focal point of my modeling efforts. Mark, I don't mean to dissuade you from the RGS (it sounds like you're pretty set on it), but given your fondness for the Red Mountain area, have you ever considered modeling the RGS's Silverton cousins - the Silverton RR, Silverton Northern, and Silverton, Gladstone & Northerly? All three are fascinating and could be modeled somewhat more easily than the MUCH longer RGS. The SG&N in particular could make a great smaller layout, or a very accurately-modeled medium to large layout. Just a thought. Chris
Very nice progress. I look forward to seeing more of your layout. I'll also be interested in the photos of your trip, as that area - the La Sals in particular - will be the main focal point of my modeling efforts.
I don't mean to dissuade you from the RGS (it sounds like you're pretty set on it), but given your fondness for the Red Mountain area, have you ever considered modeling the RGS's Silverton cousins - the Silverton RR, Silverton Northern, and Silverton, Gladstone & Northerly? All three are fascinating and could be modeled somewhat more easily than the MUCH longer RGS. The SG&N in particular could make a great smaller layout, or a very accurately-modeled medium to large layout. Just a thought.
Yep, if this new layout is going to happen it would be Rio Grande Southern. The length of the line means nothing to me, my present layout is a small section of the Northern Pacific, which was around 2,000 miles long. So I don't figure the 160+ miles of the RGS to be that MUCH longer!
narrow gauge nuclearSince I will be in the Moab area and at the base of the La Sal mountains mineral hunting, I figure taking that road east will take me to all the places the PUP will run. I am especially interested in the Uravan area, but most in the Naturita-Nucla towns as they are where the PUP operations center and minimalist yard will be located. I will continue on and stop at Placerville, turn around and drive back to La Sal. (A full day trip, I am sure). I have Google Earthed the drive, but it is tedious and while it can come close, it will never replace actually being there.
I've driven Utah 46/Colorado 90 several times and it is a spectacular drive. What I haven't done is taken the turn north from 90 and followed the Dolores River's path to Uravan. Be sure to not miss opportunities to fill up and get any needed provisions before heading into the Paradox Valley, as there is very little there except great views.
One of my primary missions before I go much further on my layout is to drive the road along the San Miguel river to get a feeling for the country and shoot some images for possible back drop prints. I hope to go to Utah next year to go uranium mineral hunting again.
Since I will be in the Moab area and at the base of the La Sal mountains mineral hunting, I figure taking that road east will take me to all the places the PUP will run.
I am especially interested in the Uravan area, but most in the Naturita-Nucla towns as they are where the PUP operations center and minimalist yard will be located. I will continue on and stop at Placerville, turn around and drive back to La Sal. (A full day trip, I am sure). I have Google Earthed the drive, but it is tedious and while it can come close, it will never replace actually being there.
Been meaning to cite these books on mining, so before I forget again....
John Marshall with Zeke Zanoni, Mining the Hard Rock (Silverton: Simpler Way Book Co,1996).
Zanoni's dad was a Silverton miner, so a very local focus. Lots of pics, connects the past with the present well.
Will Meyerriecks, Drills and Mills: Precious Metal Mining and Milling Methods of the Frontier West, 2nd edition (self-published, 2001).
Describes developement of mining practices from frontier to the industrial scale. Great detail, so good for figuring out traffic for your model RR.
Beth and Bill Sagstetter, The Mining Camps Speak (Denver: Benchmark Publishing of Colorado, 1998)
Great resource in interpreting what you see now from the viewpoint of the past.
Robert A. Trennert, Riding the High Wire: Aerial Mine Tramways of the West (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2001)
All about the iconic feature of San Juans mining, the aerial tramway.
BTW, although they are HO, Anvil Mountain Models offers Silverton area tram tower and buckets kits that are really excellent and easy to build. Forced perspective that comes naturally with a tram line will make this sort of thing work easily in S scale.
http://www.anvilmountainmodels.com/Iowa-tiger-transfer.html
OK, guess glowing is strictly unprototypical But it's on of those fun things that might be interesting enough to try.
I tend to leave tongue in cheek things to subtle hints in signage and traffic patterns. Never really thought of the glow in the dark thing...but now that Mark has brought it up, I may see what play value it has. Only problem is my blue LED night lighting doesn't always work the way true UV light will because it's only part of the UV spectrum.
NP2626Silver and gold ores are more to my liking. I noticed while on the Million Dollar Highway there were many, many mines along this road. Especially near Red Mountain Pass, if I remember correctly. The mine buildings where of every shape imaginable! Much of the wood the buildings where made from appeared to be creosote treated. However, these mines are in fairly inaccessible locations and maybe my assumption is totally wrong about the creosote. They look to be still in fairly sound condition. If so, a creosoting plant might make a fairly interesting business along the line somewhere. What I understood was that most of these mines where pretty much sitting idle. However, a few are still in operation and many ceased production not too long ago.
The really old relics are from the late 19th century. The headframes still stand, because those big timbers hold up to the harsh weathering effects, but the enclosing framework, outbuildings etc tend to have been stripped away. There is some obviously treated lumber around, but that tends to be postWWII diggings.
There is some very limited small time mining, but pretty much everything else is history. There has been some talk of further reclamation by treating the low grade ore tailings before stablizing it , but talk of cyanide makes people understandably nervous. Anoter factor is that that simply having water pumped out of you mine creates pollution, as the area is pretty "wet" geologically and all that water pics up nasty stuff just percolating down through the ground. Opening up a hole that lets it out faster before you've even taken out any ore is an iffy corporate propposition in an era more sensitive to envionmental degradation.
I guess I really didn't care if the ores "Glowed in the dark", just thought it was a fun question. I like the idea and if I could figure out how to make it happen I might still consider it as it would be a fun spoof for visitors. Silver and gold ores are more to my liking. I noticed while on the Million Dollar Highway there were many, many mines along this road. Especially near Red Mountain Pass, if I remember correctly. The mine buildings where of every shape imaginable! Much of the wood the buildings where made from appeared to be creosote treated. However, these mines are in fairly inaccessible locations and maybe my assumption is totally wrong about the creosote. They look to be still in fairly sound condition. If so, a creosoting plant might make a fairly interesting business along the line somewhere. What I understood was that most of these mines where pretty much sitting idle. However, a few are still in operation and many ceased production not too long ago.
I fell totally in love with the San Juan area of Colorado! I told the wife, when I die, I will probably regret not having spent more time in the mountains of the world. The San Juan’s are second only to the Alps in Europe, in my opinion of their beauty!
Again, sorry for the off topic, but in any deadly fission accident (When "tickling the tail of the dragon"), the room breaks into a massive blue glow as the air is ionized due to neutron and x-radiation ionizing a massive amount of air molecules. It does this in your body too. This destroy's tissue and ruins your blood chemistry and gastric system. All fail quickly as do you.
The fissioning materials do not glow. It is the air and water molecules de-ionizing that causes the glow. Naturally, the glow is intense right at the fissionling materials as the radiation falls off as the inverse square of distance and gives the impression that it is intensely glowing.
I have worked around nuclear materials for a long time and know the physics of it. I work with fusion systems that rely on ionizing, glowing plasmas.
Radiation on the railroad ore cars can be intense by background standards...If using a geiger counter at the center of the ore car held against the rock, maybe 10,000 times background, but you could lay on top of the load and ride to the next water tank and be just fine. It would be rather stupid, but it would not hurt you....unless you fell of the car on the way or the load shifted and you were buried under the rock ore. (crushed)
Death due to radiation of all the workers ever involved in the effort from 1938 to date would be about two or three weeks of highway and auto deaths in this nation. Have you been scared to death each time you approach or get near your car? Working around radiation, in the industry 8 hours every day is certainly about 10,000 time less likely to kill you than driving.
In the future I certainly will do, Mike.
I had an order for some stuff and ordered the Book by Tony Koester on Narrow Gauge. It looks like an interesting read and is next on my list of books to read after the Rio Grande Southern by Robert Richardson.
My apologies for being so far behind on messages. Give me a bump in a thread if I get that far behind.
EVERYONE, TANGENT WARNING!!!
Mike, I sent you a PM, please disreguard, as I got my answer.
Thanks for the kind words. My intent was to get people to think about what they do and why, rather than try to slap labels and other artifical constraints on themselves or, worse, on other modelers. Once you understand model railroading as more of a yin/yang sort of thing, a continuum that we tend to slide around a bit on anyway, rather than either/or, it's actually very freeing and relaxing. Ideas come to you, rather than you being a prisoner of ideas you may not even fully understand, but know are important. Both prototype knowledge and some way to access the creative side we all have, call it art or whaetver is not too important, are what is required to build something that really satisfies you.
BTW, also meant to thank you for sharing pics of your layout. It's fine work
I will note there is one scenario where radioactive materials glow, but you don't want to be there. That's when an instantaneous excursion occurs when a sub-critical mass is suddenly brought to a state where it generates a thremendous burst of intense radiation. Victims usually die within 96 hours or so. Not a good way to go. More here:
http://abomb1.org/accident/index.html
http://www.mphpa.org/classic/FH/LA/Louis_Slotin_1.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/19/magazine/america-s-radiation-victims-the-hidden-files.html
Mike did a pretty good job of summarizing model railroading's extremes. He also, in his best line, noted that he did not mean to make it all black and white. The vast majority of the model railroaders are not prototypical perfectionists or wild cards off in deluded fantasy.
Most of us are here for the journey, the doing and the peace and pleasure it affords us. We are willing to let the extremes enjoy themselves in their own way. It has been said here many times. This is what model railroading is all about....Folks enjoying and expressing themselves.
Oh, The reference to ore possibly glowing..... No. No ore will ever glow no matter how concentrated. No ore product will ever glow. The radium in old glowing watch dials can't glow, either. It is the alpha particles emitted from radium that excite a phosphor mixed with the radium that cause the phosphor chemical to glow. No radioactive material ever glows.... Not even in the hot core of a nuclear reactor. The radiation given off from intensely active radioactive materials can only cause the air, water or other special chemicals around it to glow. "Here endeth the lesson", as Monty Python might say.
NP2626The actual truth of the matter (in my opinion, of course) is that all model railroads are "free lanced” Even those who tout how closely their layout is to the prototype, must take huge liberties with the distances their trains travel. I see nothing wrong with using imagination to fill in blank spots; or, embellishing a particular location to better suit our needs. This is a hobby, something where we can use our imagination and artistic abilities to express ourselves.
I agree. Whatever else we may think, every one of us is on the same slippery slope away from the actual prototype. Interestingly, Tony Koester's Dec. 2014 collumn in MR addresses this in discussing the impact of RTR on the hobby. His take is similar to mine in that he sees realistic operations as the real goal in order to ensure "the future of the hobby." Thus RTR cars "are supporting this increased interest in adding value to our models by operating as realistically as they appear."
Where I disagree with Tony's formulation is that operations are the ultimate goal of the hobby. They certainly are for many of us. But I think Tony ignores the way in which prototype modeling has become an end in itself. The RPM meets around the country tend to be focused on rolling stock and motive power. They don't exclude modules AFAIK, but rarely seem to have any connection to layout visits. Many participants don't have layouts, preferring to focus on building cars and locos. I'd suggest that indicates the growth of an aspect of the hobby whose goal isn't a layout at all, but simply as superdetailed a model as they can make.
So how do we reconcile these contrasting views of what is going on in the hobby? I've briefly described my theory on this before, one that fits with Mark's description here...
NP2626The actual truth of the matter (in my opinion, of course) is that all model railroads are "free lanced” ...
I simplify this into more simplistic terms. The hobby typically (not always, but the limited exceptions tend to prove the rule) focuses on what's on the tracks. That's why RPM meets are full of cars and locos, but structures and other aspects of the layout itself seem to draw little interest by the participants. Which is not to say that many don't have layouts. They do, but this is hardly mandatory and it seems a distinctly secondary priority. To sum it up, the farther from the tracks you get, the less interest many have in the prototype. In the end, that aspect of their interest in the hobby tends to lead to a very different place than Tony believes it will. They may never build a layout or get involved in operations, etc.
It's certainly the case that layouts that apply the same standards to it as they do to locos and other rolling stock are few and far between. Even the most ardent prototype modelers rarely obsess that their layout is many scale miles shorter than the real thing, with a narrow range of elevations and scenery wholly condensed and altered just to fit.
So what is it that makes prototype modeling so attractive to many, yet also includes many whose view of what's important in the hobby often expresses little interest in it beyond the actual models they build? Perhaps the biggest thing is that prototype modeling is pretty focused on what to build. The prototype is there as an example and the closer you get to that, the better. There's not much need to think beyond the model, often even below to the rails it sits on. One's task is pretty well defined, although interpretation and imgination can serve some small part in achiving that.
If your focus is on the whole, in other words creating a distinct context in which the models operate with a larger landscape in the form of a layout, then prototype modeling provides a good start on what to build and depict -- the prototype, of course. But as you get farther from the trains and tracks, then conflicting ideas start to trouble the prototype modeler.
What's the right way to compress? What needs to be part of the layout or not? How do you deal with huge prototypes that, done in typically prototype modeler fashion would mean one or two huge scenes would dominate, even if there's a basement to be filled?
That's where selection and interpretation take over. In essence, it's a reversion to our past, where things needed to be done and even how to do them demand as much artisty as skill.
Model railroading as art requires balancing a number of factors, with the prototype being just one among many. If all your eggs are in the prototype basket, then people often get stuck on what to do first or next. In a sense, their work in the hobby has become so specialized it often doesn't leave space to contemplate other creative aspects of the hobby.
I don't mean to paint this in black-and-white terms. In most cases modelers are a little of both. But I think the emphasis in recent years on the protoype as the end-all, be-all of what model railroading often leaves newcomers very confused and old-timers feeling they don't have any options other than strict adherence to a prototype.
I certainly don't want there to be less concern about the prototype. Personally, although the layout is highly fictional, I've had to creatively interpret the prototype to create enough operations to satisfy my interest. Sure there's plenty to learn from the prototype, but that is then subject to to my interpretation. And I'm OK with that, probably because I've spent time trying to figure out what works fro me. It's really not freelancing, but it's also not bound by what many interpret as the rules constrained by the protoype.
John, I am dead serious about having fun with your railroad, in what ever way you feel fun can be had!
Hi NP2626
Oh dear!! bad choice of words on my part appologies.
I doubt the unprocessed ore glowed in the dark the products made from it do
I remembered The Vulcan Vale Railway a well known in Australia. It was an Australian freelance narrow gauge model railway.
The late builder was very serious about it being a "propper" narow gauge railway
But allowed the element of fun to slip in with the purple plinker mine the ore naturaly was purple and had a what ever it was that was manufactured from the stuff this gave the railway its reason to exist.
When the glow in the dark products that where made from the ore your proposed railway was going to move where mentioned.
I imediatly thought of the Tyco glow in the dark ore as a posibilaty to represent the ore and introduce an ellement of fun.
Without taking away the serious business of building and running a propper railway.
regards John
John, I’m uncertain of your meaning by your use of the word Flippant in the above post? I hope that I wasn’t interpreted as being flippant in my responses about manufacturing a history to fit a person’s railroad as that was not my meaning! I am dead serious about using re-written histories to help develop a reason for a line to exist. I’m also serious about freelancing being a great way to build a model railroad.
NP2626
Yes very flippant.
But a good excuse to look for a load or two of unopend Tyco glow in the dark ore, and I think they did a bridge and a couple of other glow in dark acsesories that you might be able to pillage for usefull parts if you can find any.
Unfortunatly industrial history is littered with disasterouse results from variouse minerals and compounds all we can hope to do is learn from the mistakes.
Alas, I have very busy with lives ongoing issues of late and the PUP is takeing a back seat until later this year or early next. What I have done might get a restart as all my shelfwork is done and about 10 feet of area has been built in an effort to get something going and running to continue to inspire me. Unfortunately, I got so inspired and have done so much rethinking that a good solid redo might be in order. However I will try a post a few pix here.
Again, my era is circa 1938-1952. which is when the road was first proposed by the mining consortium to its completion in late 1941 and the shutdown of the road in 1951 with the loss of the RGS connection.
As of this moment I hope to model Paradox village (end of western part of the line), Uravan (the real big operation), the PUP railroad town of Nucla-Naturita and a limited effort at Placervile. There will be the usual small mines along the right of way ranging from 0ne and two man "dog hole" operations to still small but significant "company-run" operations.
Here are a couple of pix.
The last one is taken about in the middle of the elevated shelf layout. There is as much layout shelving behind the camera as in front. I am considering some sort of double loop now with each one having its own areas of interest. Lots of running distance in the round-th'-room shelf layout.
The actual truth of the matter (in my opinion, of course) is that all model railroads are "free lanced” Even those who tout how closely their layout is to the prototype, must take huge liberties with the distances their trains travel.
I see nothing wrong with using imagination to fill in blank spots; or, embellishing a particular location to better suit our needs. This is a hobby, something where we can use our imagination and artistic abilities to express ourselves. You guys coming up with these re-written histories about how things came about on your railroad are far better at justifying what you do, than you really need to. However, I believe you are having fun doing it! So, I say have at'r!
NP2626What both of you are doing, I would consider to be Free Lancing.
Yep, I am definitely in the freelance camp, although I am striving to keep things realistic and plausible. I actually wound up on this path because there were too many prototypes I was interested in - primarily Otto Mears' shortlines north from Silverton and the D&RG's Santa Fe Branch, the Chili Line. Modeling both of those in a plausible way and a reasonable size just didn't seem feasible. Then I found a book called "Utah Ghost Rails" that covered a wide variety of lines in Colorado's western neighbor which were largely forgotten by history. I realized that it might be possible to sneak a few fictional chapters into the pantheon of western narrow gauge history unnoticed. And when I learned that the fantastically-varied geography of Utah's southeast corner was never served by any railroad until the late 20th century, I had my (fictional) prototype - a remote network of narrow gauge shortlines that connected with the outside world at the loneliest spot of the Rio Grande system: the Utah desert.
SPV P.S. Sorry for sidetracking away from the RGS discussion!
Not a problem, I am enjoying you guy's thoughts and ideas!
What both of you are doing, I would consider to be Free Lancing. For some reason it seems that Free Lancing has fallen from favor, over prototype modeling. Just another thing about some Model Rails that I do not understand, and that’s their strict adherence to how they think everyone should think! For all practical purposes my current layout really is Free Lanced although my rolling stock, power and cabooses are Northern Pacific. I grew up close to both the N.P. and Great Northern, so when I decided to change from a Free Lanced line to a real railroad, I chose the Northern Pacific, having liked there locomotives, shorty wood cabooses and the N.P. Monad. The setting of the railroad is completely fictitious and I would not change much, if I where to start over again. My Layout is actually based more on the geography that the Narrow Gauges had to negotiate and is one of the reasons the idea of doing a new layout is somewhat hard to swallow.
narrow gauge nuclearIf you are doing the narrow gauge in your road, you will be limited in motive power to consolidations, moguls and ten wheelers though the mudhens were around then, (circa 1907), and you can figure out a way to get one on your road with a clever back story. All the best on your effort.
Thanks Richard. I have a pretty good handful of locomotives waiting to take their place on the respective rosters of the SPV, UA&P, and P&LS, as well as the Castle Valley & La Sal and an as-yet-unnamed logging railroad connecting near Monticello. The roster is heavily dominated by Consolidations - mostly Blackstone C-19s and brass C-16s - but there also a few oddballs in there, including a pair of T-12s, a pair of Moguls, and an American. An early K-27 (or Class 125, in the 1907 parlance) will also make some appearances, likely as a leased D&RG engine being evaluated for a possible new order from Baldwin.
Of course, modeling the turn of the century involves lots of backdating on commercially available engines, and most of the brass will need remotoring in addition to DCC and sound, so it's a slow process. Thus far, a pair of C-19s are completed, as well as a standard gauge 4-4-0 that will serve on the SPV's northernmost rails - in my version of history, the line between Moab and the RGW mainline at Whitehouse was dual-gauged in 1895 to enable a direct connection to the standard gauge for a newly-built smelter.
Do you chronicle your layout's progress online anywhere? I'd certainly enjoy watching it.
P.S. Sorry for sidetracking away from the RGS discussion!
Chris thanks for your thoughts on your planned road. By going into the Utah paradox valley, you will go through where U mining would ultimately end up in the 50's as Colorado quickly took a back seat to the Moab/La Sal/Paradox mining area.
If you are doing the narrow gauge in your road, you will be limited in motive power to consolidations, moguls and ten wheelers though the mudhens were around then, (circa 1907), and you can figure out a way to get one on your road with a clever back story. All the best on your effort.
I checked and the Ridgway yard is featured in "Realistic Model Railroad Building Blocks" on pages 58-60. I didn't realize it was out of print and going for such high prices - for that kind of money, you're much better off going with "The RGS Story." There are certainly a lot of resources out there on the RGS, and quite a few people modeling it.
Richard, your back story is definitely very interesting. I'm planning on modeling a network of freelanced narrow gauge shortlines in southeastern Utah and northeastern Arizona. My premise is based on the historical fact that General Palmer left the D&RG in the early 1880s but stayed on in the leadership of the D&RGW (Ry) (later RGW) in Utah, before the two lines merged into the D&RG in 1908 and later reorganized into the D&RGW (RR) in 1924. I presuppose that in a last attempt to fulfill his dream of a narrow gauge mainline to Mexico City, the general convinced the board to finance the San Pablo Valley RR from the Rio Grande mainline in the Utah desert to Moab and the mines of the La Sal Mountains, and eventually on to a connection with the Utah Arizona & Pacific RR, which connected with the AT&SF in eastern Arizona. One of the small additional lines I plan to include is the Paradox & La Sal, which interchanges with the SPV and runs northeast into the Paradox Valley. Uranium mining will also play a roll on my railroad(s), although the exact details of that have yet to be fleshed out. I'm modeling somewhat earlier - the fall of 1907 - so the first uranium boom is just beginning.
narrow gauge nuclearMy HOn3, the Paradox Uravan & Placerville is all about Uranium and its role in WWII and its transport from the U mines to the smelters and back east for processing.
Thanks for chiming in. Yours is a marvelous interleaving of fact and fiction that reminds us great concepts don't have to be strictly prototypical, so long as they're well-grounded in physical realities of the area. Some of the more interesting lines are those never built, sometimes never really even considered in real life, but couldabeen. Certainly, the RGS has characteristics of all of that, plus it was even real, which can be a special attraction or a special frustration, depending on what you can squeeze in.
Just to keep those RGS fires stoked, got my Nov/Dec Gazette today. On the front cover is a Jan Rons watercolor of 452 at Ophir Loop. Inside, an old online acquaintance, Steve Harris, builds a Placerville Barn, part of a series he's doing on his layout's version of the town.
My HOn3, the Paradox Uravan & Placerville is all about Uranium and its role in WWII and its transport from the U mines to the smelters and back east for processing.
I have found images on lines of piled up sacks of rich uranium ore stacked up on a Placerville platform circa 1910. Brought there by mules and wagons. I have a good deal of experience with radiation and Uranium in my work and this is why I themed my road as a U hauler.
Radium was a big deal as Mike said. During the time frame of 1905 to 1925 the US was a significant source of uranium ore for the production of radium. The entire effort collapsed and the first uranium boom in the US ended with the discovery of millions of tons of ultra high grade ore in the Belgian Congo in the 1920's. Uranium as a reduced chemical, by itself, was a true waste product from radium production as the only use for it was pottery glazes and depression glass manufacture. So the Uranium was a worthless separated material after radium extraction.
My little narrow gauge road is about the second uranium boom beginning in WWII as all those old Uranium waste piles were scooped up and shipped out from Uravan and Vandium and countless smelters/refiners on the plateau and new mines were opened up for the sole purpose of getting Uranium. (for the bomb).
The first two bombs we dropped on Japan used up all the old wastes and new mines were opened in a fever to get the Uranium for future bombs and defense work.
Just like the first boom, Placerville would be the PU&P ("pup") connection to the Durango/Vandium smelter/refiner. No costly transfer of ore would be needed as every thing was narrow gauged, mine to where the ore was first-pass processed.
Uranium came out of the chemical refiners as the oxide in barrels and later, after the war, as yellow cake in large mills in Rifle, Co. and Monticello in Utah and other places.
Lots of good small mining scenics with only the large Urivan operation on my road. I will not need to model a smelter or chemical refiner as there was never one anywhere along my 60 mile shortline. Uravan did ship some chemically reduced oxides, however. The PUP would drop the ore cars with U rock and box cars with reduced oxides off at Placerville and the RGS would take them from there.
I have not modeled Placerville yet and figure I will not have to go to extremes as it is end of line. I will not do any RGS trackage modeling beyond Placerville. Switching only.
Richard Hull
Yeah, give it some time. If it's a good idea now, it still will be in two or six months. And you'll be more certain of your decision, whatever it is. If you ponder long enough, even the imponderables come into focus.
You may know this, but for out-of-print books, abebooks.com works great. In this case, you may want to hope for a reprint. Tony's book starts at $68 and goes up, so there's quite the demand for it.
So, right now I need to answer the question that I have been asking myself since I first started thinking about a new layout and that is: do I want to do this? Certainly the designing process is not complete enough to simply jump into it; however, it is complete enough for a cursory look at whether an Sn3 layout would work in the space I have available.
Answering this question will take some time and head scratching.
Thanks Chris! I have had a look through the Kalmbach Library and Tony's Book on "Realistic M.R. Building Blocks" must no longer be offered. As far as buying Vol. #1 "The RGS Story", this would need to wait as I just bought Rio Grande Southern, Chasing the Narrow Gauge by Robert Richardson. This is a great book about the RGS, more of a general pictorial, as opposed to specifics. I'm surprised at the amount of books available on the RGS! It seems to be a fairly popular railroad and I'm sort of surprised that there isn't a historical society for the line!
NP2626Chris, What book on Layout Design Elements by Tony Koester are you referring to? I just looked through all the special issues at the Kalmbach Store and don't see a special book on this topic there.
I think it's in "Realistic Model Railroad Building Blocks" but I'll have to double check. In any event, your best bet for information on Ridgway is still Volume 1 of "The RGS Story."
That sounds like a pretty good chunk of the RGS. I doubt Ridgway would really be much or any bigger than Telluride, given it was rather compact and Telluride was kinda strung along through town from what I remember. So you're probably good in general terms.
The layout drawings are done and the layout would certainly be doable in the space I have to use. I don't have the actual Ridgway track drawings; but, figured, it would use up more space than the Telluride LDE would and know I could fit it in. The layout would need to be a double decked, walk along, layout to get it all the way I would want it. Basically, on the north wall on the top level would be the Lizard Head Pass LDE. On the east wall would be a curved Trout lake siding and tank with Ophir Loop on the south side of the room looping back. In the middle of the Ophir loop area; but before the loop, which would be in the Southwest corner, there would need to be a lift-out; or, swing out, gate to allow easy access to the middle area of the layout. Here, the tracks would be close to each other with the track closest to the middle of the layout, being lower. There would be room enough for either Vance Junction, Vanadium or Placerville lower than; but, near the return part of the loop and under Trout Lake. Finally, under Lizard Head pass is where I would put Ridgway. In a "Nut-Shell" this is a verbal description of what I would have to take a photo of to post here. It would be an end point (Lizard Head) out and back returning to the lower terminal area at Ridgway.
I agree a little meandering is nice, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. On the Trains forum, we had a recent thread discussing a fatal RR accident. Before long, a discussion of music had taken over and squeezed out any discussion of the original topic. I thought that was over the top & said so. I think I'm now considered a music-hating troglodyte.
The very subject of the RGS, or almost any narrow gauge railroad, almost innately implies that there will be a bit of "subject drift". Just so we keep it from straying too far for too long.
Some people make a big deal about threads staying on topic. As the starter of this one, I like that the thread meanders a little bit, it's all still about the general subject; so, everyone, as long as what you want to say has something generally to do with narrow gauge, you are "Spot On" the topic I want to talk about.
I am still after information on the general track layout at Ridgway, CO. I'm also finding that the daily life of the Rio Grande Southern was rather depressing! It seemed that bankruptcy was like the wolves nipping at the heels of this line since almost its’ inception.
However, anything about Otto Mears is still interesting stuff!
Glad I'm keeping it interesting, if not as on-topic as maybe it should be. Like my dissertation, stay with it long enough and it eventually wanders back on track.
You may have seen them in one of the soruces I cited. Pretty sure they're in the Dorman pic collection somewhere, but VCA (IIRC and I'm still on my 1st ) or whoever owned the mill at Vanadium ran some interestingly decorated "billboard" tank cars. I'd like to eventually do at least one if I can ever find decals for them, although I've not really looked yet. Like the salt traffic, this sort of interchange is important to my layout's (very) imaginary ops scheme.
I have a staging track that can serve as RGS staging to run trains to and from Durango. It doubles as a test loop if I need a continuous HOn3 run for breaking-in, etc. Recently I started using it as staging for Durango, which is very convenient, as it can easily hold my longest trains, while the yard gets tied up if I don't break it down.
Now I fear that I'll find that so convenient that I'll just forget about doing the RGS at all. I've had a Goose since ConCor came out with them years back. I did finally come up with a RGS loco, so they don't have to depend on leased Rio Grande power, when I received my weathered RGS 40 in a recent run from Blackstone. Short as RGS trains were, though, should be room for both it and a Durango staged train to coexist back-to-back on that hidden loop.
I bring this up, in part, to point out how you make fortuitous discoveries about operating your layout along the way. I'd never thought of using the RGS staging for Durango staging, too, until last week, even though it was right there in front of me all along. Good thing it wasn't a snake, it would've bit me... Between that and some recent work I documented in WPF on yard tracks in Durango, I'm feeling really good about the basic design and how it works. Wish there was more room, but I can run 20+ car trains if I want, while shorter 9 or 10 car trains can happne all day long.
It's also a reminder to err on the side of leaving the possibility of extending spur tracks and sidings, reconfiguring yard tracks, etc in your plans if possible. That turf may come in handy later.
Thanks again, Mike! As always great information. Keep it coming! I know this thread is on the RGS, but anything Colorado Narrow Gauge is interesting stuff to read!
Yeah, I was referring to ASARCO in general as a smelter. You're right about the vanadium, as I believe all that was done by the time ASARCO left the scene as the smelter buildings were gone. They were the tall buildings with the big tubes going into the top. Here's a pic of my model of that, with the smelter on the left and the VCA plant on the right. They didn't co-exist in real time, though.
You can see the glow of the furnaces at night.
VCA had a much smaller footprint than the old plant. I found some great pics of it that were on the Colorado School of Mines website that I went by in mocking up my plant, but can't locate them right now. I have them saved, but probably best just to post links of those until I can confirm no copyright issues, but can't do either until I track them down again on the web.
There's definitely good stuff at Ft. Lewis. I looked through the finding aids online, but haven't done any work there, so not sure how things are in person. Definitely worth at least checking out.
Yeah, this radium stuff definitely killed people. In fact, the research done on these women is one of the bases of knowledge that was used to define exposure standards that the Manhattan Project promulgated during WWII. The licking of the brushes was really bad and everyone recognized that needed to stop and it did, for the most part. A few of the women died within a few years of starting work there, but this was before the scientists got involved so less was known about that other than the bone cancers came on fast.
There was also it's use in patent medicines. Mostly this was fraudulent, fortunately, and it was just advertised as containing radium -- but it didn't. The most expensive one did, though. A rather famous playboy of the time thought it was great stuff and could afford a lot of it; his girlfriend drank her share, too. They were both dead within a couple of years, but that involved drinking significant quantities, not simply licking the brushes.
I've been thinking about RR applications to somehow keep this mess on topic I'm sure the glowing watch dial had an attraction for railroaders, who had a real need for knowing the time, even in the dark. There may be some insights gained by looking at changing styles in RR watches, for instance. I'm not sure it was used in casb instruments, but it could have been.
I did find a bit of related RR info in this discussion at the NGDF:
http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,277857,277857#msg-277857
It appears salt was transferred from the Rio Grande at Ridgway to go south on the RGS to Durango. The specualtion is that it was to process vanadium ore at Durango, but they still haven't pinned that down. I'm all ears, though, as I'd like to know where the salt was coming from, too. I haven't done a lot of research on the processing except for pictures needed to build with. I'm still working on getting my inbound loads of various inputs figured out.
Thanks for the interesting reading Mike and the photos of the Durango smelter. When I get some time one of these days I want to do some digging at Ft Lewis and see what I can find for mines, mills, and smelters of the area. Always looking for higher resolution images maps and drawings.
I remember on the show, "1000 ways to die", they did a segment on the dial painters. The show depicted a number of the women who used the paint on themselves as make up and body paint. This ended up supposedly killing one of the women and injuring some of the others. I have no idea if this was actually true though.
One tidbit about vanadium (the metal) is that, and Im going on memory here, it probably was not smelted down to the metal at the works at Vanadium (the town). Rather, it was roasted to the oxide which when used to make steel combines with carbon to make a fine grained strong steel. The complex at Vanadium (the town) looks like probably an ore dressing mill with perhaps a roasting furnace. I think it would make a fine model with its interesting roof lines and operational function.
SPV I tried to find a map of Ridgway online and didn't have much luck. It was actually featured as an layout design element in Tony Koester's book on LDEs. Chris
I tried to find a map of Ridgway online and didn't have much luck. It was actually featured as an layout design element in Tony Koester's book on LDEs.
Chris, What book on Layout Design Elements by Tony Koester are you referring to? I just looked through all the special issues at the Kalmbach Store and don't see a special book on this topic there.
Yeah, there are a number of historic aircraft in museum whose cockpits used to be open to visitors, but are now off limits due to the low level radiation and daughter products produced by the radium used in instrument dials. The Navy submarine force was another big user of such instruments. It was ideal for when things get dark and you're worried about needing to read instruments in an emergency without electrical power.
People do sometimes believe there's no danger in any of this. There clearly was for those who produced such items. The main issue with radiation -- and one that is generally accepted by radiation specialists of various kinds -- is that its damage is cumulative. Yes, we're exposed to a certain level of natural radiation, depending on where we live, whether we have a basement -- think of how many layouts are in basements -- and what our medical history is. Less is definitely better. But, really no need to get in a panic if you're spending lots of time in the basement
I won't go on at length other than to note, with Veteran's Day just past, that veterans who were exposed to radiation in connection with their service are eligible for treatment as atomic veterans, a category that presumes certain cancers, diabetes, and a number of other health issues are service-related and permits benefits to be given and paid without some of that famous VA paperwork. Some veterans may not even be aware of their exposures.
I assisted one veteran in making a sucessful claim some years back by documenting that his service with a certain weather reconnaisance unit did involve exposure to radiation. "Weather reconnaisance" often served as cover for missions recovering samples of fallout from Soviet tests. They never told him exactly what he was doing, but it was clear that his maintenance work exposed him to radiation because to get to his work he had to pull the sampler pods installed in the bomb bays of the aircraft involved. He would often find a fine dust present, which seemed to irritate his hands and arms.
I was able to place that in the wider context of the unit's secret mission -- those were most likely beta burns, a well-known phenomemon among those pulling sampler filters that by the date of his service they understood but didn't always faithfully address and protect against, despite the fact that his service records showed no obvious connection to radiation. He was able to use that info to make a successful claim on review and receive substantial partial disability due to his health issues being on the presumptive illness list that applies to atomic veterans.
Well that's my public service announcment for the day. If anyone would like to know more about potentially falling into this category, I'd be glad to either help with more info or suggest who to contact as I'm a Life Associate member of the National Association of Atomic Veterans due to my father's own service. We historians do our best to try to be useful -- the issue of fallout and national security policy is my actual research area -- and in this case it's actually useful for the living.
To bring this full circle and back to model railroading, much of the increased traffic I "invented" to add enough traffic to the Silverton Branch to make it the busy little RR it is was premised on a sardonic look at the nuclear fuel cycle. From the mines to the mills to my hypothetical URACAM/AEC plant, there is a little bit -- sometimes a lot! -- of uranium in the traffic base. Also makes it easy to invent mysterious, uninformative stuff to put into the "Lading" blank on the waybills.
This must be where the joke about people exposed to radiation glowing in the dark, comes from.
I hope no one gets their “Knickers in a Bunch”, over my flippant comments on the potential ill effects of radiation!
For Vanadium, there's likely more in one or more of the many volumes of TheRGS Story. I only have the one for the far south end at Durango for reference.
Certainly, by 1942, photography was likely discouraged by the war in general. By 1943, there were more specific concerns about photos of what the RGS might be hauling and from where
But I suspect that general coporate secrecy associated with Vanadium had something to do with the dearth of pics. Even in WWI, vanadium was a strategic metal used in making various alloys useful in building the machinery of war.
What really got the trade going was the radium that could be extracted from its association with the vanadium ore. That stuff went for tens of thousands of dollars a gram. It was medically useful, but also obviously potentially very profitable. In fact, WWI set of something of a fad for glow in the dark watches, which were very useful in those dark trenches in France. Radium became widely used for painting watch dials, while other more faddish uses for decoration and patent medicines became more widespread. That was a BAD idea.
The dial-painters eventually became known as the "radium girls" and there is a book by the same name that goes into detail about the trade in general and the tortured government response to the fact that these young women were coming down with horrible injuries to the jaw and other bones, due to the practice of licking the brush to get a fine point on it when painting the dials. After a few years, that practice was stopped, which seemed to solve the worst of it. Probelm is that radium fissions into radon gas as one of its duaghter products. Radon takes somewhat longer to cause problems, but still led to a very high rate of cancer and premature death. Thtis part of the story went on for several more decades before the last of the dial painting industry shut down in Illinois, moving to NYC for a last gasp before ending there in the early 1980s.
So Vanadium has a lot of history to it, if not a lot of pics. Sorry to go on about it, but I wrote a research paper on the response by the state of Illinois to the problem of what to do about cleaning up the old factory -- and various spots around town where the tailings from the refining process were used as fill dirt in numerous buildings and locations. What a mess. But makes great history.
mlehman I'll put in a word again for Vanadium. There was a large mill, but I've not yet discovered a trackplan. Pics and a pretty good discussion on freight traffic in and out is available here: http://www.riograndesouthern.com/RGSTechPages/_bdwhite/atomic.htm
I'll put in a word again for Vanadium. There was a large mill, but I've not yet discovered a trackplan. Pics and a pretty good discussion on freight traffic in and out is available here: http://www.riograndesouthern.com/RGSTechPages/_bdwhite/atomic.htm
I've always thought Placerville is a scene that lends itself well to modeling - it could make a good small switching layout in its own right, and the prototype almost looks selectively compressed, especially with how the river is literally only feet away from the depot across the tracks.
So, you guys who know something about the Rio Grande Southern, what are the places along the line, North of Lizard Head Pass that you have an interest in. My thoughts are now: Lizard Head, Ophir Loop and Ridgway. I would have room for maybe a couple other LDEs.
If my eyesight gets any worse, I just might jump ff the HO bandwagon and go for a larger scale. I love narrow gauge & could consider East Broad Top (nearby for me) or Tweetsie, or Ohio River & Western. But most likely I'd stay with standard gauge. We'll see.
Interesting! There is no town of Mason today, nor is there any real evidence of there ever having been one and Quincy must have become Hancock. It might be an interesting line; but, it ain't Colorado!
I'm sure there were Narrow Gauge lines in many places. Tom, you should build one of them!
According to Hilton's book AMERICAN NARROW GAUGE RAILROADS (Stanford University Press, 1990), there were also narrow gauge operations in other parts of the Upper Midwest:
Minnesota:
1. Caledonia, Mississippi & Western --- Caledonia Jct. (Reno) to Preston, 58 miles. Completed 1879; absorbed by CMStP&P; standard gauged 1901. Last portion abandoned 1976.
2. Minneapolis, Lyndale & Minnetonka Railway --- Minneapolis to Excelsoir (on Lake Minnetonka), 10.5 miles. Built 1879-1881. Lake Calhoun to Excelsior abandoned 1886. Became a street railway, with the last portion being abandoned 1954.
Wisconsin:
1. Fond du Lac, Amboy & Peoria Railroad --- Fond du Lac to Iron Ridge, 30 miles. Built 1877. Purchased by CMStP&P in 1883 and converted to standard gauge. Iron Ridge - Mayville now operated as part of Wisconsin & Southern.
2. Galena & Southern Wisconsin Railroad/Chicago & Tomah Railroad --- Galena to Woodman, 92 miles. Included a 4-mile branch to Platteville and a branch to Lancaster. Built 1872-1880. First operation 1874. Purchased by C&NW 1880. All converted to standard gauge 1882 except 16.4 miles Woodman - Fennimore, which continued to operate as a narrow gauge C&NW branch until abandoned 1926.
3. Pine River Valley & Stevens Point Railroad --- Lone Rock to Richland Center, 16 miles. Built 1877-76. All but 3 miles constructed of strap iron on maple stringers. Ten miles of strap rail replaced by 1880, leaving only 3 miles of strap rail. Purchased by CMStP&P 1880 and converted to standard gauge. Currently intact but idle, owned by the State of Wisconsin. (Note: This info is over 20 years old & likely not 100% reliable).
4. Robbins Railroad and Thunder Lake Lumber Co. --- Rhinelander to Robbins, about 12 miles, plus 40+ miles of logging lines. Built 1893 - 1895. Abandoned 1941.
Michigan (Keweenaw Peninsula only)
1. Mineral Range RR and Hancock & Calumet --- This history is too complicated to summarize briefly here. It includes the Quincy & Torch Lake and the Hecla & Torch Lake. Quincy & Torch Lake remained narrow gauge until closure in 1945.
Hilton's book lists narrow gauge operations in 45 States, so Colorado, California, and Pennsylvania are certainly not the only places to go for inspiration.
The Q&TL was a 3' gauge tramway operated on the Keeweenaw Penisula in Michigan's UP. A little over 6 miles long, it played the difference between being a common carrrier and a private line to its advantage. More info here:
http://www.copperrange.org/qtl.htm
Tom, I've never even heard of teh Quincy & Torch Lake, so I guess I really couldn't have considered it. Where was it and what did it do?
My interest in the Rio Grande Southern is from before I even built my present railroad. Although the real RR had a hard difficult life and appears to have been close to forclosure at points in it life span, this doesn't matter to me to much. When I road the Durango & Silverton last month, my interest in Colorado Narrow Gauge was peaked. I'm hoplessly stuck in S.W. Colorado!
I've seen the ads, but not had a chance to look a copy over yet. Maybe the LHS will get one? I may even buy if there's enough new material to get me interested. It's not exactly like I need another book on narrowgauge...
It was good to see a general interest book on modeling the narrowgauge to hit the market. Narrowgauge offers more great stuff than ever in terms of kits and other materials, plus the fabulous RTR offerings from Blackstone in HOn3 and all the good stuff in the various On gauges. While Sn3 is not as widespread, it retains a devoted group of modelers big enough to support all the essentials.
Narrowgauge is almost a whole 'nother world, a parallel universe to standard gauge. I don't know if it's true or not, as I've never been to the NMRA National, but I've been told that in strong years (when it's in narrowgauge country) attendance at the National Narrow Gauge Convention can rival the smaller attendance years of the NMRA convention. Since I've only been to the NNGC, I've got no personal experience. But if you're looking for that old-time hobby experience of mostly building stuff, rather than simply unboxing it, narrowgauge is the place to be.
$30.00 does sound excessive. I got my copy at Mainline Hobby Supply in Blue Ridge Summit, PA. It was their last copy. Price printed on the back is $21.99 for the book, but they discounted it to $19.79 plus tax. Eight dollars for tax & shipping seems excessive, but what do I know?
Tony discusses lots of different narrow gauge operations. As I was reading the book, I wondered whether you had considered something like the Quincy & Torch Lake. It certainly didn't have the scenery and broad appeal of the RGS; but it was narrow gauge, it had some very interesting equipment and operations, the equipment was smaller (which might fit your space better) and it was a lot closer to home for you. Just thinking.
What did you pay for the book Tom? If I was to order from Kalmbach it would be $30.00 for the book with shipping and tax and seems somewhat excessive! I will wait and see what it will cost at a hobby shop, next weekend. This is an item that can be shipped via media mail for $2.-$3.00!
I had thought about getting this book, the first time I saw it advertized was in the latest Model Railroader. I might just go ahead and order it.
Just got back from the LHS where I purchased Tony Koester's new book GUIDE TO NARROW GAUGE MODELING. I haven't had a chance to read it in detail, but it looks like it's thorough & informative. A narrow gauger like Mike L. would probably be able to evaluate it better than I could.
On page 23, there are 2 photos of Sn3 RGS models on a curve, with this caption: "These overhead photos show how Dale Kreutzer's Sn3 RGS freight and passenger equipment looks on his 28" minimum radius curves. He notes that he has had no problems operating K-27 Mikados around these curves but recommends a 30" radius if space permits."
Hope this helps in the planning process.
I'm kinda surprised at myself for not considering an opening gate; or, lift out as opposed to a duck-under, which is what I have now. I want to finish a couple projects before I go back to designing. This does add a dimension of doable-isum to Sn3.
A very timely article was in the latest issue of Model Railroader about building a gate to get into an around the walls layout. This would add much needed usable space to the design I had been working on. I'm going to incorporate this feature and see how it works.
Due to changes which just occured to certain situations in my hobby life, I am going to continue to work on the design of an RGS Sn3 layout which was the impetus for this thread.
... (see below)
I have done enough of the design work to have determined that I lack the room I need to make an Sn3 layout. Jamming Layout Design Elements (LDEs) end to end (in my opinion) would not look right, without a few yards of track in between to give some distance. I could discard a couple LDEs and replace with the few yards of the needed track, however this would be to the jeopardy of the operating fun of the layout! Even using 28 inch curves in the Ophir Loop area only barely makes this element fit into my space for a layout.
Some of you might say, well than why not go with HOn3 then? For me, a change of scale was a part of the attraction of considering a new layout and since my current layout is in HO, I don’t feel this would be enough of a change.
So, at this point, I feel it isn’t very likely that I will tear down my present HO layout to make room for another, newer layout. What you guys who have contributed to this and the other threads I’ve started on this subject have seen, is a person doing the due-diligence I felt necessary to make a decision about making a change.
This decision has not decreased my interest in the Rio Grande Southern and as long as the conversation continues here, at least I am going to go on with this study of this railroad. As I did when I was involved in Model Railroading as a kid, I am considering designing a “someday” layout of the RGS. Since I love engine terminals, instead of Telluride being one end of track plan, I’m going to use Ridgeway. I may; or, may not include the branch to Telluride in the design. However, the southern terminus will still be Lizard Head Pass. Some of the tourist operations of the RGS also ended at Lizard Head. This will only be an exercise in design work as I’m pretty sure my next housing move will be to a nursing home; or the grave, as I love this house and have no intentions of ever moving!
I would like to thank everyone who gave me there opinions!
SPV I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of "The RGS Story Volume 1" which focuses on Ridgway to Telluride. Volumes 2 and 3 would also be useful for you, but they tend to sell for a bit more right now (scarcity, I suppose). But Volume 1 can be found for very reasonable prices - look here: http://www.amazon.com/The-R-G-S-Story-Bridges-Telluride/dp/0913582484 I tried to find a map of Ridgway online and didn't have much luck. I can say it's a fairly compact yard and well-suited to modeling. It was actually featured as an layout design element in Tony Koester's book on LDEs. You can see trackplans and/or photos for a couple people who are modeling it pretty faithfully - Mark Evans in Sn3 here and Craig Symington in HOn3 here. Hope that helps! Chris
I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of "The RGS Story Volume 1" which focuses on Ridgway to Telluride. Volumes 2 and 3 would also be useful for you, but they tend to sell for a bit more right now (scarcity, I suppose). But Volume 1 can be found for very reasonable prices - look here: http://www.amazon.com/The-R-G-S-Story-Bridges-Telluride/dp/0913582484
I tried to find a map of Ridgway online and didn't have much luck. I can say it's a fairly compact yard and well-suited to modeling. It was actually featured as an layout design element in Tony Koester's book on LDEs. You can see trackplans and/or photos for a couple people who are modeling it pretty faithfully - Mark Evans in Sn3 here and Craig Symington in HOn3 here.
Hope that helps!
Chris, Thanks for this information, although not a schematic of how the real Ridgeway tracks where laid, it looks like Mark Evans diagram maybe fairly close. Going to Ridgeway on Google Earth and seeing where the yard and turn table were, can give me a scale of how big it was and where things are located.
It was easy to stay legal. I don't have the RGS disc, just D&S and C&TS. The images were kind of crude, but it was something like 1998. I suspect they've never been revised to current hi-def content expectations, which does leave them looking rather dated.
The websdite I could not find anymore was GhostDepot, like you suggested. If you have the CD, maybe you could look at what ever the guy had about the track layout in Ridgway and explain what it was like. Posting on this website would probably be breaking copyright law.
Again, thanbks for the help, Mike!
Mike, I don't know if I was in a slump, just other interests superseded my interest in Model Railroading. When the weather gets nice, it will happen again.
Again, thanks Mike!
Maybe it was Sandia Software?
http://www.ghostdepot.com/rg/mainline/san%20juan%20branch/rio%20grande%20southern.htm
I've got one of their original CDs circa 1997. They're been around for awhile. In it's defense, the CD contains a compilation of all their Rio Grande material. It's a good general reference, but I typically go to my library after finding something in it of interest in order to get more detailed info. On the other hand, that $100 would buy a couple of good books on the RGS.
Glad to hear you're coming out of that model RR slump and getting fired up. Doesn't mean you end up going there, but it sounds like a good way to get the juices flowing again.
Even if I never build an RGS layout, looking into this is a very interesting proposition! I’m not only designing a model railroad using specific locations to model, it's a history lesson on not only the railroad of interest; but, the areas it served. For me, I must admit, modeling the period when the Geese where being used; but, still allowing freight and passenger equipment to operate is a big attraction to the RGS!
I'm also not such a stickler about historical accuracy that I wouldn’t use Ten Wheelers and Consolidation on the layout and more mineral trains than would have actually taken place for the time period being modeled.
I’m still working on my HO layout and enjoying that immensely! The reality is, maybe the Sn3 will never happen. I’m still enjoying this discussion and the studying I’m doing on the RGS and its’ history, where the physical plant was located and seeing what information on it I can find!
I’m unable to re-trace my steps to where I found the maps of Telluride, Vance Junction, Ophir Loop, Trout Lake and Lizard Head Pass. The maps where done by someone who had done the research, posted it to the web, then decided they would attempt to make some money from all that hard work, by making the information available on a CD. He wanted $99.00 for the CD(s), which put the CD out of my price range. Besides, I have determined some glaring errors on the work that he did leave available on the website, so I really wouldn’t want to pay for information that I now feel may not be all that accurate.
Like I said earlier, Google Earth has been a most enjoyable way to study this railroad. Traces on the earth where the ROW was located are fairly easy to see!
We all have our own ideas about what makes for an interesting layout. ACY has his ideas, I have mine and Mike likes both, so let’s keep this discussion going! I am going to keep designing the RGS for my basement and looking at it like it will eventually happen (even though it may not). It’s been a long, strange, trip!
Personally, I think if I were to model the RGS I would choose sometime around 1910-1917. You get a very interesting mix of motive power that way - the new C-19s and T-19s are arriving, but the old C-16s are still around, some still wearing their diamond stacks and others newly modernized. No Geese or Mikados to be found, though, and I know a lot of people like those. I'm more a turn-of-the-century guy myself.
Tom,
I think that's a pretty good summary of the major era one can divide RGS history into. There's Expansion (to 1893), then Survival (to roughly 1930 or whenever the receiver was appointed), then Decline. There would be a few continuities, but these periods really were different in terms of equipment and operations.
I just reread this whole thing. I had been thinking you had said you wanted a pre-WWII era, but now I see that was my imagination. Era could make a big difference. I personally think the period from the mid-1930's to WWII is the most interesting because of the use of Geese, K-27's, ex-C&S freight cars, etc. Vanadium traffic was increasing as ore from the mills at Telluriude, Pandora, etc. was decreasing, making them less important as traffic sources. The fall stock rush was always there.
However, if you go for an earlier time period, the Telluride branch becomes more important. You might not want K-27's in an earlier time period, so you might be able to get away with sharper curves.
My one source of info on RGS is my ancient 41-year-old 1st edition of Silver San Juan, by Mallory Hope Ferrell. I'm sure others can give more thorough info on RGS operations.
NP2626Who knows anything about the Sanborn Insurance Fire Maps? Do they cost money? Is there a website?
http://libcudl.colorado.edu/sanborn/mapSearchResults.asp?cid=Telluride
Telluride is the only town listed in San Miguel County, but there are more from Colorado here: http://libcudl.colorado.edu/sanborn/browse.asp
Thanks guys! There is a lot to ponder in your two conversations. Yes, Ophir maybe has been done a lot, that's because it is unique and has a lot of trestles and steep cliffs, just the sort of stuff I love to see model train worm its' way around. Also, I might be attracted to these well modeled areas, simply because they are so well modeled! Thinking about Vance Junction’s and Ilium’s close proximity to each other: wyes need flat locations, which would make sense doing it at Ilium. Was the small three track yard at Vance Junction necessary for coaling tenders? Was a coal deposit located at Vance? I should think, given the light traffic on the RGS a single siding would have sufficed. However, if there where twenty trains a day from Telluride, maybe at some point traffic was heavy enough to justify the small yard.
I also think your right, most, maybe even all of the traffic to and from Telluride headed North to Ridgeway; or, South from Ridgeway.
Who knows anything about the Sanborn Insurance Fire Maps? Do they cost money? Is there a website?
I appreciate all your input, Mike and Tom!
SPVSPV wrote the following post 6 hours ago: mlehman I've driven to Vance Junction from Illium before, but I think I didn't really have this figured out until you wrote this. There is no wye at Vance Jct, but Illium is so close it doesn't really matter. I can't find pics or a map with documentation of it, so am a bit hazy working from written descriptions. There was a wye at Illium, but this must've required backing up the branch towards Vance from it in order for trains to be properly oriented to go south from Vance after they turned on the wye. Rather odd, but it's the RGS. I'm not an RGS expert, but I seem to recall reading about Telluride being treated as a terminal and served primarily by trains from Ridgway, so trains coming from Telluride into Vance and then south to Durango may have been quite uncommon. This seems like an odd arrangement geographically, but from an operational standpoint, the RGS was primarily built to reach the mines around Telluride, so treating it as a terminus makes some sense in that light. I did just see a newspaper clipping in Dorman's RGS book from the early 30s discussing rumors of the RGS abandoning the segment between Vance and Rico - the writer is unconcerned because Telluride is served by trains from Ridgway, while Rico and Dolores are served by trains from Durango, so little would have changed in his estimation.
SPV,
Was rereading your post and thought of something that is still vaguely at the back of my mind but is probably documented in the usual references. I think the arrangement at Illium with the wye may have had something to do with snowfighting, i.e., needing to turn a plow or flanger and return to Telluride or back to Ridgway.
I think you're correct from what I recall -- it's been 30 years or so since I read most of this -- about the traffic mainly going north, which caused the need to keep things open in the winter, so there's something NP2626 may want to explore in thinking about doing a northward traffic oriented version.
Got no idea if it's doable, but the main could come in from the rest of the layoutand would seem to continue south, but could form a loop back around to Pandora, or even further south, from the southern end of Ophir. BTW, I share the opinion that Ophir has been overdone and offers more secnic than operational possibilities. I love the place, been through several times because we often use Ophir Pass getting over that way from Silverton to go up and back over Imogene, but it's changed too much to charm me like the pics of it do.
One thing I would personally want to do is Vanadium to Placerville, because I'm a historian of such things. But it's a pretty cool complex visually and offers a good place to generate loads and receive empties, too. The Vanadium tank cars are very cool. This is also where stage lines connected to go to the Paradox Valley, because that's where many of the early radium ore deposits were found, with it being a byproduct of the vanadium refining process that was highly valuable for medical and scientific purposes in the early 20th century. The Paradox Valley is also a bit strange geologically and well worth the drive IMO if you;re ever in the area.
BTW, there is a NP album, shorter than most, unfortunately, but it is what it is.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/sets/72157640596333823/
Barriger was a RR executive who was an influential and well-connected traveler. Many of the pics are just taken off the platform of whatever business car he was traveling on -- and he almost always traveled that way. He often served as a consultant and evaluator of RR lines and property for the government and undoubtedly for others such as financiers, lines looking to buy others, that sort of thing as far as I can tell from reading a little about him in Monon H&TS pubs, books, Trains, etc. He was president of the Monon after WWII and helped modernize the RR far beyond simply managing the new diesel motive power. He wasn't there that long, but set in motion a lot of things that bore fruit later. If it all had, the Monon would've been independent longer, but that's also what it is.
Anyway, he always took his camera and plenty of film. A lot of times he'd just shoot every so often as he traveled along, so that's why there may just random shots every so often, mixed in with really valuable ones. It's been awhile since I looked at them, so don't really recall what's there in either album.
And when you've digetsed all that, then there's the Dorman collection, which has lots of RGS stuff in it, just page down to find it here.
http://www.cumbrestoltec.org/interests/162-dorman-catalog.html
Yeah, the RGS had some weird traffic patterns and relatively meagre facilities to deal with them.
SPVOn the other hand, I would think at least some of the ore from the mines and mills on the branch would have been processed at the smelter in Durango, but maybe it went elsewhere after transfering to the Rio Grande standard gauge in Montrose?
Great question, wish I knew the answer. Durango is definitely the closest smelter by rail -- but those were RGS rails and getting over them reliably could be a problem. Other than Leadville or Pueblo, I can't think of anything else at all close.
As NP2626 noted, seems weird to have Vance and Illium so close, but Vance just didn't have room for a wye. The sloping hill made that impossible, so they dropped down by the river on the way to Telluride to locate it with little room to spare. Makes you wonder how they operated it. I don't recall a clear explanation about this situation in anything I've read, or how it operated, but I'm sure it became less of a bottlenexk than it seemed in later years with declining traffic.
On another note, I've long thought that just the Telluride Branch itself could make a great layout, and could be done very faithfully. Operationally it would be more interesting in the early years, but that could be said of the whole line and can be mitigated somewhat by modeling fall or spring with the stock rushes. Ophir is certainly spectacular and distinctive, but it's an enormous space-eater, has very little operational potential, and has been modeled to death.
You seem pretty set on the northern division, but another interesting area of the RGS that has been virtually ignored by modelers is the logging around Dolores - those little lines interchanging with the RGS in that area could make for a very interesting and unique layout.
mlehmanI've driven to Vance Junction from Illium before, but I think I didn't really have this figured out until you wrote this. There is no wye at Vance Jct, but Illium is so close it doesn't really matter. I can't find pics or a map with documentation of it, so am a bit hazy working from written descriptions. There was a wye at Illium, but this must've required backing up the branch towards Vance from it in order for trains to be properly oriented to go south from Vance after they turned on the wye. Rather odd, but it's the RGS.
I'm not an RGS expert, but I seem to recall reading about Telluride being treated as a terminal and served primarily by trains from Ridgway, so trains coming from Telluride into Vance and then south to Durango may have been quite uncommon. This seems like an odd arrangement geographically, but from an operational standpoint, the RGS was primarily built to reach the mines around Telluride, so treating it as a terminus makes some sense in that light. I did just see a newspaper clipping in Dorman's RGS book from the early 30s discussing rumors of the RGS abandoning the segment between Vance and Rico - the writer is unconcerned because Telluride is served by trains from Ridgway, while Rico and Dolores are served by trains from Durango, so little would have changed in his estimation.
On the other hand, I would think at least some of the ore from the mines and mills on the branch would have been processed at the smelter in Durango, but maybe it went elsewhere after transfering to the Rio Grande standard gauge in Montrose?
Mike, I was just looking at Ilium Colorado on Google Earth and I do see what appears to be traces of a wye and small yard there. The book I'm reading now on the Durango & Silverton has a chapter on the RGS and the author talks about there being 20 train loads of ore coming from Telluride per day. This was around the turn of the last century, I don't know what amount of traffic came from Telluride in the 30s, when I want to set the clock. It would seem weird to me that there would be a yard at Ilium and one at Vance, too, less than a mile from each other!
Google Earth has been indispensable in my quest for information on the RGS! I think I’ve spent more time looking at Google Earth, then I have at the drawing board.
Thanks, Mike! Those are a great photo albums! Going to take a while to wade through all those!
Don't apologize, Pardner! I'm in the same leaky boat when it comes to these Infernal Machines! I'm a guy who believes you correct your mistakes with Wite-Out, & have managed, with one keystroke, to obliterate an hour's worth of carefully written text. More than once. I feel your pain.
Try this for size: Forget Vance/Ilium/Telluride/Pandora. Too complicated, and the reverse loop between Ilium and Telluride would be almost impossible to do effectively in limited space. Build a peninsula parallel to the longest dimension of your space. Build a nice turning loop where the peninsula abuts the wall. Then build a hidden staging track from that loop toward the end of the peninsula. No tunnels on the RGS, so the line emerges from a disguised deep cut at the end of the peninsula, curving to the right onto Butterfly trestle. Follow the peninsula back upgrade to Ophir, by the wall where you started. Curve sharp right through Ophir (directly above your hidden staging loop). Run upgrade along the peninsula, over the various trestles, then curve left at the end of the peninsula, high above Butterfly trestle. Curve left and leave the Ophir scene. Trout Lake is on the other side of the peninsula. Continue to the first wall and leave the peninsula, coming into Lizard Head. Then continue as space allows, terminating in open staging at Rico. Rico can be anything from a plain staging area to a full-blown replica of the real place, depending on your space and preferences. This plan loses the yard at Ridgeway, but gains an equivalent yard, plus at least one mill, at Rico. It eliminates the scenic problems involved in connecting Vance /Ilium/Telluride with Ophir. Since Trout Lake would be at a fairly high elevation, there would be no problem providing access to your staging area under Trout Lake. Of course, that's just one suggestion.
I just came across a collection that includes some RGS subject matter, but certainly worth looking through for lots of great color pics:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/railphotoart
Search under "Rio Grande Southern" inside the album. That also reminded me of this other great album of RGS views by John W. Barriger:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/sets/72157640595666535
ACY Can't speak for others, but I'd have an easier time with this if I saw some diagrams. Possibly one diagram showing your available space; another set showing your proposed modules; and a third showing how you're thinking of putting it all together. Maybe several variants. Agree that the Vance and Ophir modules might be hard to handle, depending on your space and how you have to put it all together. I've seen photos of model versions of these areas, in which the Ophir loop is reversed, or the grade goes the opposite way. I personally would favor a plan that matches the prototype as much as possible, and I think you would, too. So a lot of this will be determined by your own priorities. How much compromise can you accept? At what point will you decide "No, that's too much compromise. I won't go there."
Can't speak for others, but I'd have an easier time with this if I saw some diagrams. Possibly one diagram showing your available space; another set showing your proposed modules; and a third showing how you're thinking of putting it all together. Maybe several variants.
Agree that the Vance and Ophir modules might be hard to handle, depending on your space and how you have to put it all together. I've seen photos of model versions of these areas, in which the Ophir loop is reversed, or the grade goes the opposite way. I personally would favor a plan that matches the prototype as much as possible, and I think you would, too. So a lot of this will be determined by your own priorities. How much compromise can you accept? At what point will you decide "No, that's too much compromise. I won't go there."
Although I had asked about cheap CAD programs in another thread, I really don't want to take the time to learn CAD and had decided to use my drafting skills to draw this layout on paper; so, I can't reproduce any electronic copies of what I've drawn, at this time. What I have on paper is in it's formative stages and I am not ready to darken the lines so they would show up is a photo. I'm also uncertain on how to post photos here and sort of like learning CAD, lack interest in learning how. I have posted photos before and forgot how and am unsure how I did it way back two years ago and am pretty certain it is no longer how it is done anymore!
ACY, I apologize for my lack of confuser skills. I’m retired now and quite frankly the constant change of computer technology leaves me both in the dark and in the cold! Since I no longer need to be computer savvy, I may never be any better at fooling with all this electronic gadgetry, than I am right now. So, now, I can devote my time to doing the things I like to do and not the things I probably should learn to do!
The above is no reflection on you guys who are techno savvy!
NP2626There is another problem with reality and attempting to model Vance Junction! Coming from Ridgeway and entering Vance Junction heading south, at the south end of Vance is a wye, the left tail of the wye heads to Telluride and the right heads towards Rico. The Telluride branch goes south of Vance a mile, loops back crossing the river and starts climbing up 500 feet up to Telluride. Possibly there was a wye or balloon at Vance Junction, allowing trains from the south to access Telluride, I don’t know? However, this looping back from Vance Junction is another difficulty to designing a layout featuring as realistic of track work as you can.
I've driven to Vance Junction from Illium before, but I think I didn't really have this figured out until you wrote this. There is no wye at Vance Jct, but Illium is so close it doesn't really matter. I can't find pics or a map with documentation of it, so am a bit hazy working from written descriptions. There was a wye at Illium, but this must've required backing up the branch towards Vance from it in order for trains to be properly oriented to go south from Vance after they turned on the wye. Rather odd, but it's the RGS.
Does anyone have visual proof of this?
EDIT: OK, here's a link to the present day view. The Illium wye was just down the hill from Vance after the Telluride Branch took off from there. The tail of the wye was just 120' long.
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9294685,-107.8981258,359m/data=!3m1!1e3
I've dealt with this issue myself. Both Animas Forks and Red Mountain are somewhat twisted from the originals. This can be disconcerting at first, but soe long as the visual cues of where you're at are there, it grows on you as you use it so long as you can still perform the essential prototype switching movements for the location...but then again I'm a bit dyslexic so maybe this works better for me than others?
So, I'm sitting here, looking over what I've drawn and thinking although the run from end to end looks as though it will be pretty short, what I have drawn looks as though it certainly would be doable. A bigger area to construct a layout such as I'm considering, would certainly be nice! I'm guessing this pretty nuch would be the case with all of us!
I've seen in the Richardson book that Ophir Loop had a siding on it at one time and it was on the high side, just before the Ophir Depot. While I'm studying this, I determined that something about how I've drawn the loop is wrong! Because we need to compress everything and my basement won't allow me to build the land as it really is, I have inadvertently drawn the high and low sides of the loop, reversed from how they really are. I'm still thinking about this and wondering if I can re-draw this detail to get it correct.
This brings up an interesting problem with attempting to design a real railroad, to fit your basement. The only way to really do the Ophir Loop as it really would be, would be to have it on a peninsula. In this way, you could have the tracks leading one way, turn to the right and go out onto the peninsula and loop back and then turn to the right again and have the line pick-up the general heading it was going before the loop. If I was free lancing the design, (which I actually will be doing, as I have no other choice in the matter) you would just live with however everything came out and say: Good enough!
There is another problem with reality and attempting to model Vance Junction! Coming from Ridgeway and entering Vance Junction heading south, at the south end of Vance is a wye, the left tail of the wye heads to Telluride and the right heads towards Rico. The Telluride branch goes south of Vance a mile, loops back crossing the river and starts climbing up 500 feet up to Telluride. Possibly there was a wye or balloon at Vance Junction, allowing trains from the south to access Telluride, I don’t know? However, this looping back from Vance Junction is another difficulty to designing a layout featuring as realistic of track work as you can.
The point of this discussion is to point out that prototype modeling has its’ difficulties and not having been a prototype modeler before, I am learning that just a matter of copying what the prototype did, is not so easy!
Yes, I've left most of the curves I've drawn so far, at 36". However, tighter radius at Ophir Loop allows me to get the highline and lowline more closely aligned as they really where. Even so, the five LDEs are still jammed up tight against each other. Other than the loop, there ain't much running through the country side. So, Trout Lake is going to be dropped from the design. (Correction, I won't drop trout lake, I might drop Telluride and switch to Ridgeway, per Mikes suggestion in post # 2 above).
That's good to know. With the visual tricks that ACY mentioned, that gives you a little more flexibility if you need it. Tighter curves can also allow you to visually convey the line is passing through a more difficult, curvy piece of line, for instance, by contrasting with wider min radioius curves. I'll bet 36" curves will really look great wherever you can work them in, though.
Finally some concrete information of minimum radius for locomotives! From P-B-L, they stated that all their locomotives will handle a 28 inch radius. They will look better on larger radius; but, will handle 28 inhes.
Yeah, watch the K-28s, as that's a familiar issue in HOn3, too. I think they actually had the longest wheelbase by some inches among the Rio Grande narrowgauge Ks. The design of the rear frame, ashbox and truck also presents less generous space than on the others K class locos in models, so somewhat more restrictive min radius in most cases.
I guess P.B.L. would be the best source of info on the absulute minimum radius required for a K-27, so I'd contact them. Then with that info in hand, I'd try to design a layout where all the visible curves are as generous as possible; but tighter curves (within the K-27's physical capabilities) would be used in less visible areas. These less visible areas could include cuts where the view of the train is at least partially obscured, but the equipment is still accessible in case of problems. Another possibility is to put the curve behind an easily removed large building. The visible operations should have curves that are more believable.
This problem came up when I helped a friend design his HO Appalachian shortline layout many years ago. He wanted to depict one long, relatively straight section of his prototype's track, but had only a modest sized space. There were two significant scenic switching areas, and between them was a straight track through a cut; but there wasn't enough space to put those scenes in line along a single wall. We had to place them along two adjacent walls, at 90 degree angles from one another. In the final design, the two scenic switching areas looked like the prototype areas with nice, gentle curves. Between them, the track went into the deep cut, made a sharp curve of about 21" radius, and emerged from the cut, coming into view on a straight alignment. Nobody ever saw those trains going around an extremely sharp curve. If operational problems occurred, which was rare because he built his track pretty well, you just leaned in to get a look from overhead.
It worked.
I thought the 36 inch radius came from the Yahoos Groups Sn3 users. However, now I can't find where that was stated.
Keith Hayes just stated the follorwing at the Yahoo groups, which changes things quite a bit and will cause me to do some further study.
"The bigger, the better. I would not go less than 30, especially with K-28s. 36" radius is nice. MRH published some interesting rules. You take the scale length of the car and convert it to actual feet:
Oh yeah, just thinking out loud what's the biggest thing that might ever get run on a layout in practical terms, not prototypical ones. Got no idea if NP2626 would fudge things in such a way, but I certainly would
mlehmanI purused the PBL website to see what was said about minimum radius. It wasn't listed for most locos. It was listed at 26" for a group of K-27s, though. Since the Rio Grande's K-classes all had pretty close to the same driver wheelbase (about 12') , the bigger power should be OK there, too, I would think.
Also keep in mind that nothing larger than a K-27 ever ran on the RGS - the trestles (and probably the right-of-way in general) couldn't handle the larger K's.
Are the 36" min radius curves a operational limitation or an appearance one? Is it the sort of situation where it's only a tight spot or two to make everything fit or is it one of those cases when even a diet won't help the overall bloat?
I purused the PBL website to see what was said about minimum radius. It wasn't listed for most locos. It was listed at 26" for a group of K-27s, though. Since the Rio Grande's K-classes all had pretty close to the same driver wheelbase (about 12') , the bigger power should be OK there, too, I would think.
So long as everything runs smoothly around it, a tight curve or two is just another design factor to be overcome. More than that it can get to be an overall problem. And bigger is better. I wish I could've spared more than a 24" r at several spots with HOn3, just didn't have the room
I spent a few hours today looking at what I could put in the space I have available. It appears I would be able to run each of the five LDE right up against each other. However the broad 36 inch radius curves really eat up the available space very quickly. I've been told that I should look at 36" as the minimum for Sn3. Right now, I'm thinking this just really won't work for the space I have availble and I don't see tearing down my HO layout and going to HOn3, just because I have found I like Narrow Gauge. This isn't over yet, however the fat lady has moved onto the stage.
Looking at the room I have available, it looks as though I may just have room enough for an Sn3 layout. However, it still doesn't mean that it will happen.
We left for the weekend, it was my brother-in-law's 53rd birthday and we had to visit the wife's family and her mother, who is in a nursing home. On the way home from the nursing home, we followed the old N.P. Manitoba Junction tracks. I had noticed on previous trips that there were still “W” signs along the right of way. These were N.P. “Whistle” signs telling the engineer to whistle for a grade crossing. I thought one would look good in the layout room. However, the sign was about 7 feet off the ground and I could not even reach the bottom bolt on the sign. Oh, well, maybe some dark night I will bring a step ladder along!
No design work has been done, since Friday night. But, I will get after it this morning, along with doing some operation on my N.P. layout and working on a Gloor Craft Northern Pacific 24 foot Caboose.
Has everyone completely acclimated to the time change? I realize that the time change in Minnesota may not coincide with other states. I am not acclimated to the change, yet; however, I did manage to stay in bed until 5:00 am standard time.
Yeah, not in S scale for sure. I might be able to compress Ophir in my space but that would be about it! I might not mind that actually...
I'm doubting my being able to fit the small portion of the RGS I've proposed, into my basement, let alone what your suggesting.
Hey NP I was thinking of your plan to model the RGS and was thinking what if I were to do that and what would I model, just a dream mind you, just for fun.
I would start with Ridgway and model the engine facility and beautiful station there. Have that basically serve a short branch into pandora and model one or more of the mills there (very cool mills there). Kind of mash Telluride, Ridgway and Pandora togher, no worries about exact replication of specific track arrangement. Model the Ophir high line of course. Ricoh with the pro patria mill (also a beautiful mill). Passing siding at Ricoh. Wildcat canyon, with its neat looping bridge there and a coal mine. Then down to the Durango coke ovens and smelter. Cross the Animas into Durango. Again, not worrying about specific track arrangement at Durango. Put the station there and everyone will know its Durango!
I have always wanted to model the Durango smelter. (I have collected drawings and photos of it). Serving the smelter would really give the railroad I think some action and a complete self fulfilling purpose. But the size of things would probably mean HOn3. Add some other industries, sheep, cattle, logging, even a short fake farmington branch for oil. I dont think I would worry about staging, if so, minimal, or use a couple tracks as open staging at Ridgway and Durango. More important to me would be modelling the buildings, bridges, mills, and smelter to the originals as much as possible, at least in style.
But I think you were saying, modelling the rolling equipment was more to your liking so, just like everything else, everyone has their thing right?
Ahh its only space, time, and money! Enjoy
Brent,
AFAIK, no runaway tracks on the RGS. There just wasn't enough traffic, because if they ever had a problem like that, the whole RR would've been shut down until things were adjusted back to "normal." Normal on the RGS included lots of mishaps and close calls, along with minor daily derailments.
If the RGS had 4% grades, were there runaway tracks for the downgrade? The CPR had runaway tracks on the "big hill" that were manned. The engineer had to give a toot on the whistle to indicate all was well, or the guy would throw the switch into the runaway track. Having to signal at these points would add to the operation (any chance to blow the whistle) You could still add the runaways even if you go with 2% grades. That is if the RGS had them?????
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Thanks for the input, Mike! I was not considering a 4% ruling grade, either. Been there, done that, didn't like it. As far as including Telluride, that is still up in the air. A must have LDE for me is the Ophir Loop. I included Telluride, as it is the next LDE that has some interest along the line and has a wye, next to Vance Junction. There is some difficulty with this choice, where you would think the track leaving Vance Junction would leave from the North end of Vance, it actually leaves from the south end and loops back, to gain altitude.
We're fairly just starting on this design. I was thinking it was highly likely that one or possibly two of the LDE's would need to be dropped, namely Trout Lake as my room in my basement is limited. It would be nice to have a few inches between LDEs.
Back to the drawing board: I've used a total length of 6,200 feet in full scale to link all five of the LDEs together. In S scale this works out to 1,160 feet. Now I need to selectively compress this length, as I certainly can't pack 1,160 feet of railroad in my basement!
I've found that Sn3 30 foot narrow gauge cars are exactly the same length as 40 foot cars in HO. 10 of them, works out to around 45 inches in length. So, with a loco and caboose a train might be just a bit over 60 inches long.
All of this is just rough dimensions, which likely will need to be tweaked. A siding for a 60 inch train will likely need to be 80 inches long.
Given that information, I can make Telluride 180 inches long, including the yard and wye.
This gives a total length of the model railroad of 650 inches. This length is a basis to start with. The next step is to see if this much RR can be stuffed into my basement.
Last things first. Don't do 4% just because the RGS did. They didn't have any choice. 2.5%, maybe 3% max is much better. I have no experience with Sn3, but I suspect 10 cars on 3% is probably close to what one loco can handle. Another factor was that RGS crews often doubled trains over steep sections. So those pics of 10-car trains may be a bit misleading, as that really became two 5-car trains several times in getting over the line. Whether you want that operational headache reproduced is debateable. I could see once, but they'd have to pay me to handle trains that did it on every grade, doesn't sound like fun at all.
Here's my take on things. I think Lizard head Pass could work as one end. The facilities were pretty minimal and the only industry were the stock pens, but if the intent is mostly turning trains and staging, it could work pretty well.
Now Telluride. I guess I've never really seen it as a terminal, but I am not a RGS expert. But if it was, it was only briefly. Most frieght traffic stayed on the main and didn't venture up the branch was my impression. Telluride/Pandora definltely had plenty of action at one time. But making Telluride a terminal would be difficult. What I would do instead would be to continue north from Vance Junction into a staging loop if you have room. That way Telluride won't require additions to handle the needs of a terminal. Vance Junction to Telluride could be handled as a branch, with locals who had business venturing off the main. The Geese would also ply the branch.
Now for the line between Vance Junction and Lizard Head, Telluride is the only area of significant traffic. Ophir had a little, but other than that it was seasonal traffic like sheep, etc. Now, if it was me, I'd bring in industries from elsewhere and stick enough of them in to "correct" things, but things will be a little barren for wayfreights if you stick close to the prototype. North of Vance Junction, things were somewhat busier, but the scenery was not as spectacular.