Illinois Central/Canadian National Champaign Branch

[nscalemike]

Wow, I had to go all the way back to page 5 to find this, then I get the warning message this topic has not been posted to in 30 days, last post March 27, and last progress report was on February 11.  I'd say it's been a while!  Well, I'm back . . . .

A very busy summer kept me away from the layout.  Summer is always busy for me but then you add on the now 1+ year old, I've been really busy this year.  With the weather starting to turn I made my way back to the layout room a couple months back.  Finished a few projects that was held over from last year: installed 3 more Tortoise switch machines (1 to go), temporarily spiked down the last 8 feet of track, cleaned the room, cleaned the workbench, etc.  Nothing very photo worthy, but still pleased that I was spending time in the room and getting stuff done.

Last week I officially started on the layout again.  I went out and took over 200 pictures along the line I model.  I took general pictures, background pictures, and detail pictures.  My goal is to replicate the early/mid fall, so I only have a couple week time period to get the colors right.  It was a nice sunny day, parked around the middle of the line, and walked each way.  I also grabbed some measurements while I was out too.

So with photos, drawings, and measurements in hand, I started planning some of my projects.  I have 4 bridges (2 highway and 2 railroad) which will be a focal point on the layout scenery wise.  I found all the pieces I needed and placed an order for the materials.  They arrived early this week construction began.

The first one is a short 25' RR bridge over a very small drainage creek.  I figured it would be an easy, quick project.  Here it is without the staining:





I posted earlier about how to stain this, then a friend of mine gave me a couple suggestions also.  I first tried oil paints on the inside of the retaining walls, but wasn't pleased with the result.  I then remembered I had a bottle of India Ink.  I mixed some up with alcohol and dipped the whole bridge in for about 5 minutes.  Let it dry, then repeated.  This is the result:





And one with the local backing over it:



I'm very pleased with how this turned out.  Excuse the pink ground.  I had carved too much of the foam out last spring, so I am working on building it back up with layers of spackling.  Eventually all the posts will be set firmly in the ground and not hovering above!  It was still drying when I took these photos, and pink means still wet!  This is what I was going after:





I'll build the ground up to about the angled beam on the posts, and then work on blending it all together with scenery.  It is great being able to say progess is happening again and I hope my updates will be a bit more often, at least through the winter!

Thanks for reading,
Mike

[GaryHinshaw]

Welcome back!  Looks very nice, especially with a train on it.

[Chris333]

If the rest of the layout comes out like the bridge you'll have a winner!

[Scottl]

It looks great, and nice that you are back posting.

[packers#1]

Excited to see this layout still progressing, nice job on the bridge!

[Spades]

Anyone know if there is a n scale version of this car:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=449100

Thanks for any help!
Mike

If you shorten a red caboose ortner by two bays you would have the right number of ribs but not  in the the proper place or spacing. http://www.blwnscale.com/rc-ortner.htm

G

[nscalemike]

Thanks guys for the kind words.  It is thanks to all the good work here which got me going again, so thanks to all you for the posting you do!  I hope to be a little more active this winter, getting ready to start the next one soon.

Mike

[davefoxx]

Looking good, Mike.  Did the prototype have guardrails?  If so, try code 40 rails.  You can weather them, and the tops will not get polished when you clean your track.  Makes it more realistic looking.

Hope this helps,
DFF

[nscalemike]

Looking good, Mike.  Did the prototype have guardrails?  If so, try code 40 rails.  You can weather them, and the tops will not get polished when you clean your track.  Makes it more realistic looking.

Hope this helps,
DFF

Thanks Dave!  As for the guardrails, neither of the two bridges have them.  Not sure why not, maybe because it is just a low traffic branch line? Or, the fact this bridge is only ~25' long, but the next one will be about ~80' and it doesn't either.  It makes it easier for me but I'm sure there will be some questions too!



And the pending one:


Mike

[auburnrails]

I really enjoy what you're doing.  I love the push-pull style of operation, and that list prototype pic is screaming to be part of a model railroad. 

-Dave

[OldEastRR]

I believe the IC trackage shown was once part of the Illinois Terminal electric operations, so maybe as an interurban it wasn't required to put guard rails on bridges.

[BOK]

Just to clarify.

The Champaign branch was at one time the Havanna line or Hack line which ran from Champaign out to White Heath (Jct. with the Decatur branch) and then terminating on the Illinois River at Havanna, IL. It was generally a low revenue line serving small industry and was abandoned in pieces in the 80s.

The Illinois Terminal had their own line from Decatur to the west part of Champaign,(Stayleys) which ran along side the IC Hack line. Originally, the IT used the city streets to operate through Champaign-Urbana to reach their destination at Danville. In the 1920-30s  the IT built freight belt lines around several Illinois cities to reduce congestion and speed up freight trains by only running passenger service on the streets. However, the IT was not able to construct a belt around C-U and so negotiated trackage rights over the IC from Staleys to North Champaign where they also got trackage rights on the connecting Wabash Sidney branch through Urbana and then on their own track along side the P&E (Peoria and Eastern, Big Four CCC&St L, NYC) to Danville.

One interesting part of operations of the Hack line freight was that in order to connect with the branch, the train backed, south out of the IC North yard,  through the manual interlocking governing movement over both the P&E and Wabash/IT with the caboose leading, until the locomotive cleared the west switch to head west on the Hack line. Operating in the opposite direction the Hack job would pull onto the IC main off the branch  heading south to clear the junction switch before reversing direction and backing north, caboose leading into the yard. This was also the way the Humko-Kraft foods switch job operated in order to reach those industries. In recent years, however, the CN, now owning the IC and anxious to remove un-needed track abandoned their south connection to the branch in favor of obtaining trackage rights over a short, north connection of the NS/P&E line which would then allow a straight move for the switch job from North yard to Humko with no backup required. Of course this was after they had already removed the one, long, run-around track at the industry which now mandated the use of a caboose for a shoving platform on that long move. Rather short sighted thinking.

Having worked almost fifty years on the railroad I am continually, amazed how some railroad managers (those who generally never spent a day switching cars or running engines) make dumb mistakes like removing track, switches and cabooses for safe shoves to enable effecient operations. I realize that it is always done to save expenses but few take time to ask is it a good idea?

But in closing this, I will say that not all railroads do this. The large conglomerate of railroads in our company are operated by folks who started as conductors, engineers and then sometimes went into management. With this background and actual experience many have become smart leaders making good decisions in our company. One of those decisions which I had a hand in, was changing the requirement for trains to stop before a conductor could get on or off. Since early this year, we once again allowed this practice to get on and off moving equipment (4 MPH Max.) which has been a real morale booster and stopped the jerky, time-wasting practice of having to stop a movement to get on or off.

These are things most modelers don't think about but they really do lead to a smoother operation no matter the size of train.

Barry 

[nscalemike]

While I have started construction on the second railroad bridge, the long 100' one, I stopped once I got all the ties installed on the beams.  That took me about a week to get them all installed.

I then moved back to the area of the first bridge and started on some scenery work.  I had previously gone out and took several photos for reference and the backdrop.  I put together a panoramic photo of the first area and took it to Kinkos to get printed off.  It is approximately 4" tall and 29" long.  I cut the white out and attached it to the back drop with the 3M spray glue.  I also carved the drainage ditch and painted the foam a cheap brown color.  I sifted on fine ground cover over the wet paint.  I had a bit of a gap at the bottom where it didn't meet the layout foam, so I hid that with some ground cover also.  So far I am happy with how this is turning out.  It is very nice to have something other than pink and blue!



I still need to blend the photo sky into the painted sky.  Maybe I'll do that tonight.



Sky doesn't matter when you crop it in close enough!



Also put in the second backdrop at the end of the track.  I will hide the joint between the two backdrops with trees, and this entire area will be heavy with trees also. 

Thanks for looking!

Mike

[Scottl]

It looks really good.  The photos together with nice ground vegetation all come together very well.  It is always amazing to me what a transformation basic scenery does to change a layout.

[Bendtracker1]

Looking good Mike!