Trunkeyville, the module

[randgust]

So there's no finishing the scenery here without figuring out that highway bridge.

I finally got out to seeing this one, and yep, that's it.   I updated the web page with the photos I took:
https://bridgehunter.com/pa/warren/617210056140010/
This bridge, done in 1911, appears to be a pretty much stock road bridge of the period.  I do know two things, one that that washout photo of the depot and PRR track area would have also wiped out the road bridge out of sight to the right, and second, that what is there now is a concrete culvert and not all that old.  So something had to be there in the middle, and if I have to guess, I'll guess something like this.

Given some dimensions, the only adjustment I decided to make was the thickness of the main trusses, to agree with the thickness of the Central Valley "X" web trusses I had left over.   I also had a lot of CV riveted gusset plates left over from the Hickory Bridge project, as that one was all pin-connected.     Other than that, it's all Evergreen styrene strip and sheet, with some added Archer rivets:





Painted it 'charcoal black' and put the wood deck on it (which is still there today).   I have yet to see an aluminum-painted road bridge before the 1930's.  And, I didn't really want to bridge to attract more eye attention than the depot, that's the focal point of the module.

[johnb]

So there's no finishing the scenery here without figuring out that highway bridge.

I finally got out to seeing this one, and yep, that's it.   I updated the web page with the photos I took:
https://bridgehunter.com/pa/warren/617210056140010/
This bridge, done in 1911, appears to be a pretty much stock road bridge of the period.  I do know two things, one that that washout photo of the depot and PRR track area would have also wiped out the road bridge out of sight to the right, and second, that what is there now is a concrete culvert and not all that old.  So something had to be there in the middle, and if I have to guess, I'll guess something like this.

Given some dimensions, the only adjustment I decided to make was the thickness of the main trusses, to agree with the thickness of the Central Valley "X" web trusses I had left over.   I also had a lot of CV riveted gusset plates left over from the Hickory Bridge project, as that one was all pin-connected.     Other than that, it's all Evergreen styrene strip and sheet, with some added Archer rivets:





Painted it 'charcoal black' and put the wood deck on it (which is still there today).   I have yet to see an aluminum-painted road bridge before the 1930's.  And, I didn't really want to bridge to attract more eye attention than the depot, that's the focal point of the module.

that is great

[Cajonpassfan]

Yes Randy, that's a great little bridge. Nice job building it!
Otto K.

[sirenwerks]

Love the bridge, Randy!

[randgust]

The next construction detail I have to figure out is the oil loading dock.  Although it's just a siding scenically on a module, in a T-trak setup it's the split of the inner main line to the back, so I have to preserve clearances good enough for double-stacks!

I'm kind of in the 1920's era here on my logging railroad modules, and the oil boom regionally was about 1860-1880.  And after that time pipelines were moving all the oil, not tank cars.    Trunkeyville, as a pipeline loadout village, was already pretty much done.   So I'm leaving the spur in, but imagining that the facilities haven't been used much for a long time.   There was a fire there too, that pretty much totaled what industry ever had ever been there, but I rather like the concept of old and decrepit oil loading facilities on a weed-grown spur for the module.

I found this great picture of what looks like an 1870's tank car loading facility, I'm guessing around Rouseville.   Notice the construction details, the pipes on the deck, and the odd thing that the man looks like he's filling the tank not from the dome, but a fitting on top of the tank.  The loading dock itself looks just like lumber sorting docks.  I have no idea what the little tramway was for.



I deliberately set the retaining wall back a bit from the spur track to make some space for something like a loading dock, we'll see how that goes.  As far as for cars, one of the reasons I went with this module concept was the first run of the Intermountain 8000 gallon tank cars that are very small and rather old in design - and with a refinery on them that is on the same line as Trunkeyville - Wolfs Head.   Wolfs Head was operating as a rail-served packaging plant up until about 2000 or so, I have shots of Conrail serving it.  Anyway, here's the tank cars:
https://www.intermountain-railway.com/n/images/66309wl.jpg
and the history of the brand name:  http://www.oil150.com/essays/article?article_id=161
You always see those oddball tank cars and wonder if they ever existed, and this one did.

[OldEastRR]

I know you had to work with what you have, but the bridge components look pretty bulky compared to the picture. It looks more "mainline" than "backwoods". That may detract from your overall 'funky branchline" look. Are you going to add the horizontal railings on both  sides of the roadway?

The tank cars probably did have filling hatches right on the top of the tank. There is that oily patch in front of the first dome.  I don't see any sign of them on any of the domes in the picture. However it looks like the filling pipes ran from the main running along the floor deck and used elbow pipes to get to the loading hatch. The only puzzling thing is why the near car is filling from a low pipe position on the pipeline, and the far car has the pipe extended much higher up before it goes to that one.
The man's right arm is behind him. That and the tophat make me think he's one of the owners there to have his picture taken at the site. I surmise he's there examining the process (or that's what the picture is doing, showing him doing that).
The high filling pipe is some ways in front of him, a car away I assume. The cars themselves look like tanks were fitted into cutouts made in plain flatcar decking -- the lower curve set down below the decking. Then some straps put around to hold them there.

[randgust]

Yeah, I'll be adding the handrails after I get it installed.   Also have to install beams on the deck edges, and the handrails go into that.

The styrene strips I used were .020x.030 and reasonably miserable to work with.  I considered trying to fabricate the webbed cross section braces and decided I couldn't do that well, so using the Central Valley ones dictated the width of the truss member.  It's really a pretty tiny bridge, only 45' long and the sides come up maybe 5'.   Hard to fabricate, I set up an assembly jig on a scale-sized photo.   There was more interior bracing that I simply couldn't do.   The highway bridge will really only be visible from the side on its module placement.

What's interesting about these small old riveted highway truss bridges (and there are at least two of them in that area) is they have survived this long because there were no weight limits posted and still aren't.   The 1897 Hickory Valley pin-connected truss bridge over the Allegheny was apparently built for 50 tons, and after the track was removed was used for my fathers fully-loaded lumber trucks going to the railhead for decades.  Made it to 120 years old in service.   They really overbuilt some of the early designs of metal bridges.   Because they were riveted, small, and not pinned, I'm assuming they were constructed offsite somewhat as prefab bridges.

I agree on the tank cars, I just think it's incredibly strange to not fill at the dome.   Found this page:
http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/TankCars/MetalCars.html
http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/TankCars/Builders.html
The "Star Line" and "Empire Line" were the same owners as the Trunkeyville pipeline, very first horizontal steel tank cars and I think that's whats in that previous photo.  If you look at that page and see "our 1917 model" you can see the similarity of that car to the Intermountain 8000 gallon car. 

None of the history I've read would support that this was an active crude tank loading area after the 1893 (or so) fire, but the purpose of the T-trak module to split the main tracks out operationally dictates I have to so something with that back track, so an oil siding it is.   Today, it's an amazingly isolated spot almost lost to history, literally a road in and no road out other than the way you came.  If it weren't for summer camps on the river it would be completely gone.

I have a mirror-image of this track plan to re-merge the tracks to standard T-trak geometry, and the module is rough-built and called "Jamison".   That was just south of West Hickory on the same PRR line.   Other industries on this line included sand and gravel loading.   

What's tempting me though is making an animated, working, 'jerker line' well site scene in N scale.  There just wasn't room to do that on the Trunkeyville module.   Just to see how much fun that could be to model.....  this is an operating and restored system at the Drake Well museum....
 

[OldEastRR]

The bridge only looks "thick" when viewed from the end. Side on may not be so bad. It's the thickness of the top beams that looks off. How wide are the prototype beams?

How did they unload the tank cars? From the bottom? I think the uneven height of the filling pipes in the picture may be due to the nature of gravity feed fluids: at different heights relative to the top level of the liquid in the tank, the oil would flow out at different rates, and even stop in whatever pipe eventually was below the oil level in the tank. Without pumps to regulate the flow, they had to be ingenious with how they filled multiple cars at once.
Aren't the domes just expansion space for when the oil gets warm?

[nkalanaga]

"Aren't the domes just expansion space for when the oil gets warm?"

That was always my understanding.  Maybe, with the gravity feed, they filled them this way to make sure the dome stayed empty?  If filled through the dome, the tank could be overfilled, with no expansion space.

[randgust]

The Trunkeyville module will be part of the 'Dave Ferrarri Pickup TTRAK' layout at Altoona, PA on Aug. 3-5.

It's pretty much finished, although there's always more detail to add.