Denver, South Park & Pacific Keystone Branch

[eric220]

Good grief I think I'm on to something!



Point to point (wye to wye) operation with a continuous running option.  I'm thrilled that I was able to work in the wye at Keystone with geometry that the Mason Bogie can handle, so I can run it point to point!  The continuous run is even prototypical, as the DSP&P basically just ran shuttle trains between Keystone and Dickey.  After a few years it got downgraded to a mixed a few times a week.  After the wye was removed at Keystone, there were no runarounds between Dillon and Keystone, with one facing point spur and one trailing point spur.  The local had to hitch the cars bound for/picked up from Keystone to the pilot coupler and run with cars on both ends!  Admittedly the team track at Keystone is in the wrong place, but given how distorted the rest of it is, that doesn't bother me.  I have the space where the track is to scenic, so there may even be some buildings in store!

I also added the details of the staging yard.  There's a metal shelving unit in the garage that's 10 feet long that will support one of the three staging tracks.  The door from the garage to the house is at the other end, so that is a hard 10 feet, no negotiating.  I also had to adjust the wye that I'm calling Como to allow for the yard ladder.  I may have to experiment with the Mason Bogie to see if it will go around a slightly tighter curve.  That dead end leg is now 9' 10", and I want the same length on that leg as I've got in staging.  Right now one of those two lengths will define the max train length for the layout.

[eric220]

I played around with Keystone and got a MUCH better design!  The tracks are now accurate to the prototype, although flipped, and there’s room for a 1’ x 2’ depot inside the wye, which is also accurate placement. The new design complies with my design criteria, and I checked the clearances in the back yard to make sure that everything would fit. I also had to rebuild Denver, since my program for some reason decided not to save my work. While I was doing that, I realized that there was no point in truncating the staging tracks, since I could easily fit the whole 10 feet. Another testament to the difficulty I’m having mentally translating this to real space.

[Dave V]

Question... Do you ever envision a meet out on the line?  If so, a passing siding might be in order, allowing more flexible ops.  But the cons to that are the obvious additional track expense but also that it would detract a bit from the lonely single-track-in-the-wilderness narrow gauge vibe. 

[eric220]

Question... Do you ever envision a meet out on the line?  If so, a passing siding might be in order, allowing more flexible ops.  But the cons to that are the obvious additional track expense but also that it would detract a bit from the lonely single-track-in-the-wilderness narrow gauge vibe. 

Prototype accuracy! There was no runaround between Dillon and the end of the line at Keystone. Traffic was light enough that there was not really a concern that two trains might meet. That said, the way I’ve designed it the team track at Keystone and the runaround at Dickey are both long enough to hold a whole train. I could have all three trains out at once, with one running and the other two on those sidings.

[Dave V]

Wow!  Funny because the RGS is kind of my reference for Colorado narrow gauge and they had dozens of passing sidings along their 162-mile route.  But it was built with pre-1893 Silver Crash traffic in mind and for a brief period, saw traffic levels that would have made any Eastern road jealous.   Of course by my era a single steam train per district every 3 or 4 days was noteworthy.  Only the Goose ran daily.

[eric220]

If I were modeling Dillon, that would be a different story. Dillon featured a runaround and interchange with the D&RG. Likewise, if I were modeling the mainline High Line or even more so the mainline between Como and Denver, runarounds would be a must. The Keystone branch was built as the other end of the Colorado Central extension from Georgetown to Silver Plume over The Loop. It was mainly a UP-funded bluff to create a short route from Leadville to Denver that put pressure on the D&RG to give in to their demands. There really wasn’t enough traffic east of Dillon to justify the branch’s existence.

[eric220]

The Christmas season was good to me, even if I was buying stuff for myself.    My garden railroad stable has grown.



The AristoCraft C-16 in the back currently lettered as #13 is destined to become #51 (later renumbered as #191).  I'm also planning to paint it to match the LGB mogul in the middle, currently lettered as #71.  This is my newest acquisition, and it is VERY used.  So far I had to glue the pilot back on and rip out the broken congdon stack and replace it with a spare.  (I also put one of those on #51.)  As you can see, there's a handrail stanchion missing, and the tender coupler is broken.  Oh well, that's what you get when you get a good price: a project!  I'm probably going to renumber #71 as either #40 or #69.  I'm planning to acquire another one of these and renumber it to the other one.  #40 became C&S #5, and #69 became C&S #6, and C&S #5 and #6 are the two locomotives that I have in Nn3.  Of course the AccuCraft #6 in the front is my precious.  The only projects on that locomotive are reinstalling some of the cab window glass and installing electronics.  Interestingly, you are looking at three different scales here.  #6 is 1:20.3, #71 is 1:22.5, and #13 is 1:24.  That translates to, respectively, 3' gauge on 45mm track, meter gauge on 45mm track, and 1":2' toy scale.  I had thoughts about modifying #13 with an LGB cab and tender to beef it up a little, but I've decided against it.  #13 is a Baldwin prototype, #71 is a Cooke prototype, and #6 is a Mason prototype.  There was enough variation in narrow gauge railroading that I'm just not going to worry about it.

The other project that I have dug into is turnouts.  My January budget was supposed to go toward a Llagas Creek #4 turnout and a couple pieces of "flex" track to test #6 on, but then I got the opportunity to acquire #71, and there goes the budget.  Still, I got ahold of harp style switch stands from Ozark Miniatures and Phil's Narrow Gauge.  The Ozark stands are closer to the DSP&P prototype, but they are white metal and don't latch.  Overall, they're too fragile for actual switch throws; they're more appropriate as cosmetic indicators.  The Phil's stand is BEEFY.  This thing was designed to throw turnouts.



It needs a different target, which is no small task as the round one is cast on there, but it should be easily doable.  I'm also playing around with measurements and weighing options for mounting.  I want at least some of the turnouts to be spring loaded, at least in one direction, so I can run the layout casually.  I have to be able to wye into staging, and the mainline has two turnouts at each turnaround that will want to be sprung.  There are some options for linkage, as the Phil's stand has several connection points as well as detents for a three-way switch, so there's a center position for a "half" throw.  This is a Llagas Creek turnout of the same type that I'm going to be attaching them to, courtesy of my dad's layout.



The throw is 3/8", but we'll get to the nitty gritty of measurements in the next post.  This is the look I'm going for, taken at Jefferson Tank on the DSP&P.

[wm3798]

You live in a semi arid part of California, so treated lumber is probably okay... but you might be better off with cedar.  A bit more expensive, but far more stable, especially in a ground contact horizontal scenario.  The southern yellow pine used for treated can be very open grain due to it's rapid growth, which, as the treatment dries tends to make it more suitable for boat ribs than sub roadbed.

When I built my garden layout, I dug a trench about 8" deep, put a couple of inches of pea gravel in the trench, then ran a line of cinder blocks to form the ROW.  The pea gravel made it easy to level and provided drainage, and the blocks, once packed back in with soil, provided a good, solid stable base.  At key points where I needed to secure the track, I could insert a block of treated 4x4 into the core of the block to catch screws.  Everywhere else, the blocks were laid solid side up for the track to lay on.  Then I filled everything around the blocks with landscaping stone to create the finished subroadbed. 

Once the track was all installed, I used a couple hundred pounds of chicken grit (very finely crushed granite, but still "rocks" and not sand) for the ballast.  The initial results were very good.

Sadly in our high humidity/long mud season climate, the weeds were a constant problem, and the project was eventually abandoned and liquidated.

But I can tell you, there's a pretty solid roadbed still in place down there in Cambridge!!

Lee

[nuno81291]

As a hardscape contractor I would avoid pea gravel, and stick to the smallest chip or angular stone you can find. We build retaining walls and base everything on 3/4 clear, but 1/2 or less (some have 3/8 around us) would be suitable for the application. Easy to level, tamp, great drainage. Pea gravel here is generally too round for any sort of non decorative use.

Following with interest, love garden railways and would love to build one if I wasn’t so invested in HO and N. A dream of mine is to sell an elaborate hardscape design with water feature to some rail fan to incorporate a garden railway layout.

[eric220]

@wm3798 I'm liking the idea of ditch/fine gravel/cinder blocks.  I priced it out quickly, and buying the blocks one at a time from Home Depot, I could do the whole thing for around $200.  Compared to the track, that's a rounding error.

Continuing on the idea of measurements and turnouts from my last post, here are some more thoughts.  This is what the harp stand would look like mounted to the stock Llagas Creek headblocks.  I made the measurements from the inside of the rail so that I could mock it up with LGB track without having to account for the width of the Llagas Creek track versus the LGB track.



That gets a hard NOPE.  The swing of the throw arm comes WAY too close to the rolling stock.  There is actually a possibility here, but I'll discuss that further down.

My understanding is that these turnouts are basically hand made to order.  I could probably get longer headblocks put on.  That might look something like this.



Much better clearance, and it looks much closer to the prototype photo above.  There is also another possibility here.  Instead of trying to order custom longer headblocks, I could add them on myself.  That opens up the possibility of adding some room for a spring mechanism, thusly.



I do need some of the turnouts to be sprung.  This seems to be the simplest way to get it done, but I'm open to other ideas.  In addition to wanting the spring action for operating sake, a sprung linkage would also allow for a nice, tight throw in both directions by overthrowing the stand a bit.  Here are the linkage possibilities.



The measurements are accurate there, even if they don't line up perfectly in the photo.  The throw does have some play to it, so it actually would be possible to just link up the top hole directly to the throw bar and fudge the 3/8" throw.  Still, adding the spring allows for less wiggle.  That brings me back to the possibility I mentioned above.  The harp stand is a three-position stand.  Prototypically, the center detent shouldn't be there for a simple two-way turnout, but there it is.  The throw of the longest hole is 3/4" from left to right.  That means it's 3/8" side to center, or exactly the right distance to throw the points.  I could set it up so that the turnouts use the center position and one side position.  The benefits are that setup would fit on the stock headblocks, and the harp stands would more clearly indicate normal (vertical) or reverse (leaning).  The drawbacks are that's not how the prototypes worked, there is no "over throw" to be taken up by a spring to ensure a tight throw, and it means modifying the stock headblocks to accommodate a spring.  Thoughts?

[wm3798]

As a hardscape contractor I would avoid pea gravel, and stick to the smallest chip or angular stone you can find. We build retaining walls and base everything on 3/4 clear, but 1/2 or less (some have 3/8 around us) would be suitable for the application. Easy to level, tamp, great drainage. Pea gravel here is generally too round for any sort of non decorative use.

Following with interest, love garden railways and would love to build one if I wasn’t so invested in HO and N. A dream of mine is to sell an elaborate hardscape design with water feature to some rail fan to incorporate a garden railway layout.

Now that you mention it, I did use red chip stone for the base.  Pea gravel does move around too much.
Lee