Montana Rail Link 2nd and 3rd Subs - "The Divide"

[trainzluvr]

@coldriver Thanks for the plan. I'm glad you went with a different layout shape for Oregon Joint Line though as it much better hides the whole layout, and flows nicer when following the train/benchwork.

My main yard will be have to be more modest though than the Helena in your plan. Probably not worth making it double-ended anyway, and assuming I forego the full Helena yard and only have a Missoula yard, I'm at a multiple forks in the road now.

I'll make it an open discussion and would appreciate everyone's feedback on these choices, as more pairs of eyes are better than just one.

1) keep Bozeman as in my last plan with misc. industries there; have 3 Amtrak stops (Missoula, Helena, Bozeman),

2) put Logan back in place of Bozeman and then lose those misc. industries; have only 2 Amtrak stops (Missoula and Helena)

with sub-options of:

a) keep Bonner/Milltown as-is,

b) replace it with Phosphate.

and

I) keep Townsend as-is,

II) move Lombard Canyon in place of Townsend, then put Trident in the blob, followed by Bozeman or Logan.

If I remove Bozeman, and forego an Amtrak stop, but keep the Industrail Park at Bonner/Milltown (by back-dating it to 1990s) it would potentially offset loss of those misc. industries from Bozeman. With Logan there I stay more true to geography, as the branch to Three Forks is there and I have everything in-place already.

Assuming I remove Townsend and shift Lombard Canyon to where it was,  would Trident interfere with Logan's placement and/or Bonner/Milltown on the opposite side? Potential benefit might be that Townsend would not interfere with Helena operations, although it might not matter because the same local crew from Helena would be working in Townsend, as suggested by nkalanaga earlier.

Replacing Bonner/Milltown with Phosphate I lose misc. industries but gain yet another covered hopper run (and there might be too many already with grains, cement and talc). I suppose that's a no brainer decision?

Please share your thoughts on the above.

[nkalanaga]

If there's something at Trident that you want to keep, how about combining Logan and Trident?  Call it Logan, but put the Trident industry(s) there.  Most people wouldn't know the difference, and for those who do, your limited space should be excuse enough.

For Townsend/Lombard, I think it would depend on your goals.  If you want local switching, I'd keep Townsend, and shorten Lombard Canyon.  Some of the canyons in western Montana are very short, literally just the river cutting through a ridge, so a short one here would look natural.  If you want to watch trains in scenery, Lombard Canyon might be more important than the industries.

[trainzluvr]

I still do not know why was/is Townsend an interesting spot (for local switching, or otherwise). What was there of importance prior to the present day or that could exist back in the 90s?

Also, I now got two options, in the first one I reverted back to Logan instead of Belgrade/Bozeman, and incorporated Trident plant into it. Technically, this plan is not geographically correct as I put the Mullan Pass on the wrong side of the trestle/next to Helena. I thought it was cute because the liftout section in the upper right corner where the tunnel ends up being is where the Continental Divide would also be and, so end up with a liftout-divide juxtaposition.

Option 1


...

But then I thought, what I if I "go to town" and set things right, geographically speaking. Thus, the option 2 where Mullan Tunnel/Pass is towards Missoula preceded by the Continental Divide infront of it. I would then also model both trestles along with a spur between them (found out there was a siding at first between them, but it was too short for the trains, so it was turned into a spur).

Option 2


I would say the option 2 is considerably "spacious" providing a large scenic separation between Missoula and Helena, but on the other hand more challenging to model (25+ft of scenery, trestles, tunnels, etc) and a loss of the industrial park at Bonner/Milltown.

I'm putting these out here for further advice/discussion. Really, I'm actually itching to move onto track planning, as the rest of the locations seem feasible/believable.

[nkalanaga]

I actually like #2 better.  As you say, you lose Bonner/Milltown, but, really, there isn't that much there today that you don't have in another town.

Going straight from Missoula to Mullan Pass wouldn't look bad, and wouldn't be out of line, scenically.  After all, the NP east of Butte started straight up Homestake Pass.  If you plan on using helpers, adding a helper track at Missoula would be easy.  Just put a spur at the east end of the yard!

[trainzluvr]

Thanks, and what about Townsend?

I see nothing active there today - was there something in the past 30-35 years to warrant its significance on the map?

[coldriver]

I still do not know why was/is Townsend an interesting spot (for local switching, or otherwise). What was there of importance prior to the present day or that could exist back in the 90s?

Several reasons I like Townsend.  It's the crossing of the Missouri River so there's a nice four span through truss bridge and it's also the point where the tracks leave the river going west and start climbing 1% Winston Hill.  In the steam era Winston Hill was a helper grade, which is why there used to be a wye in Townsend (for turning helper locos).  While MRL doesn't typically need helpers for Winston Hill I have seen instances where helper sets from Helena were called out to assist stalled westbounds on the Winston Hill grade.  If you look at the current (2014) Google Earth photo of Townsend you'll see a track that's being used for the transload of lumber (outbound) and logs (inbound) for RY Timber.  Why the RY Timber mill was built across the highway in Townsend with no direct rail access is a mystery to me but the nice thing about the transload operation is that you get all the carloads of the lumber mill without needing to actually model the lumber mill (which would need a huge footprint to do it right).   There's a seasonally active fertilizer receiver (Rocky Mt Supply) as well as a currently inactive (apparently) seed plant (Townsend Seed) and a couple grain elevators.  Just west of Townsend (at West Townsend) is the busy (2000 cars per year) Graymont Western lime plant - just the type of industry that makes for nice modeling (relatively small footprint relative to the significant amount of traffic that's generated there).  So it has Ag, Forest Products, and Mineral customers all with very do-able footprints crammed into a very small town!  That's a fairly rare combination for a Montana town of that size and in my mind makes it a great choice for modeling. 

[trainzluvr]

I'm sold on Townsend! I don't see Silver anywhere though, or did you mean Ag=Agriculture?

Too bad that mill was closed indefinitely in 2020, but not an issue since I'm modeling it even before RY took over. It's definitely beyond modeling in the space I have.

Two weeks ago when I decided to finally switch from purely freelancing my layout to proto-lancing and picked a prototype (MRL), I knew nothing about it. Through kindness of everyone here sharing the info and my own research, I've learned a lot of the past history of the region to make me feel more confident in executing this idea.

Thank you, all.

I will be proceeding forward into the next planning stage with the below LDEs as its basis, and I hope everyone will continue to provide more (much valuable to me) feedback.

In the mean time, I wish you all Happy New Year.

[nkalanaga]

Trainzluvr:  In the case of Townsend, yes "Ag" means "agriculture".  That can be confusing in Montana, where one can have both silver and farms served by the same station.

[trainzluvr]

Continuing on, now with a schematic diagram and suffice to say it's confusing me enough.



Looking at the real MRL subs, there are too many MP0.0 points. I would understand a possible reason to divide their world in half (East and West) at Helena, assuming it's because that's the capital of Montana, but then why do Billings or Paradise have MP0.0 along the main line?

And what about Helena, do those Mile Posts have cardinal designations e.g. MP13.0W vs MP238.4E?

A quirk about the sidings...I sprinkled a few here and there at somewhat meaningful intervals, as per the prototype, but they have far too many that I could model in my short space. The sidings are just depictions at the moment and they are not indicative of the side of the track they are on (N or S).

Another thing that came up is whether I should model both trestle bridges (Skyline and Greenhorn). The Greenhorn would be on a lift-out for my electrical cabinet (photo below) and I'm concerned about building it so it's sturdy. I've already built the lift-out prior, but the idea there was to put a tunnel and not a bridge.

Problem is the low ceiling (6.5") and because this is lifting out as one piece with the backdrop, making it taller/deeper would not work (top of the backdrop would hit the ceiling before the entire piece is lifted out).

[trainzluvr]

Slowly unravelling this mess.

Removed Garrison, MT and Winston, MT because they had no business on the schematic - they aren't modelled and there is no room to put them in as scenic separators.

All the other questions still remain to be addressed...

[nkalanaga]

I suspect that they inherited the mileposts from the NP, because they certainly don't match MRL subdivisions.  Maybe, at one time, those were NP subdivision MPs?

The oddest is MRL's 1st Sub, which actually starts at Jones Jct, MP 209.9, east of Billings.  Billings is listed as both 225.8 and 0.0, which takes you to Spurling, just west of Laurel, MP 17.7.  The 2nd Sub starts there, but the numbers keep increasing to Helena.  Weird.

The GN numbered continuously from east to west, which seems a lot simpler.

[trainzluvr]

Perhaps up to Billings it's still BNSF MPs, even though MRL starts at Jones Jct, so it might be shared? But I'll buy that, and I'll buy 0.0 at Helena for the State Capital.

What I can't figure out is why 0.0 at Paradise on the 4th? 10th goes to Paradise taking the Northern route from DeSmet via Dixon (so it can connect to the 11th), and 4th (Mainline) takes the Southern route presumably for the industries in Schilling/Frenchtown, St.Regis, etc, or maybe because it could be lower grade (though longer way).

Looking at my schematic diagram, do you think I need more sidings?

[nkalanaga]

Probably no more sidings, but if you plan on having meets, will your sidings (other than the main yards) hold an entire train?  The large diagram at the bottom says yes, but the track plan seems to show them shorter.

Adding more would basically make it double track, which would be great for the prototype, but probably not what you want.

[trainzluvr]

I've kinda wrestled with the train length and kept scaling it down from 12 to 10 and now at 7 ft. To me 7ft is plenty for local operation and any through freight can have priority and does not need to take a siding during a meet.

The schematic diagram has the train length with the siding, as well as the total length of an LDE (Layout Design Element) of 192" (siding + 2 turnouts + transition + spacing). The idea is to make sure the train is never head in one town and end in another, thus the spacing portion, but I do not know if I can accomplish that.

My total track length, without the staging is ~1400" and at 192" per LDE I fit ~7.3. Technically have 11 LDEs on my to-be track plan. If Missoual amalgamates DeSmet that's 10, and if Helena amalgamates East Helena, that's 9, but I'm still short by 2, or almost 394" which is ~33 ft.

So LDE needs to be 127" long to fit 11 of those into 1400" linear length. With 110" needed for the siding with turnouts, it leaves only ~17" for spacing portion, which is not even half a train.

Beside that, some areas are longer and others are shorter so it somewhat balances itself, except that I need to lose 1 or 2 LDEs or reconsider following this LDE rule to begin with.

[trainzluvr]

Ugh, I just realized (beside everything else) that I'm probably on the wrong side of the tracks. Because this plan is "True South", any place that you stand in the room and look at the backdrop, you're looking South.

For example, it makes the trestles bow in the wrong direction (South instead of North) the way they would be placed. I'm sure everything else is flipped/mirrored along the E/W axis (sidings, yards, etc).

I'm not a big stickler for prototype and this is my first protolanced railroad, so the (free)lance part is going to be a big pill to swallow (like the 100 miles between Blossburg and Missoula in ~5 ft of space). Don't know if that matters a lot (to me at least) at this point, though.