Heya,I might be mistaken but I think the latest MRR magazine has a look at a layout that combines MILW and C&NW. Might want to check it out.M
P.S. I got into The Milwaukee Road by 'mistake' (i.e. not doing enough research). I was thinking of doing something like the Progressive Rail industrial park as a switching layout and, while planning, figured I'd go pick up a couple of switchers (to be repainted later) and a DCC system. I found a matching pair, but in MILW colors (which I sort of liked). Turns out, though, that they're Baldwin VO-1000's - okay they looked modern but I didn't read the description on the side. :) These two (933 and 935) were sold off to SOO (I think) and scrapped in '76. Whoops. Who knew they were 40's vintage? (anyone that bothered to do the research.)
Anyway, I started reading up on the road and found its history fascinating (I live in Portland, OR and never imagined that a midwestern-named road found its way over this way). So, I rewrote my own thinking on what I would do - a what-if world where MILW was clever and didn't de-electrify its western routes right before the gas crisis of the 70's and where there wasn't some sort of hokey sell-rolling-stock-and-lease-it-back. Consequently, the road only went bankrupt a couple of times and has managed to stay in business until the 90's.
I'm modeling small urban area that pretends to be in Chicago (well, haven't decided fully) in the 80's or 90's. My two ancient switchers have been refurbished and are still running - though clunky. It's a long story, of course, but it's funny how these things develop and thought I'd share. I never set out to follow any prototype closely, and won't start now, but I like doing the what-if scenario (I have a more detailed and coherent history written out - compared to what I wrote above.) Def. check out the MILW historical society. Think I might join myself.
Mearrin69, that's a funny story about the switchers. Isn't it interesting how purchases can steer you in a direction you never thought you'd go. I am definitely starting to play the what if game. Hopefully I don't stray too far from the prototype. I think my scenery will be more true to my vision than the trains themselves. We'll see which way the wind blows!
Don't be a Wimp! Go For IT. If you need a second story, then get two kits, and smash and bash till you get what you want. If you just plop that kit down as-is, you have the same station a million other guys have.
Fix it the way you want, work hard to do a good job of it, and whenever it appears here or elsewhere, we'll all know exactly whose layout it is.
Here's some more inspiration... I've been working on this scratchbuild for about 3 years now... I'm hung up on the windows, but I'll figure it out...
That's the WM Cumberland Station, still in use today by the tourist railway, and the Canal Museum is on the ground floor.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
secondhandmodeler wrote: Lee, I guess you could say you know exactly what you want! Nice layout. I'm starting to sway in my thinking as far as Milwaukee road. I think I may be combining the Milwaukee Road with the C&NW. Half of what i want to model is Milwaukee, half is C&NW. I don't think this will be too big of a problem. It certainly isn't historically accurate, but I can have a bigger choice of rolling stock and power. I haven't made it very far into this process and I'm already making compromises! Oh well. For anyone who is still reading this thread, I think I've found a start as far as modeling the trestle. I'm not much into scratch building yet, so I need to find kits to modify. I'm thinking of removing the span from this kit, installing the plate girder sections, then adding the rest of the trestle. My only problem is, it will be like four feet long. Oh well, it should be impressive! I'm hoping the two combined will look similar to this. I also found this depot as a starting point. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to add a second story or not.I hope this will be a good start. Thanks for humoring me.
Lee, I guess you could say you know exactly what you want! Nice layout.
I'm starting to sway in my thinking as far as Milwaukee road. I think I may be combining the Milwaukee Road with the C&NW. Half of what i want to model is Milwaukee, half is C&NW. I don't think this will be too big of a problem. It certainly isn't historically accurate, but I can have a bigger choice of rolling stock and power. I haven't made it very far into this process and I'm already making compromises! Oh well.
For anyone who is still reading this thread, I think I've found a start as far as modeling the trestle. I'm not much into scratch building yet, so I need to find kits to modify.
I'm thinking of removing the span from this kit, installing the plate girder sections, then adding the rest of the trestle. My only problem is, it will be like four feet long. Oh well, it should be impressive!
I'm hoping the two combined will look similar to this.
I also found this depot as a starting point. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to add a second story or not.
I hope this will be a good start. Thanks for humoring me.
Your bridge plan looks very good. I don't really see why you would need to modify that. If you wish to do some looking, there's a thread buried in here for people who do nothing but show off bridge models. They could probably help ya. I think l've seen a better station model. Don'be afraid to look at the DPM/etc. Modulars to add on with, and or start new. They were part of a scrapped plan of mine to build Indy Union before that fell apart.
-Morgan
Flashwave,
Do you remember which company made the "better station". This is the best one I've come up with so far. I am a little afraid to try too many modifications.
secondhandmodeler wrote: I also found this depot as a starting point. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to add a second story or not.
What if you cut off the center section of the Roof and used the Walthers Modular parts to make the second floor and then use the roof section you cut out to do the roof of the second floor? Just my thoughts.
secondhandmodeler wrote: Do you folks that follow a prototype try to get everything perfect? Or do you go for the general flavor of the area and railroad? Thanks for reading this rambling post. Nobody else understands how excited I am!
Do you folks that follow a prototype try to get everything perfect? Or do you go for the general flavor of the area and railroad? Thanks for reading this rambling post. Nobody else understands how excited I am!
Well, I'm not going to get everything "perfect" when I build my future layout, but I will like for it to closely represent the general area that I'll model...which will most likely be fictional, but will be based on some reality.
I have quite a few locomotives (all in Southern Railway "Tuxedo" paint scheme, most purchased prepainted, but a few I built and painted myself years ago when Southern locos were hard to find), and about 300 or so freight cars (many of which are also Southern...including about a dozen that I custom painted myself). Of the freight cars I painted, all were done from actual photos, and all but one were done from photos that I took near my old house years ago. I also have a 50 car unit coal train (5-bay Ortner hoppers as manufactured by MDC/Roundhouse). 18 of them are from two different 12 car releases done in Southern Railway that are all consecutive numbers. The remaining 32, I renumbered as random numbers in the 79,000 and 390,000 series, all numbers selected from lists I made of actual coal trains that went through my old town.
<>I do like for locomotives and cars to be accurately numbered for equipment that actually existed. I don't necessarily always count how many panels or ribs a car has, as long as it's a fairly close approximation to the real thing. I tried kitbasing my own Southern Sand hopper years ago, and the car looks pretty good, although it's about 7-8 feet too long scale, and the same type car offered by Walthers a few years ago, looks much better overall. I wish I could find a few undecs of those so I could increase my fleet of sand hoppers.
<>I'm still at odds about whether or not I should use real station/city names when I build my layout...because sometimes I think I'd like to use make-believe names that have some other significance. For example, I had considered naming major cities on my layout HEYWOOD, POOLE, and BOWMAN, in honor of characters from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I don't plan to model any NS, CSX, or BNSF, but I do like some other modern cars that only existed after some of these mergers, so I will use a little creative license to include these into a world where none of these major mergers took place, and therefore I'll only run their predecessor road's equipment from each of these. Conrail is an exception, as it predates any of these others, and was around when I was a young child. So basically I'm modelling mostly what was around then, up to the early 80's with the aforementioned creative license.
My RR is/will be based on L&N, mostly because of a family connection. My granddad worked for them for 51 years, so it is the first railroad I was exposed to and the one I spent the most time around.
I want to stick with the prototype for equipment, but freelance the location. My problem is finding transition era L&N power and rolling stock. Even though it was a fairly promininent road, it does not seems popular with the manufacturers. It's taken 3 years to come up with four cabooses.
The layout here is a freelance based on an Espee branchline in the 1970's.
Modelling a prototype is going to be a challenge. Most of the railroads are too big to model them in their entirety. Modelling a segment is the best choice. Then what is the time frame? 1920's maybe 1960's or present day?
As for a location depending on your road of choice it could be GN in the Cascade mountains. The present Cascade Tunnel is just short of eight miles long. In HO scale that works out to 473 feet just for the tunnel.Selective compressing and putting in the prominant land marks will convey the prototype to the visitor.
There is an N scale group in Portland that models the BNSF line in the Columbia Gorge. The layout is designed so the visitor would be looking from the river to shore on the Washington side. The landmarks are there and the scenery is very accurite. Anyone familar with the area knows where the prototype is in relation to the model.
NS2591 wrote: secondhandmodeler wrote: I also found this depot as a starting point. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to add a second story or not.What if you cut off the center section of the Roof and used the Walthers Modular parts to make the second floor and then use the roof section you cut out to do the roof of the second floor? Just my thoughts.
secondhandmodeler wrote: I have to build this in sections to accomodate my soon to be living arrangement. I think I'll build it as a point to point with the option of adding a section or two down the road for continuous running.
Corey, think about building 2 end sections that can loop back and the center section if made 36" but with the backdrop set at 32" could handle the continual running while maintaining the flavor of a Point to Point rr.......You could also One day add to the Back a Staging yard for east & westbound trains..........Check out some exhibition layouts for idea's. One in particular by Steve Pettit in Australia ( an american prototype modern layout) while quite elaborate would give the general idea of what I mean. Each section could be built seperate and if built lightweight could be easily set up & taken down for storage or moving.
Check out some of the Yahoo Modular & Portable Special Interest Groups for Idea's on Lightweight construction, framing techniques etc etc.
Since the Mankato Station was a Union Station, perhaps an appearance from other RR's would also be in order...GN NP SOO ( not sure which rr's ran into Mankato...too far south for me)
Perhaps with that staging area, a 2 track mainline representing 2 different roads entering and leaving the Mankato station would be something to consider.......One day if you could add a Yard ( nearest division point yard for example)you could make it an Interchange Yard with several RR's interchanging.....It wouldnt have to be a Milw Yard but the Milw could interchange freight there!!.
Enjoy the adventure...........you'll probobly build another layout one day so use this one as a learning experiance.
I agree with the "Pro-lance" approach. Like a prototype Road, fine model it. Can't find one to suit you, fine adjust one or create a new one.
I am modeling the South Omaha Terminal Railroad. The prototype is now Brandon Rail and switches 2 industries - Gunderson Rail Serices and Darling International. But waht if it had flourished.... That's how I model it, a prototypr Railroad with a freelance misson. And I still get to work with Prototype Railroads of BNSF, UP, CNW, IAIS, and IC.
I remember all the model manufacturers that made modern diesels with Santa Fe warbonnet paint schemes in the 1970s because the Santa Fe warbonnet was popular, nevermind that it wasn't prototype for those 2nd generation diesels. But then years and years after the real warbonnet F-units had been chopped up into CF7s, Santa Fe went and painted the newest superdiesels in warbonnet.
Oh wait, this thread was supposed to be about models FOLLOWING the prototype, and that's models LEADING the prototype.