Prototypes Someone Else Should Model

[CRL]

Found them.  Spring and summer editions 2012.
Two part article teaching the line


I'll be giving this a fresh read!  Les than 4 miles in length, 2 major quarries, PRR mixed trains pulled by a Trix B6, a junction yard sorting cars for the B&O, PRR, and WM...  what's not to love?

But… it’s in the EAST, with all those TREES you have to build. 🤢

😜

[wm3798]

Just make a few every night...

The WM's part of the branch is only 4 miles long from Eckart Junction to Ellerslie.  In that length were two quarries, an interchange yard with B&O and PRR connections, and prewar, even a roundhouse!
That's a lot of railroading in 4 miles.

Lee

[R L Smith]

For me, I'd like to see a really well rendered sleepy rural line.  Location and era is almost immaterial, as I would be just as enchanted watching a modern MP15 switching a remote quarry in Idaho as I would a well worn Penn Central GP9 creeping down a weedy strip of rust on the Eastern Shore, or a high stepping 4-4-0 plying the curves and trestles of the Ma & Pa.

In addition to those noted above, I would include the following candidates, and I'm sure I'm overlooking many.

WM State Line branch, Cumberland to Bedford (steam era)
Bachmann Valley Ry (northern Carroll County, 19th century era)
South Branch Valley (B&O transition era, or modern shortline era)
B&O Winchester Branch, east end Brunswick to Charles Town (any period 1930s to 1990)

Any of a million short lines in Pennsylvania, Ohio, or West Virginia.  Although, I'd prefer something with more to ship than coal...  It's nice to fluff out a long train, and perhaps add an extra to go along with your sleepy local, but given the region, it may be unavoidable.

The Bath & Hammondsport in NY State would be a good candidate for this list.

Oh, wait.  i AM modeling that one..

[RRRover]

For me it's:
Monongahela in the Brownsville/West Brownsville area in the 80s (EMDs from CR and MGA) or the 60s (ex-NYC Baldwins).
Iowa Traction (electric freight and streetside running)
Pacific Electric 4-Track mainline LA to Watts. (Electric freight switching, through interurbans)
DeQueen & Eastern/Texas, Oklahoma & Eastern (logging, paper, grain)

Last layout was the Camas Prairie, but had to tear down and move before scenery began.

[basementcalling]

For me it's:
Monongahela in the Brownsville/West Brownsville area in the 80s (EMDs from CR and MGA) or the 60s (ex-NYC Baldwins).
Iowa Traction (electric freight and streetside running)
Pacific Electric 4-Track mainline LA to Watts. (Electric freight switching, through interurbans)
DeQueen & Eastern/Texas, Oklahoma & Eastern (logging, paper, grain)

Last layout was the Camas Prairie, but had to tear down and move before scenery began.

Bummer on that, With Camas Prairie the scenery is the fun stuff.  What time frame on the DQ & ET, Dairy Queen and Eat?

[Virginia Atlantic]

Potomac Yard, RF&P, Southern, W&OD, Circa 1955 maybe?

Capitol Building and Washington Monument in the background/backdrop.

Of course, I'm just locally biased.  One of the rare times I wish I were older than I am, so I could have seen this period myself in person.

[Rossford Yard]

There was a time when I badly wanted to model the B and O Metropolitan Branch from DC to Harper's Ferry, including the short Georgetown Branch and connection south to Potomac Yard.  Union Station and the Y would be a challenge though.

[TravelingCarpenter]

Out of 6 pages of replies, the post seem to lean way towards the East coast of CONUS, why is that?

Just curious, no ill will intended

TC

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Out of 6 pages of replies, the post seem to lean way towards the East coast of CONUS, why is that?

Just curious, no ill will intended

TC

Because east coast railroading is simply better. 

[basementcalling]

Because east coast railroading is simply better. 

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[wm3798]

Apart from the endless enchantment of Colorado narrow gauge, I tend to agree with @Ed Kapuscinski .
Now granted, my frame of reference is limited by exposure, but I find Western railroading Big and Impressive, but really hard to condense into a modest sized train room.

There are, of course, exceptions.  Rob Carey's Tennessee Pass layout leaps immediately to mind.


In the east, there is just a greater variety of railroading in general available, from the sleepy branch line that I pine for to the heavy multi track main lines to the Big City urban entangled switching areas.  Not that these things don't exist elsewhere, but east of the Mississippi, and especially east of the Alleghenies, you can have ALL OF THEM within spittin' distance of each other.  This leads to lots of modeling opportunities... or tropes if you will...  Bridges that look like they have been spit out of a tunnel, crossing a river with a different railroad on each side of it, with a steel mill on an island in the river, and a major yard or passenger terminal (or both) where all of it gets tied up in a bow....  Plus the massive advantage of low rolling Appalachian mountains that afford numerous opportunities for concealing staging yards, helixes, and other such "model railroady" infrastructure as is required by our space limitations.

Maybe it isn't so much that Eastern railroading is better to model, but it's certainly easier!  (apart from its insatiable hunger for an endless diet of trees!)

Lee

[Rossford Yard]

It might just be that more modelers do the west, and thus, they aren't prototypes someone else should model, because several someones already are?

[RRRover]

Bummer on that, With Camas Prairie the scenery is the fun stuff.  What time frame on the DQ & ET, Dairy Queen and Eat?

ERA ON THE DQ&E/TO&E would be the 80s. Geeps, blue boxcars, a pair of fast roadfreights each way. It's when I visited, so it was really cool. Also hit the Prescott & Northwestern on that trip - that was cool too.

[sd45elect2000]

Out of 6 pages of replies, the post seem to lean way towards the East coast of CONUS, why is that?

Just curious, no ill will intended

TC

If I were to say that I wished someone modeled the UP I would be accused of ignorance. The Western roads have been well modeled including my own Milwaukee. I have no idea how to make my Milwaukee stand out from what’s already been done...

[brokemoto]

Not only that, but the addition or removal of the snappers was either in Altoona, which is HUGE.

I have been there, but it has been a while.  As I recall, the railroad needs the snappers only one way, Railroad West.  This is different from some of the well known hills in the West:  Raton, Tehachapi or Sherman's, where the railroads need helpers both ways.  I forget exactly, but is it the Eastbound on Raton that is the nastier of the two grades?  One of them is nastier than the other, which requires even more power to help.  I would guess that now, as it is mostly AMTRAK that uses it, BNSF does not need to station as much power there as it used to.  If you consider that ATSF started bypassing it with the opening of the Belen Cutoff in 1908...........but, I stray........

The snappers came on at Altoona for the climb to Gallitzin, correct?  I am guessing that the snappers came off at Gallitzin or somewhere around there.  Did they return to Altoona light or did they wait for an Eastbound and attach them selves to it subsequently to come off once the Eastbound reached Altoona?

ATSF generally kept the power balanced, although in favour of the Western side of the pass, as the Eastbound was the nastier of the grades.  This meant that it did have to send power the other way light and in reverse.  This was, in fact, why it invented the 2-10-2,  It was using 2-10-0s as helpers.  The railroad noted that the tires on the aft two driver pairs were wearing more quickly than the others.  It resolved this by adding a trailing truck to guide the locomotive in reverse.  This is one reason why the trailing truck on many 2-8-8-2s looks like an aftterthought.  Its only real purpose is to guide the locomotive over a hill in reverse.  It is how Rivarossi got away with selling a 2-8-8-0 that was really a USRA 2-8--8-2 without its trailer.

The real estate requirement for the main line and the shops would be large.  Most modellers do not have that space.  Was there a test track at Juniata (as there was at Pittsburgh)?  Further, it would be too much for one modeller to operate both shops and main line.  Even the main line would be too much for one modeller.  The equipment requirements would be expensive.  It might work for a club layout, but for an individual?  If you started to build it  when you were twenty-eight, you might finish it by the time that you reached sixty.