Making a Prototype - Colorado

[eric220]

I've been working on a thought exercise, and at Dr. Hotballz’s encouraging, I thought I would share.  As I stated planning my next layout, I got to thinking about what the fictional parts of the Transcontinental Pennsylvania Railroad that I'm trying to model would actually look like.  On my last trip to Colorado, I really began envisioning what the rail path would look like.  Several months ago, in a fit of inspiration, I started stitching together screenshots of Google Maps with the terrain contours displayed.  I built a map of the entire line from Idaho Springs to Silverthorn and Frisco.  I carefully reset the ruler to match the scale of the map, and I started surveying.  The point of this exercise was to establish the prototype that I could refer to as I plan the model.

As background, and as a starting point for my survey, in my alternate history the Pennsylvania Railroad completed the transcontinental line and began service in 1905.  Part of the patchwork of railroads that were acquired to complete the line was the Colorado and Southern.  The crossing of the Continental Divide in Colorado depicted here was built in the 19-teens by the Pennsylvania Railroad after they tried to run transcontinental service over the Colorado Midland, but weren’t pleased with the results.  The line was also motivated by the sudden loss of access to the CM (the CM was jointly owned by the D&RGW and the Colorado Southern).  The depicted line was built in a hurry to close the resulting gap between Denver and Glenwood Springs.  The line runs from the Coors Brewery in Golden up the Colorado Central right of way to Idaho Springs, climbs up to Empire, then to Silver Plume.  The PRR bored a tunnel under Mt. Sniktau (Loveland Pass) to cross the continental divide, with an eastern portal at Bakeville, and a western portal along the Snake River.  In honor of the man who spearheaded the effort to expand to the west coast before rising to be president of the railroad, the tunnel was named the Alexander Cassatt Tunnel.  The line then follows the Snake River to its confluence with the Blue River, and then follows the Blue River to Kremmling.  At that point, the line turns west and follows the modern rail line.

Here's what I've come up with.  From Idaho Springs to the east portal of the Cassatt tunnel:



And from the west portal of the Cassatt Tunnel to the Blue River:



Now we come to an addition, that I admit requires a healthy dose of "because I want it."  I love Colorado narrow gauge, and the old DSP&P-come-C&S.  Around the monitor stand of the computer that I am currently typing on sits a loop of Z scale snap track, on which can be found a MicroTrains Nn3 C&S B-3-C Mogul, six C&S boxcars, and a C&S bobber.  This is a bit of a shoehorn, but the impetus is that I want a narrow gauge branch to run on the layout.  So here's the excuse to run narrow gauge: politics and local governments.  If you look at the survey, you'll notice that the town of Georgetown was completely circumvented.  In order to gain the necessary altitude from Idaho Springs to Cassatt Tunnel, the railroad took the fork below Georgetown that US 40 takes up to Berthuod Pass.  At the town of Empire, just like at Horseshoe Curve, the rail line makes a full 180 and climbs over the ridge back toward Silver Plume.  The result is a line that passes Georgetown several hundred feet above the modern route of I70.  If you recall, the line was built in a hurry to address national level concerns by managers in Philadelphia, not for the benefit of the local towns.  As a result, when the line was finalized and construction began, the citizens of Georgetown sued the PRR in Colorado.  (Side note, in this era of history, I speculate that the D&RGW interests held power in CO state government, and so the state government was somewhat hostile toward the PRR.)  The result of the lawsuit was that the PRR was forced to maintain regular freight and passenger service to Georgetown.  In a fit of vindictive compliance, the PRR continued to operate the narrow gauge line from Idaho Springs to Georgetown, which technically fulfilled the requirements of the lawsuit.  The result was similar to how the Burlington actually operated the C&S narrow gauge.  It was almost a hobby operation, with next to no money spent on it by the parent railroad.

Narrow gauge chapter 2: Tourism and Rebirth.  In actual history, in 1936, J.C. Blickensderfer opened Loveland Ski area near what would have been the east portal of the Cassatt Tunnel.  In 1945, Max Dercum and others moved up to Summit County and opened Arapaho Basin ski area a few miles above what would have been the west portal of the Cassatt Tunnel in 1946.  Dercum and his wife helped plan several ski resorts, including their pet project above their house, Keystone Mountain.  Dercum looked for a corporate sponsor for a long time, finally finding the Purina Company, who provided the money to develop the Keystone Ski Resort in the early 1970's.  To me, it's not a huge leap for me that Dercum would have approached a PRR that literally ran right past the base of the mountain with the proposal to develop a ski resort called Keystone.  Coming back to my alternate history, the PRR developed the resort in the early 1950's, so the layout, like the last one, will depict Keystone in its opening season.

Bringing this back to the narrow gauge, there was a stage coach line in the 1800’s in Summit County called the Summit Stage.  Today, it operates as a bus line that connects the various ski resorts.  In the alternate history, the PRR saw the possibility for ski traffic, and tourism in general.  The railroad used government subsidies (this is several decades after the D&RGW-influenced hostility) to build out a rail service to provide the same service that the Summit Stage provides, with Keystone being the only resort directly served by the PRR mainline.  In order to make the climb up to A-Basin, the railroad chose to use narrow gauge.  The railroad still owned the DSP&P right of way to Breckenridge and Copper Mountain (the former opened in the early 1960’s, and the latter opened in the early 1970’s), and built a line paralleling I70 from Copper to Vail (which also opened in the early 1960’s).  As a side note, they also rebuilt the Georgetown Loop line, and extended that line up to Loveland Ski Area.  In order to get the line up and running quickly, a third rail was laid on one of the two lines through the Cassatt Tunnel so that the heavy maintenance facility near Empire could serve equipment on all of the narrow gauge.  Filling in the narrow gauge lines looks like this:

East end:



West end:

[eric220]

Now on to the modeling.  Here are the highlights of the areas that I plan to model.  First up, Idaho Springs:



Not depicted is the interchange for goods going to/from Georgetown.  In the model, this is the east end of the narrow gauge branch.  It will include a small yard and engine servicing.

Next up is the split at Empire Junction up to the east portal of the Tunnel:



 This will obviously require a lot of compression.  Basically what I’m planning is that the mainline disappears up to Empire, and the layout follows the narrow gauge through Georgetown and The Loop before rejoining the mainline, which will have had the chance to go through a hidden loop to gain the necessary altitude.

I know there’s a lot going on here, so here’s a detail shot of Empire Junction.  Where the narrow gauge joins the mainline, the three tracks would travel together along the mountainside.  This also shows the location of the narrow gauge shops:



Finally we have Keystone:



This the scene that inspired this exercise, and it provided the most direction as far as what the final scene will look like.  The double passing of the narrow gauge lines above the west portal of the Cassatt Tunnel would be a signature scene on the prototype, and was not something that I planned.  Just to explain a little here, the large siding is a passenger bypass.  Where the siding and the narrow gauge come together along US 6 is the location of the Keystone Lodge.  It is a 7 stories hotel, but the lobby off of US 6 is on the 6th floor.  Mountains.  The standard gauge siding comes in on the ground floor along Keystone Village, and the narrow Gauge follows US 6 and comes in on the 6th floor entrance.  The connection between the narrow and standard gauge gives the Summit Service access to the mountain base, and also to the three rail connection through the Cassatt Tunnel.

Any thoughts?

[Dave V]

OK, in this world, what becomes of the South Park Line through Como and over Boreas?  It seems like it would be obviated by a dual gauge tunnel.

[eric220]

The high line over Boreas and the rest of the former DSP&P, as much as it pains me, would have been abandoned.  Basically all that’s left in the era I’m modeling is the line from Dillon to Leadville up Tenmile creek and a short branch from Dillon to Breckenridge.

Side note, if the narrow gauge bug ever really takes me over, I’m definitely doing the high line from Como to Dillon.

[wm3798]

Boy, I thought I was overthinking my layout!  Yeesh!

[Point353]

Boy, I thought I was overthinking my layout!  Yeesh!

Wait for that until you're building a set of four triple-length T-Trak modules to recreate the Salisbury Viaduct.

[eric220]

Boy, I thought I was overthinking my layout!  Yeesh!

Armchair modeling. I don’t have the space to build the layout yet, so I work on the story.

[Philip H]

We have all seen a lot of well thought out proto-lanced layouts over the years - the Utah Belt, the V&O, The Allegheny Midland, The Cat Mountain and Santa Fe.  You have definitely done the intellectual heavy lifting to add your some day layout to that pantheon.

That said, unless you end up with a warehouse sized space, I worry your chosen LDE's are probably not really doable in most modern spaces without either significant selective compression or a real compromise of your concept.  I don't know the area well enough to know how to think about shrinking it, and we have seen here how a well thought out compression strategy can work for a modern era layout.  But it worries me.  Especially since I think your last move may have impacted the availability of your gandy dancer corps. 

If you had to choose one or two full LDEs as you set them out above - which ones would you grab?  If you can't make that choice - how small are you really willing to go to keep all the locations in play?

[C855B]

What he said.

I had to cut a bunch of major "wanna haves" from my original concept, and relatively speaking I have a large space. Maybe not a warehouse, but still big. As things execute I'm still wringing my hands - more like gritting my teeth - over the selective compression necessary to make things fit. Granted, I could go with two levels and theoretically get twice as much railroad, but that adds construction and maintenance complexity that move the project from "uhh... pretty ambitious" to "you gotta be kidding".

[eric220]

relatively speaking I have a large space

Vote for understatement of the year! 

I hear what you guys are saying.  There's a lot to model there.  This might help:

The space I'm working with is an 11x20 garage bay.  I'm also toying with a plan to eek out another two feet of encroachment.  The design concept for the layout is one continuous nolix with a total of four partial levels, the lowest of which would be scenic'd staging.  the sketch below should give you a general idea of what I'm thinking.  It also includes a peek at another design I've been working on. 



In this design, at Empire the standard gauge would go into hidden track and run all the way to the left wall and back to gain the altitude necessary to meet up with the narrow gauge at the top of The Loop.  The tunnel would be the turnaround at the end of the loop, which would allow me to use tighter curves inside.  Keystone Mountain would be on the opposite side of the peninsula from The Loop, and the passenger station and lodge would be in the encroachment.

[nkalanaga]

I'm looking forward to how you build dual-gauge turnouts.  I've done it, and they work, but they are a pain.  Code 40 is easier than code 55, as the rails fit so close together in C55 there's hardly room for the points to move.

As for "overthinking", I did the same for my narrow gauge in Montana - including the "alternate" geology for the south-end mining district.  Then I modeled last couple miles on the south end, as "moving scenery", and interchange, for my standard gauge.  No, I didn't need all of the rest, but at least I know the line COULD be built.  And the mining district generates a lot of traffic for my standard gauge.

[eric220]

I'm looking forward to how you build dual-gauge turnouts.

In short, the plan is to cheat. I don’t plan on having any functional dual gauge track. It will all be cosmetic.

[wm3798]

As a shareholder in the PRR in 1903, I would wonder what folly would have my invest in a torturously expensive line that takes our attention from the heart of industrial might of the entire world!  Billions would be needed, to do what, pull a few tons lead?  There are existing federally funded routes already in place, and the Northern Pacific proves that there already too many.
I might support an amalgamation with James J. Hill to coordinate traffic with the Great Northern and CB&Q, but I vote my proxy NO to this mad adventure...

[Point353]

As a shareholder in the PRR in 1903, I would wonder what folly would have my invest in a torturously expensive line that takes our attention from the heart of industrial might of the entire world!  Billions would be needed, to do what, pull a few tons lead?

Plus, the PRR was already well into the planning and building of the Hudson and East River tunnels and Penn Station.
Or, would that project have been postponed - or even never happened - in this alternate version of history? 
Maybe this mythical transcontinental PRR had limitless financial resources upon which to draw?

[Dave V]

Eric and I have had a few conversations about this over beers when he's in Colorado...  Dave's take is that you can really only do each prototype true justice by keeping them in separated, isolated lives...  PRR in the industrial East and the Colorado narrow gauge in its proper lonesome high-country isolation.  After all, the whole reason the narrow gauge teetered on longer than it should have is precisely because it was the only game in town.  Even by the end of World War II most of the main roads through the high country were single-lane gravel and dirt.

Then there's the cognitive dissonance of Pennsy equipment with its pinstripes and keystones against the Colorado Rockies.  With the exception of the climb out of Altoona, most of Pennsy was designed for high-speed service in densely populated centers on the flat or in river valleys without 14-ers.

Then again, Eric's alternate history is not only well thought out, but makes for great storytelling.  "What ifs" are a lot of fun and many a great model railroad has been born of "what if."

So what's a guy to do?  I considered keeping the Juniata Division while I built my RGS so that both itches could be scratched.  But then I decided that liquidating the PRR would give me an influx of cash up front to expedite the RGS.  Now that I'm back in HO, though, I can't help but eyeball other empty spaces in the house with a vision of the PRR Lewisburg & Tyrone Secondary on a shelf... 

Back to Eric...  In your history, I see no motivation for the Denver & Salt Lake to ever dig the Moffat Tunnel, suggesting that the D&RGW Tennessee Pass line is the Pennsy's only real competition over the Divide.