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| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Coaltrain |
Posted - 10/13/2010 : 09:14:03 AM
This is the first official post for my new layout I am building in On3, the Slater Creek Railway. I became a fan of the Manns Creek Railway while researching information on coke ovens for a project on my HO railroad, the Roanoke and Southern. Shortly after discovering the MC an article on building MC hoppers in On30 by Sam Swanson was published in the Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette. For fun I built one hopper with the intent of it being a static display. One thing led to another and I built the car to have operating unloading doors controlled by a DCC decoder. Wanting to see the car in action I started to consider building a layout in On30, but since I had only one small space to model railroad in would mean that my HO layout would have to be torn out. My HO layout met all my goals, was published in Model Railroader, and was complete, so I decided I missed layout building and decided that I would tear out the HO layout and try a new modeling adventure.
While I really enjoy modeling prototype railroads and their equipment, and swore that the next time I would model a prototype RR, I decided to once again do a fictional railroad. My reason is I like to have a little freedom to take pieces that I like of other railroads and put them together to form my own railroad that I believe will give the viewer a good idea what form of railroading I am modeling would be like, which I do by carefully picking features of railroads that do what my railroad does. I would do not pick "one of everything" to be on my layout, rather I pick features that would have been typical of railroads that are in my area and do the same work.
I liked many of the features of the Manns Creek railroad, I liked the area where the MC was located, but I wanted to be able to do a few things differently. I wanted to have a couple Rod locomotives, I know the MC did have some at one time but I want something a little bigger than they had, and I wanted to have a few different pieces of rolling stock and do a little more than haul logs, lumber, and coal. So using Google maps I searched around the area of the MC to find a location that I could place my railroad. I found another creek a little further up the New River called Slater Creek, located along the New River at a town called Thayer on the C&O.
From what Google showed Slater Creek looked a lot like Manns Creek and was close enough to each other that I could say that coal was discovered in Slater Creek canyon as well. Actually there was a coal mine there at one time and my story is that as that coal was mined out a narrow gauge RR was built up Slater Creek to reach new seams of coal. I am using many pieces of the Manns Creek on my railroad, one of which is the car shops which I plan on building to scale.
Now I know that some of you expected me to build this layout in On30, so did I, but just recently I decided to switch to On3. I switched to On3 after having a conversation with a fellow HO modeler, who after listening to me describe what I was going to do, what scale I was going to use, and how I was going to scratchbuild almost everything and he asked me why I was going to build it in the wrong gauge. I told him all the reasons why modelers choose On30 to represent three foot gauge railroads but he said that if I was going to hand lay all my track, scratchbuild all my rolling stock, and maybe even scratchbuild a locomotive or two why would I not just build it in scale three foot gauge. I decided that he was right, all the reasons to model in On30 did not really apply to my situation, so I switched to On3.
Here is the final track plan of the Slater Creek Railway. My room is very small so I had to pick a few key scenes that I wanted to model. the first scene along the top wall (by the room door) is the coal dump trestle. I struggled for a long time with this section because I wanted to have a place to dump the coal that could justify the need for lots of coal. The MC first dumped coal into a bin that was used to feed their coke ovens, later as demand for coal increased they built a sizing plant just above the coke ovens. In the later years the coke production decreased and most of the coal went to the sizing plant. I decided that I only had room for one place to receive coal and figured that the sizing plant would be the better choice. I had a hard time fitting in the sizing plant because in O scale the structure would be huge. I condensed the sizing tipple as much as I felt it could but it was still a huge model that took a lot of layout width, pushing the narrow gauge track way to the back of the layout. I decided to try flipping the sizing plant so that the standard gauge loading tipple would be at the back drop and the narrow gauge coal dump house would be at the front edge of the layout, which puts the operating track close to the front where it is easy to reach and watch the hoppers unload coal. Flipping the tipple around also allowed me to use trees to hide the fact that the entire tipple is not modeled, cutting down on the layout width required.
Flipping the coal sizing plant will allow me to model the Manns Creek Ray’s stone engine house close to the front of the layout where it can be viewed up close. I also located a storage track here so I can have a place to store a few freight cars or work equipment. In the later years the MC did not use the stone engine house, they had built a new wood engine house at a different location, so I am going to use the stone engine house to store a passenger car and something else, maybe a locomotive used at this location, not sure yet.
The one strange feature of the flipped sizing plant will be the scenery, which will fall as it moves toward the backdrop. The narrow gauge track at the front of the layout will be at the top of the hill and the scenery will fall 16" actual inches as it goes to the backdrop. I don't know how this is going to work out, I hope it gives the operator a feeling of being high on the side of the mountain but we'll see, this will be a bit of an experiment.
Where I did have to deviate from the MC is where I located my switch back and which direction my RR leaves town, a forced compromise caused by the constraints of my room. My SCRy travels clockwise around the room as we leave the coal dump trestle, across Slater Creek and around a tall rock cliff and out of sight. As the tracks turn to the right wall they will be running along the wall of my layout room where my work bench will be located under the layout, this is the one spot there the benchwork supporting the visible track can be thin and high to provide enough room for a workbench. In the middle of the right wall there will be a turnout, one leg will continue along the south wall without an elevation change to a three track storage yard, the other leg will turn along the south wall and start a stiff grade up to my switch back located in the far left lower corner of the room.
At the switch back I believe I will have some room to model either a mining camp or a lumber camp. I think I can get a siding in here but I am not sure yet how I want to do it so I am leaving that off until I get to that point. the track plan makes it look like the switch back continues on behind the furnace and connects back to the coal dump area, which is how I intended it to be to give me a running loop, but a furnace duct passes too low to allow this and the switch back track will stub end in the wall as far as I can go. Instead the staging tracks that are located under the switch back will come back together and travel behind the furnace to form the running loop.
From the switch back the tracks will climb a slight grade to the car shop and foundry. There will be a spur on this slight grade that goes back next to the switch back to a coal mine. I am going to have a small earth loading ramp and dirt road on the mine spur where just about anything can be loaded or unloaded from railroad cars, like mining equipment, building supplies, and whatever else I can imagine.
The car shop will be the MC car shop located at Cliftop and it will be built to scale with full interior. The tracks around it follow the prototype pretty much to scale. Just pass the car shop will be a run around and a strip coal tipple, also built to scale from the MC's tipple at Cliftop. The strip tipple will be built to actual load coal into the hoppers. I am a little concerned that the tipple will somewhat block the view of the loaded hoppers but I may be able to work the scenery around it to make it work better.
Just past the run around tracks is the new wood engine house, also built to scale to match the MC's engine house at Cliftop. The engine house can hold two geared locomotives. And just as it does on the MC, there is a company store located at the end of the engine house spur. The company store will also be built to scale and have three stories above the road level in front with the scenery falling away to form what we would call a "walk out" lower level, which has a set of doors to allow the narrow gauge track to enter the basement for freight car to be spotted inside for unloading.
I know it seems like operation may be limited, but this layout was meant to be a test to see what I think of O scale narrow gauge modeling. I wanted to have it be a place for me to have some very detailed structures get a taste of this new gauge / scale. I would like to move someday to a get a larger modeling space and if I continue in this scale I can use the structures and scenes from this layout on the next. I made some changes to the room since my HO layout was torn down, one was the enclosure built around the furnace, that somewhat reduced the size of my layout space but will provide a nicer room to model in. I got very tired of the narrow aisles of my HO layout and I decided to run the layout only around the walls of the room to give the largest open space for people in the middle. I also wanted to make sure I had a running loop to be able to test and break in equipment, something I really regretted not having on the HO layout.
Well, that got a little long. I will be starting to benchwork soon, I am still doing the room remodeling. I did install the tracks behind the furnace already because once the walls are completed around the furnace because it was easier. I will be able to reach the tracks from one side if there is an issue but there was no way to install them if I had not done it first.
Jeff |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| CieloVistaRy |
Posted - 06/16/2013 : 5:27:23 PM
Jeff,
Rather than try to continue your creek into the backdrop which I think will never give you satisfaction with your very exacting standards. May I suggest that it just hooks sharply and disappear behind a rock outcropping or a steep hill. Or, it could disappear into an aqueduct type bridge underneath the new siding. As for the hole in the wall which the shay and two hoppers are headed.. maybe that area could be heavily forested. |
| Coaltrain |
Posted - 06/13/2013 : 10:25:33 AM
the more I have been thinking about the photo that shows the shay with two hopper cars on the main with the hole in the backdrop the more I think I will have to get really creative to hide the hole in the back drop yet have a small stream look like it goes on into the backdrop. I think I can do it but it is going to take some trickery for sure. |
| Coaltrain |
Posted - 06/12/2013 : 5:06:51 PM
Then I laid out the route down the mainline and figured that I could have the tracks cross the creek a couple more times
This would allow me to build a few interesting trestles. Slater Creek is a small tumbling creek, lots of rocks and waterfalls along its route, should be interesting to try and copy
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| Coaltrain |
Posted - 06/12/2013 : 5:01:16 PM
I had an idea, because my closet came out 6" farther than I planned I could not make the turn to cross in front of the closet for a future expansion, I guess I will have to figure that out if and when the day ever comes, but I was able to tack on an extension to the bench work and add this short siding, what I will use it for I have no clue, but it is there. I placed some sections of old road bed on the layout to plan out the route for Slater Creek (the water way, not the railroad). I decided that it would be interesting to make Slater Creek go between the new siding and the mainline, then cross under the siding.
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| Coaltrain |
Posted - 06/12/2013 : 07:39:00 AM
I put down some flex track on the mainline hill to see how a train will react on that grade. My Kemtron shay went down hill nicely as expected and the Bachmann Climax when down good as long as I kept the speed down so the loaded hopper cars kept weight on the drivers. The Bachmann shay is a different story, there is just too much play in the entire drive, from the bevel gears on the wheels to the line shafts, and then into the gear box where they have a half dozen small gears.
The up hill test was a different story. My test train was 8 empty hoppers and a caboose, which is the maximum train allowed. The Climax walked right up the hill just fine. The Bachmann shay slipped the drivers, which I believe is because my brass boiler is not as heavy as the diecast boiler on the Climax. The disappointment was my Kemtron Shay, it lost gear mesh halfway up the hill. I am going to have to look into the gears to see what is going on, I have heard that under stress the plastic crossbox bends and the gears will lose mesh, if that is the case I will scratch build a brass crossbox.
SO far I like the challenge of the hill and I really like the look, I also think that it is one of the signature elements that show why gear locomotives were used in that service, so I am going to stick with it and figure out ways around the issues.
I took this photo on the LS&I in the late 80s and my grade reminds me of this location.
[URL=http://s91.photobucket.com/user/70NovaSS/media/Trains/LSI-4.jpg.html] [/URL]
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| quarryman |
Posted - 06/07/2013 : 1:45:19 PM
Jeff-
I hope I am wrong, but I suspect the bucking problem may persist until you get down to 2 - 2.5% grade.
A person of your ingenuity may be able to come up with a car that has working brakes/resistance to apply needed drag to the downhill runs.
Mark
Visit my Piedmont & East Blue Ridge Railroad
http://www.eastblueridge.com |
| JPIII |
Posted - 06/07/2013 : 1:36:07 PM
I too have to use short trains.
There is room for 5 cars & a loco in the runoff(run over?)30 inch sidings on my switchbacks. I would try to use a special hi-drag car coupled to the back end of the train to cure the herky jerkies on the downhill...if traction is not an issue. |
| Coaltrain |
Posted - 06/07/2013 : 1:25:17 PM
quote:
Originally posted by JPIII
I think your Bachmann geared locos should pull those grades no problem. My Bman Climax drug a dead 4-4-0 (wheels locked) up my 4% grade of my switchback
The trouble with the B-Manns is not the going up, it's the going down. I can pull my 5-8 car trains just fine going up, the trouble is all the bucking on the way down.
I am goin to reduce the grades just a bit to 4.5% and 4.8 % and then I am going to see about modifying the drives. My good stuff runs fine on those grades because they have better designed drives, and if I have to use them as road engines I will and keep the B-Manns stuff in the yard areas |
| brownbr |
Posted - 06/07/2013 : 06:59:27 AM
Judging by the placement of your trains I would guess that you are running these with Keep Alive capacitors. |
| railman28 |
Posted - 06/07/2013 : 02:10:16 AM
I've enjoyed following along as you build. Thank you for sharing the photos of the frame work. |
| JPIII |
Posted - 06/07/2013 : 12:25:16 AM
I think your Bachmann geared locos should pull those grades no problem. My Bman Climax drug a dead 4-4-0 (wheels locked) up my 4% grade of my switchback.....just for the hell of it. As far as being proto typical, 8% grades were not uncommon on logging roads and some went to 15%....then there were inclines.
Mine is HO. Should have looked closer..... |
| Coaltrain |
Posted - 06/05/2013 : 8:49:36 PM
well, I am a little embarrassed to admit that I made a bit of a math error, embarrassing because I design things for a living and I have to do a lot of math. Anyways, I used a level to figure out the rise over the length of the level, then I did the math when I got to work. I was talking about my grade to someone today at the local hobby shop and I started to think about the length of my level, I assumed it was 36" but after I thought about it I realized that there is no way my level is 36", I don't know what I was thinking, so I when home and took a second look at my level and then I realized it was 24" long, BIG difference, no wonder that skid mounted oil refinery I designed did not fit through the shop door  , I guess that is another story.
Anyways, my real grades are 5% on the mainline and almost 5 1/2% up the switch back, which is exactly what I wanted, trouble is that it is exactly what my Bachmann locomotives didn't want, can you say "ride em bucking bronco". My Kemtron shay went down it just fine and I am sure my PSC and Westside engines will work fine.
So, the question is do I leave them and figure out a fix for the Bachmann locomotives later, they can be kept in the yards for switching, or do I lower the grades? I can bring down the mining area a couple inches and reduce the mainline grade to around 4%, with the switch back the same, it will just make a little less clearance above my hidden track. |
| Bill Uffelman |
Posted - 05/31/2013 : 4:31:59 PM
Looking good. Hope to pay a visit sometime in the next 12 months so keep working!
Bill Uffelman
In Carson City NV until flight leaves for BWI at 10:40 AM Tuesday but who's counting? |
| Coaltrain |
Posted - 05/31/2013 : 10:59:15 AM
I just calculated the grades and the mainline grade is almost exactly 3% and the switchback is 3.47%, I have not calculated the rear mine branch yet, I am going to wait until I get the tracks laid to the big mine before I start the line to the second mine.
here are some photos with some trains staged on the grades, some photo angles make them look steeper than they are, I wish they were steeper than they are but maybe it is better since the loaded trains are heavy, and even though they are going down hill it might be better to have them they way they ended up being.
I'll tell you one thing, I am kind of liking the look of 5 car trains, they make the layout seem a little bigger.
[URL=http://s91.photobucket.com/user/70NovaSS/media/Slater%20Creek%20Ry/880DB2DD-FDCD-4062-904D-62117F311F43-254-000000512B182689.jpg.html] [/URL]
[URL=http://s91.photobucket.com/user/70NovaSS/media/Slater%20Creek%20Ry/E770AA96-1682-4AA5-BD31-AB5CED02D2BD-254-0000005120D0A69F.jpg.html] [/URL]
[URL=http://s91.photobucket.com/user/70NovaSS/media/Slater%20Creek%20Ry/E086D96C-2DB1-41E8-86E2-B638BE9F7471-254-0000005125D935A6.jpg.html] [/URL]
[URL=http://s91.photobucket.com/user/70NovaSS/media/Slater%20Creek%20Ry/F779C4E1-5F59-4FD3-98E9-630A9A1914A3-254-000000511B739DBA.jpg.html] [/URL] |
| quarryman |
Posted - 05/31/2013 : 07:51:38 AM
Jeff-
What do you think the max. grade works out to be on the switchback? I would guess about 4% from looking at your photo.
How are you planning to clean your hidden track?
Mark |
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