Interesting topic.
One thing I like about shortlines (real or freelance) is that you can run equiptment in a more modern era that class 1 roads have long abandoned My road for example only owns 2 GE 70 tonners (easy choice since Bachmann sells undecorated units so no repainting was required ) but frequently sees foreign power run though to make for variety. Speed is generally under 15 mph and the longest train is 6 cars.
Joe Staten Island West
BigDaddyBrakie is still around and will be pleased to see this 11 year old thread return to life.
Indeed, seeing how I like talking about short lines.
I'm thinking of doing a topic on modeling industrial switching roads like Progressive Rail,Flats Industrial Railroad and similar roads.
These little jewels requires very little motive power,lots of freight cars and is ideal for those that has limited space and budget.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Brakie is still around and will be pleased to see this 11 year old thread return to life. Since I like shortlines, I am not complaining as this is the first I've see of this thread. Not every old thread is worth revisiting.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
GREAT DISCUSSION! my own proto-freelanced short line is essentially a switching pike somewhere near Worcester, Maassachusetts, where the Boston and Maine and New Haven interchange. My original concept was a modern short line---that's been backdated a few decades! Rail traffic is representative of the region including road salt, bakery supplies, textiles, scrap metal, coal (runthrough) and rolling stock coming into a repair facility---specializing in the ALCO RS-1.(My favorite loco with good memories) Most of my fave. real short lines have involved salt--either shipping or receiving--I grew up in southern New York State.
Brakie, this is a great thread.
One aspect of locomotive selection was not really covered. I was recently on the property of the Georgia Southwestern Railroad, and they had no six axle locomotives. The reason for this was that the original roadbed was built in the 1860's on some branches of their line, and the curves were too sharp for a six axle unit to handle. They are militant EMD folks, and have (not for much longer, I understand) two bulldog nosed FP-9's. They also had a small passenger consist of three cars that they ran for community excursions on an exceptionally rare basis.
They run a lot of rock in open hoppers, and a lot of covered hoppers of varied freight. (A lot being 13000 cars a year as of last year.) They have one caboose, which is for sale and not used.
I would love to model these guys just because they are a pretty colorful outfit. Their website is: www.gswr.com
Erik Fedde
Erik
Until recently I modeled the LNA&C ( Louisville New Albany & Corydon Railroad ) in Southeasten Indiana . I began Modeleing in the early 1950's when they still ran daily mixed trains and connnected with the Southern Railway at Corydon JCT. , later I moved the railroads date forward to the Early 1970's just to shake things up .
In the 1950's and the 1970's the major commdity was furniture and grain and farm supplies , motive power was 2 4-4-0 American locomotives , and eventually a lone GE 44 ton swithcher.
The railroad also serves a branch line that crossed Indian creek by fording through the river with the rails laid in concrete in the creek bed .
Had I not made a recent move I had planned to move the railroad into the 1990's with auto motive parts plants and , chemical plants and passenger service provided by 4 RDC's and an alco RS1 and an RS11 plus 2 44 ton switchers .
The thought of that little 44 ton switcher pulling a string 86 ft boxcars is hard to pass up .
But since the move I have much less space so I now have a 10 ft shelf layout that models an imaginary florida port.
Dave-the-Train wrote: Then again...why do we hear of Shortline / per diem boxcars and not (as far as I know) covered hoppers and gons... or intermodal or well cars ... anything other than box cars?
Then again...
why do we hear of Shortline / per diem boxcars and not (as far as I know) covered hoppers and gons... or intermodal or well cars ... anything other than box cars?
Because "Boxcar Shortline" has a nice ring to it. There are/were also per diem covered hoppers - anyone remember the pink grain hopppers? And increasingly the boxcar shortlines are investing in intermodal equipement, primarily well cars.
The most common boxcar used is the ubiquitous 50' single door "Railbox". Athearn makes several as does Accurail.
During the 70s, the boxcars tended to be painted in bright colors with flashy logos. Current ones are typically painted boxcar red/brown, blue, or dark green, and carry the reporting markings, only.
There are also a lot of cars running in the faded 70s paint, with the old reporting marking painted out and relettered for the new owners. Sometimes, several times over.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
Okay, a specific point I would like to discuss...
If I plan an 80s shortline (with maybe some pretensions to make money from investing in per diem cars - but they may be secondary or another string to stock in hand...) ... then what cors would I look at from what is availabe in the model market of 2007?
That is...
TIA
Brakie: Your essay on modern short lines belongs in the magazine: concise, rational, and makes a great argument for small model railroads. (How many of us have basements to fill?) Your discussion of the number of cars handled per day/week/year is an excellent foundation on which to construct operations on a modeled short line. The short-line model allows us to use our favorite locos (often older four-axle EMD, Alco, and GE which fit our tight radii curves) with a potpourri of modern rolling stock. Slow speeds are not only prototypical but add length to operating sessions.
One comment: short lines live by service. If the customer needs a move, whether it's on a weekend or not, the customer gets it. I remember many seven-day weeks during harvest season.
-Rio Grande Ray
Brakie, Great topic! Model G&W/ R&S in H.O. on a 30sq ft shelf layout. Modern time frame in the peak of fall. Have several industries including a salt mine, a yard w/turntable, and even a interchange. The whole thing is freelanced thuogh the "feel" is their. Three G&W locos and a leased CN loco along with a slue of custom painted freight cars get the job done. Everything is either sratchbuilt, kitbashed (greatly), or craftsman kit. I'm three years on layout and not even half done. Having great fun with it!
Short lines are often overlooked for modeling. To bad, their the guts of modern railroading.They get the product to the consumer and have that hometown flare.
There are several Interesting Short Lines serving the Norfolk, Va area.
The oldest is the Norfolk and Portsmouth Belt Line, which originated in the late 19th Century as a classic Belt Line serving many major railroads. Mergers eventually dropped the number of client railroads to 2, Norfolk Southern and CSX. The modern NPBL operates under NS's Thoroughbred Shortline program. NS leases engines to these lines, most of which remain in the NS paint scheme. The Belt Line locomtives, however, are solid black with NPBL painted on the sides. It seems that whenever a Belt Line train blocked a crossing for too long, people would call the NS Corporate HQ to complain.
The Bay Coast Railroad, formerly the Eastern Shore RR, serves the Virginia portion of the Delmarva penninsula, connecting to Norfolk via a carfloat service. This was covered in a recent issue of Trains. They also switch customers in a small industrail park near the car float yard.
The Commonwealth Railway operates along the old Atlantic and Danville line between Suffolk, VA and the West Norfolk area of Portsmouth. This was a very small operation with few customers, but a new intermodal ship terminal is being built by Maersk in West Norfolk, which will grow their business enormously.
The largest Short Line in milage here is the Chesapeake and Albemarle. They are a RailAmerica short line that operates the original Norfolk Southern line from South Norfolk to Edenton, NC. They serve several industries in Elizabeth City, NC where they are headquartered, plus many agricultural customers in the outlying towns. On their VA end, they have some of the best maintained roadbed of any short line. Plasser America, which makes railroad track maintenance equipment, is located near their conection with NS. When Plasser needs to test one of their products, C&A lets them use their tracks.
I am a member of a local HO scale module group, so my "layout" is about 2.5 by 20 feet. I have free lanced a short line based roughly on the four listed above. My modules form a switching layout located next to the main lines of a major RR with which the short line interchanges. I figured that as the number of client railroads for a belt line dwindled, the belt line purchased some track that was spun off by the mergering railroads. I call my line the Tidewater and Albemarle Railroad, reporting marks TAR (I don't know why the FRA rejected the requested reporting marks).
I built my modules with operation in mind. Most of the time with a modular layout, folks make up a train in the staging yard, bring it out on the main line, and then run in circles until they get bored. I wanted to run trains with a purpose, which attracted me to the short lines. I have seven customers on the layout, including a scrap yard, oil dealer, and a brewery. Scenery work is still in slow progress, but I really enjoy operating it in the meantime.
My locomotive fleet consists of a 44-tonner, 70-tonner, and two former NS gp-18s, plus a CF7 painted for Carolina Northwestern. I do have a fleet of SW-1500's that I will be putting decoders in and painting, whenever I get over my airbrush phobia.
IMHO, shortlines provide some of the best oportunities for modeling modern railroad operations.
If everybody is thinking alike, then nobody is really thinking.
http://photobucket.com/tandarailroad/
Hello, ya'll from down South in Alabama!
I had to chime in on this subject since it borders on protofreelancing in many ways. I was very interested to find some interesting ideas too and add a few suggestions of my own.
Post 1980's spin-off regionals has been a pet subject of mine since my college days in the 1980s-1990s. Now, some twenty years later, it is neat to see these operations maturing. In some cases they are returning to Class One folds, or combining to become forces of their own.
I took the idea of a regional into freelancing my modern day Georgia Road after following the likes of the Virginia and Ohio and the Utah Belt articles of the late 1980s early 1990s. I also built in the idea a regional spin-off of NS growing in much the same way as KCS. In my world, NS spun off the former CofGA lines in the early 1990s in an effort to raise capital for its first bid for Conrail. Like the NYSW, the road latched on to land bridge double stack traffic, coming into the ground floor stage of what is now happening on the prototype. Way back then I had the idea of completing a land bridge for APL-APC with SP through the old MidSouth into Atlanta and Savannah. With FEC going up for sale in the 1990s, I added this to the run and gave container access pretty much to all corners of the Deep South. Next, MidSouth came into the fold with the exception of the Meridian Speedway which KCS got, and a few years ago, Georgia Road managed to beat out CN in a bid for IC. In much the same way KCS got control of TFM, Georgia Road worked out a neat little deal with Ferromex, giving the system access pretty much north and south from Chicago, to Mexico City and East from the Powder River area of Wyoming (ex-CCP) to Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville.
Recent moves by KCS-NS and BNSF-CSX to build capacity into Southern gateways proved my ideas out some twenty years later allowing me to further develop my freelanced road based on current prototype practice. It went through a highly leveraged bankruptcy, buy out and reinvention of itself. It even created its own regional in an effort to re-establish itsFor myself, I simply look toward the regionals or shortlines that I like, and watch how they deal with real world changes over time. Such things as traffic patterns, niche markets, industrial relocation and things give me parameters in which to rewrite history in terms that do not sound that out of sorts with what goes on these days in the prototype world. It is a mental game with me, but I have learned how the real railroads work trying to pattern my hypothetical road after them. I have also found great acquaintances on forums like this that have shown me angles that I would have never seen myself.
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Brakie,
I model the Maine Central, now a fallen flag, as a shortline. I am modeling the years of 1960 to about 1970. Maine Central is now part of Guilford Transportation System. I am themed on the coast east of Portland, Maine. My RR interchanges with B&M in the Rigby Yard in So. Portland, ME. B&M are aloud to opperate on the tracks into Portland, ME industries. MEC hauls to industries downeast and maintains several 44 tonners and 70 tonners servicing a fishing village, a stone quarry, a gravel quarry, several boat yards, My road power is GP 7s, 1 RS 11 and RS 3. I have 2 small yards that use 1 SW 1 and 1 SW 2. The GP 7s are painted pine green with gold striping, the Alco RSs are painted maroon, and the SWs and 44, 70 tonners are painted black with gold decals on all locos. I have 1 steamer for tourists excurssions. Passenger service is run on a gas electric and a Buddliner mainly for the summer folk going downeast, vacationers. All freights require cabooses and the 44 and 70 tonners use bobber cabboses. The RR does haul some thru freight for the BAR and CN railroads fro freight going south. Most of the freight generated is for the nautical theme like fisheries, boatbuilding, gravel and granite. Inbound freight ranges from fuel oils, coal, for heating to lumber, food stuffs, nautical supplies, to steel and building materials.
Bill
Shortlines are a lot of fun to model. A lot of people would agree with me on the fact that if you're faced with limited space, modeling a shortline would be an interesting and neat path to take. Sure you don't have the elaborate trackwork or heavy duty engines of Class 1's, but it has a rustic sort of feel.
On my future layout I'm planning on modeling the Grand Rapids Eastern RR. Though now it's officially part of Mid Michigan RR (both are Rail America owned), I plan on modeling circa 2000 when GRE still had their engine (on another MMRR line now, never gets to GRE rails anymore) and they interchanged with the MMRR in Lowell, in addition to CSX and NS in Grand Rapids (which they still do). I have an Atlas GP38 that will be painted up for their 3839, and then I'm basically set. The current GRE (MMRR) uses MMRR #24, a GP9.
Here's the 3839:
And here's the 24:
To me, a small railroad with interesting motive power like GRE would be a lot of fun to model. Maybe someday.....
Shawnee asks: Brakie, just curious...what kind of cars do those roads own? I'm assuming they serve different industries.
The cars own by the bigger roads CD&B,C&LE,C&HV,T&SW include,gons,boxcars,cover hoppers,coil cars,bulk head flats and hopper cars.C&LE also has several auto racks and 60 and 86 foot auto part boxcars.T&SW owns 150 Ortner aggregate cars..
DC and HR lease cover hoppers,tank cars Railgon and Railbox boxcars.
Midnight Railroader wrote: BRAKIE wrote: 6.Does it run between other lines - maybe carrying some bridge traffic?A.Yes but,there is no bridge traffic.Why not? (Just wondering...)
BRAKIE wrote: 6.Does it run between other lines - maybe carrying some bridge traffic?A.Yes but,there is no bridge traffic.
6.Does it run between other lines - maybe carrying some bridge traffic?
A.Yes but,there is no bridge traffic.
Since NS and CSX interchanges in numerous locations including Cleveland and Toledo there is no need to to use the HR for bridge traffic between these 2 roads..
Brakie, just curious...what kind of cars do those roads own? I'm assuming they serve different industries.
Your rationale is in depth and extremely interesting.
For my shortline, the Alleghany Highland RR owns cars, mostly coal hoppers and aggregate service cars since they have a core business with those local industries, and ownership of these cars predated purchase by Virginia Western Rail. They also draw upon cars from their parent road, Virginia Western, which is a regional and owns and connects some other local roads. The box cars and chip cars are VWR, as well as interchange NS and some CSX and customer-owned.
Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it~!
CMSTPP wrote:If it wasn't for the Milwaukee Road, I would certainly be modeling the TC&W.(Twin Cities and Western) But hey, that's not going to stop me. I decided, why can't I build both. So I just started on one of there locomotives. It's a GP30C and no, it doesn't resemble a GP30 at all, it's just what they called them. But they are some of the most unusual locomotives. Pretty much all were rebuilt and now have a Catepillar engine in them and they are made of various locomotive parts so it is quite difficult to make one of these. There pretty much all kitbash and scratch building jobs but I'm getting the first one finished.http://www1.webng.com/tcwr/news.htmlIf you look into this website, you can find all of the info on the railroad. There are actually two railroads in one. The Twin Cities & Western and the Red River Valley & Western. Both have the same paint scheme just a sister railroad. So I will finish kitbashing the locomotive and then place pics on here when I am done.Happy railroadingJames
If it wasn't for the Milwaukee Road, I would certainly be modeling the TC&W.(Twin Cities and Western) But hey, that's not going to stop me. I decided, why can't I build both. So I just started on one of there locomotives. It's a GP30C and no, it doesn't resemble a GP30 at all, it's just what they called them. But they are some of the most unusual locomotives. Pretty much all were rebuilt and now have a Catepillar engine in them and they are made of various locomotive parts so it is quite difficult to make one of these. There pretty much all kitbash and scratch building jobs but I'm getting the first one finished.
http://www1.webng.com/tcwr/news.html
If you look into this website, you can find all of the info on the railroad. There are actually two railroads in one. The Twin Cities & Western and the Red River Valley & Western. Both have the same paint scheme just a sister railroad. So I will finish kitbashing the locomotive and then place pics on here when I am done.
Happy railroading
James
The GP30Cs started as GP30s. When rebuilt by Generation II in Babbit, MN, they recieved pretty much new bodies. Also got the Caterpillar engines and microprocessor control system. Rebuilt for the Soo Line, along with some GP9s turned into GP15C, for 1500 hp. Was an article in the SLH&TS magazine about them. The cost was around $600,000 per unit. The Soo didn't feel the cost was worht any more. All went to the TC&W, not too far from their Soo territory.
Mike WSOR engineer | HO scale since 1988 | Visit our club www.WCGandyDancers.com
Freelanced and not scenicked yet, but...
I would call my layout a short-line. One end has an interchange, the other end serves a car ferry which terminates off-layout on an island. The ferry is limited in car length, so there is a freight-house where goods can be re-loaded from interchange cars to old local-service only shorter cars. As a bonus, my short-line also operates an excursion steam-train and some commuter passenger service. I can run any cars that the island customers (fuel, groceries, building supplies, general goods) might need. There's also plenty of oportunity for local fuel depots, food for the excursion operations, coal for the steamer, and track maintenance crews. I'm working on a car-order simulator PC software program to generate switch-lists. Now, if there was only such an island off the coast of new england somewhere...(I know, toooooo silly for the purists :-).
Jim
Dave asks :Does your RR have its own cars?
Only the bigger roads.
Cumberland Dickensonville & Bristol
Kentucky Central
Cincinnati & Lake Erie
Toledo & Southwestern
and Columbus & Hocking Valley own cars while the smaller roads the Huron River and the Detroit Connecting uses lease cars.
The Artemus-Jellico has a large fleet of hopper cars due to the 7 mines it serves even though its only 38 miles long.
BRAKIE wrote:Let's discuss modeling modern short lines from spin offs and mergers..
I think you will find it interesting and I can provide some history as well as some interesting side bars it interested..
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
Most shortline conglomerates have a standard paint scheme with just the lettering changed. The Genesee and Wyoming family's orange and black is good example. Genesee Valley Transportation's cream and gray is another.
The boxcar shortline is still around...Coe Rail (CRLE), Northwestern Oklahoma (NOKL), Hartford & Slocomb (HS) and Meridian & Bigbee (MB) are but a few examples. The bottom fell out of the Per Diem market in the late 70s or early 80s (IIRC) and those groups with money, quickly bought up the fleets of those that went under, for a fraction of what the cars originally sold for.
Overhead and bridge traffic are not strictly the same thing.
Bridge Traffic... Line B receives cars from Line A at interchange. Line B may add or subtract some of it's own cars. Then, using its locomotives and crews, Line B delivers them to Line C at interchange. Line B will get a share of the revenue based on the distance it handles the car.
Overhead Traffic... Line B recieves Line A's train at a designated point. Line B runs the entire train intact, including the locomotives, to another designated point, where it turns the train back over to Line A, or sometimes to Line C at interchange. If the crew is qualifed, Line A's crew may run the train over Line B. Otherwise, Line B will crew the train. Usually, Line B receives a flat fee per train.
Here's a better picture of my modern operations:
The white stripe was painted and masked, while the red center stripe is a decal.
nbrodar wrote: Nick
Nice livery Nick... did you decal it or mask up and oaint?
Brakie... yet another question...
Does your RR have its own cars?
I believe that there was a time when some shortlines had more length of cars than of track because finance paople were using the RR as an investment to run per diem cars... does this still happen... if not when/why did it stop... if nyone knows?
Interesting links. Thanks
More Qs...
Is "overhead traffic" the same as "bridge traffic"... if not; what is it please?
You'd go for conventional MP15 not one of the newfangled things?
Is there a simple way to tell if a shortline (with a non corporate livery) is independent or part of a group?
TIA some more