Suggestions on a Junction

[Ian MacMillan]

I am beginning the process building a "mobile" version of the Amoskeag Northern to take to shows in the tri state area. While the home version of the AN is all urban, the modular layout will focus on the rural mountain scenery to the East of Meridith.

As some of you may know my layout is based of the almost but never completed Portland, Rutland, Oswego and Chicago Railroad. Only 80 miles of the Portland, ME to Chicago railroad was never completed, those sections being in NH and ME.

The modular layout's main feature will be Ossipee, NH, where based on historical track maps for the Portland, Rutland, Oswego and Chicago Railroad the main line would have crossed with the Boston & Maine's Conway Branch. You can see the map with overlays of the trackage here;
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=116427889694897307869.00048b5e461be8f9ace82&ll=43.753133,-71.150658&spn=0.007037,0.013797&t=h&z=16&iwloc=00048b5f9ae3dca70bdf6

Now, since only the Conway Branch was really completed I'm having some idea block as to how to work out this junction. While the Conway Branch was a 70 MPH route to the ski areas single track speedway, by the 1980's it had fallen to 10-15MPH and very limited service.  The "AN" would have been a double track main line. With the B&M and MEC being brought into CR the Conway Branch most likely would have been in the same state it ended up in under real B&M, 10-15MPH and sold to NH DOT in the late 90's.

I'm modeling it in the mid 1990's and like I said I'm having idea block as to how this EW double track line would cross the NS branch. What I am thinking is that there would have been a diamond with a small interchange yard, but you can see on the map that they run along each other for a distance before crossing.

[NS-CRE]

How about a short section of shared right-of-way, with both railroads coming together at Center Ossippee and then splitting again south of there?   An interchange yard could be located at Center Ossippee.

Take a look at St. Paul/Boody, VA on the former Clinchfield and N&W for an example of how this can work.  In this case, the railroads come together for a very short stretch at the St. Paul crossover, forming an X.    I had a similar arrangement on Version One of my Charleston, Roanoke & Eastern Railway, although the stretch of single track shared by the NS and CSX routes through there was only two or three inches long.

Two CSX routes also cross in a similar arrangement at Clinton, SC.  There, the CSX CN&L Subdivision (Columbia, Newberry & Laurens) enters the mainline of the Monroe Subdivision for a short distance before the routes split again.

Marcus

[wm3798]

That sounds a lot like Hagerstown, where the WM and PRR came together to share an elevated right of way that resulted from a grade crossing removal project back in the 50's.

But I'm thinking there would be a wye, or remains of a wye, remains of a small engine house, maybe a 4 track interchange yard.

Diamonds would be cool, but let's say the AN had a branch that diverged from this point...  The AN would cross the red line and interchange tracks with a bridge, then the main would swing around to the south, and the branch would continue on to the west, to the immodium mine at Kaopectate.  The red line would drop in elevation toward the bridge to reduce the AN mainline grade to the overpass.

There would be hookers and junkies under the bridge, only being a small town, the hookers would be of poor quality, although with budget friendly prices, and the junkies would be doing stupid stuff like huffing air freshener.  The bridge should be near a bus line to give the junkies access to the Walmart dumpster.

I hope this helps.

Lee

[eric220]

There would be hookers and junkies under the bridge, only being a small town, the hookers would be of poor quality, although with budget friendly prices, and the junkies would be doing stupid stuff like huffing air freshener.  The bridge should be near a bus line to give the junkies access to the Walmart dumpster.

I hope this helps.

Now that's what I call attention to detail.  Although Ian, do you really want to bring the work home?

Here are links to the Hagerstown track diagrams, which might help.
PRR Hager: http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/Maps/Itlk/hager.gif
PRR Town: http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/Maps/Itlk/town.gif

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Would CR really interchange there? Generally, CR would have been more interested in running one interchange job with the MEC somewhere, and let them deal with getting the cars where they belong.

For example, ALNS, ALCS, etc... these are essentially transfer jobs from ALlentown to Norfolk Southern and Chessie System (or CSX). Even though CR might've crossed them in a number of places, they didn't interchange there.

Of course, I say this, but I'm probably going to end up doing just that on my layout, where CR interchanged small cuts with CSX in a single yard.

[conrail98]

Actually, ALNS was interchanged at Hagerstown (technically, although there was runthrough power sometimes), along with CSX starting in 1996, and then reclassified on Conrail in Allentown, so the interchange happened at the end/start of the line and the cars were sent to the main yard on a manifest that did nothing but go to and from Hagerstown. In Ian's case, with the arrangement he has, I could see a manifest dropping and picking up blocks there, shuffling pick-ups to the closest yard for reclass to other parts of Conrail's system. The real question would be would there be enough traffic interchanged to have manifests do it or would a local interchange. Of course, that's a matter of semantics in the name of the train,

Phil

[Ian MacMillan]

Would CR really interchange there? Generally, CR would have been more interested in running one interchange job with the MEC somewhere, and let them deal with getting the cars where they belong.

No, CR would not have interchanged here because it would be their own trackage. This part of the Portland, Rutland, Oswego and Chicago Railroad would have become MEC trackage, so they would have had an interchange point with B&M here. The Conway Branch was a very profitiable line when ski trains and the Ethan Allen/Yield House furniture trains were run so the B&M and MEC would have interchanged. Under CR absorption of B&M/MEC and thus owning both lines it merely would be a point where the local serving industries in Conway, Ossipee and Rochester would have got back onto the mainline.

Here is the track layout from Center Ossipee "Mountainview" in the 1970's. You are looking N - S


Looking at the Hagerstown and Boody maps, it looks like the Town side of the Hagarstown map has pretty much the configuration that would most likely fit this situation.

[Dupesy]

if your looking for a long, "New England, B&M" feel, maybe the junction between the B&M freight main line and the Conn. River Main Line in Greenfield MA might interest you.

[Ian MacMillan]

if your looking for a long, "New England, B&M" feel, maybe the junction between the B&M freight main line and the Conn. River Main Line in Greenfield MA might interest you.

Jamie, I had completely forgot about that, which exactly the situation that I am trying to solve.

[extra7000south]

I don't know if this will help but I saw shelf type interchange layout on the Micro/Small layout site;

http://www.carendt.com/scrapbook/page98/index.html

About half way down the page is the BNSF-UP/CSX-AN Interchange layout.

[extra7000south]

Any update on the junction??

[Ian MacMillan]

Going with something similar to the Greenfield, MA jct which is the exact scenario I have on the module.