Hawgheads Rio Grande Southern

[Dave V]

Scott,

Copy away!  I didn’t exactly design anything unique or worth a copyright.  It’s no more “mine” than every other cockpit-style layout ever constructed.  I don’t think anyone around here would give you guff for it, least of all me.  Do what speaks to you!

[Dave V]

By the way, let me know if you want to borrow my RGS trestle jig and full-sized bent diagrams.  They make scratchbuilding trestles trivial and fun.

[MVW]

Jim it does have a continuous run portion already in it.  A train can go Platterville to Vince Jct. to Aims, past the mill at Kiester and then to Pandaride.  Then it can end there for point to point ops, or go through the wye and back Ridgline or continue around back to Platterville.

Scott

Sorry I missed that. That's actually a pretty cool feature to have built into the plan. Kudos.

I guess I was wondering about the possibility of a longer run via a connection with the end of the Ourway staging area, but didn't see a way to do it without uglying up the return loops.

Don't mind me. I'll just sit over here for a while. 

Jim

[Hawghead]

Sorry I missed that. That's actually a pretty cool feature to have built into the plan. Kudos.

I guess I was wondering about the possibility of a longer run via a connection with the end of the Ourway staging area, but didn't see a way to do it without uglying up the return loops.

Don't mind me. I'll just sit over here for a while. 

Jim

Jim,

I asked for comments and I appreciate everyone of them.  I didn't show it on either plan, but the side of the garage on the left and the bottom is where access to and through the garage is.  On plan B the Ourway staging would be a half lift up section toward the top as that is where the door into the garage is.  The Delores staging would have to have a lift out section between it and Rico to allow access out of the garage.  And the lower left hand corner is where the water heater, the HVAC air handler and a frig and a freezer are (or will be once I move them there).  So the left and bottom area of the garage need to be clear for access.

Copy away!  I didn’t exactly design anything unique or worth a copyright.  It’s no more “mine” than every other cockpit-style layout ever constructed.  I don’t think anyone around here would give you guff for it, least of all me.  Do what speaks to you!

Dave,

Thanks.  Some people are flattered when other people use their ideas and others can get a bit miffed.  As a new guy here I didn't want to cause any trouble, so it was a little bit of concern for plan A.  Also thanks for the offer of the bents jig, but I think I have room for only one trestle and that would be between Lizard Head and Rico.  I will have to build two short bridges on two legs of the Rico wye.  I'll have to do some research and find out how the old wye crossed the Delores river there, whether on small trestles, short bridges or culverts.  Wait, didn't the coal pocket at Rico have a trestle for the cars to load the pocket?  Hummm may need that jig after all.

I have decided to go with plan A.  Plan B is really an operations layout with a kind of clunky provision for round and round running, it needs a group that can get together on a regular basis to run it.  Additionally it would be monumentally more difficult to build and would eat locomotives and rolling stock like crazy.  With the time I have to devote to construction I could see me giving up on it before I ever got it to the point where I could just run trains.  The staging under Ridgway for example.  To prevent some really nasty grades there would only be about 6 inches, railhead to railhead, between the staging tracks and Ridgway.  As a result the staging tracks would have to be built on some sort of sliding shelf for reasonable access.  Maintenance would also be significantly more difficult and time consuming.  I think even though I would like more space between the scenes, I think plan A with Lizard Head and Rico being able to be modeled pretty damn prototypically, the tracks for the engine facility at Ridgway being a fairly realistic representation of what existed there and the fact that I could probably finish it in my lifetime has got to put it over the top.  Oh also, I can start on Rico really soon as that area of the garage is already clear.

Thanks for everyone's input, I hope to get a lot more as I actually start to build the layout.  Also I hope everyone had or is having a great 4th of July.

Scott

[John]

A little inspiration

[Hawghead]

A little inspiration

John,
"Round the Bend"?  Are you trying to tell me something? 

Scott

[Hawghead]

Hey all,

Just a small update.  I'm taking a few days off work so I'm going to get started on the Rico section of the layout.  I have the wood for the benchwork and have started painting it.  Tomorrow afternoon I should be able to start making sawdust.  I'll post some pictures when I get the basic benchwork up.

I made some changes to the track plan.  I added a station at Ridgway, but the jury is still out on it.  I added a track to simulate the D&RGW branch to Montrose and to serve as an "interchange" track.  It'll just dead end at the backdrop and be kind of visible staging for now.  Later when I get that portion of the layout built, I'll see if I have room to extend it behind the backdrop at Placerville and create at least one hidden staging track back there.

I got rid of the wye and mine in the upper left corner and instead moved the Placerville stock pens there.  I felt Placerville was a little to crowded with the pens where they were.  With the stock pens up in the corner I can make the mainline and the stock pen spur track arrangement much closer to the prototype albeit the stock pens would be between Ridgway and Placeville in real life. additionally it gives me room to put the San Miguel River and Leopard Creek in.

I replaced Lizard Head with Vance Jct. and added Pandora/Teluride.  After watching Dave's latest video update where he mentioned putting a snow shed over his tracks at Lizard Head and how he was hesitating because it would make track maintenance a real headache, I realized I would have the same issues only many times over, additionally "Pandaride" gives some additional operating possibilities.  I don't have room for the large mining/milling complex at Pandora, but I can get one small mill in.  The wye will do double duty for the wyes at Vance Jct. and Teluride.



That's all for now, I look forward to any comments or suggestions.

Scott


 

[Dave V]

I'm 100% on board with this and am anxious to see your progress!  In the spirit of "better modeling through peer pressure" I'd like to share some criticism meant in the spirit of helping to polish a gem.

So...  I'm not a huge fan of the town names. 

- "Ridgline" might work if spelled "Ridgeline" (Ridgway was named after D&RG Superintendent Robert Ridgway who spelled his name without an "e").  Ridgeline is the name of the street you take to enter my neighborhood, so I think it would work well.

- But "Riko?"  That's not a word in any language, nor does it sound like a person's name.  Generally, English or Spanish surnames work well, with a smattering of poorly spelled Ute or Navajo names for good measure. 

- Placerburg is problematic...  There are few places in Colorado with "burg" in the name (Walsenburg and Julesburg--both on the Plains--come to mind as major exceptions), but it sounds more like it belongs in Pennsylvania.  Might I suggest "Placer Creek", "Placer Gulch", "Placerton," or something more "Western?" 

- "Pandaride..."  I see what you did there, but "Telluride" actually comes from chemistry...  Silver telluride is a crystalline form occurring in ore, AgTe (Silver and Tellurium).  Pandora is of course named for Pandora's famed box.  I know, I heard it as I wrote it.

Here's what I recommend...  Pour over some maps of the San Juans and look for geographical features already named or towns not on the rail network.  Some features in the area that have a nice "ring"...  Silver Creek, Scotch Creek, Cement Creek, San Miguel, Camp Bird, Purgatory Peak, Engineer Mountain, Coal Bank Pass, Norwood, Naturita, Dunton, Vallecito, Cortez, Shotgun Mountain, Uncompaghre, etc.

[Point353]

Placerburg is problematic...  There are few places in Colorado with "burg" in the name (Walsenburg and Julesburg--both on the Plains--come to mind as major exceptions), but it sounds more like it belongs in Pennsylvania.  Might I suggest "Placer Creek", "Placer Gulch", "Placerton," or something more "Western?" 

Placerburg was the town where gold mining claims were filed in the John Wayne movie Santa Fe Stampede.

[Dave V]

Placerburg was the town where gold mining claims were filed in the John Wayne movie Santa Fe Stampede.

Well if it's good enough for The Duke, it's good enough for me!  Objection retracted!

[wazzou]

IMO, I think Riko and Ridgline are a little close together, what with the yards and service facilities spaced by only a few feet.

[Hawghead]

Dave,
The names were meant to be tongue in cheek.  I forgot to change them before I posted that track plan.  I also forgot to delete my umpalumpas.  I just use those to check isle spacing and such.  On the subject of town names, I was thinking of using Reeko, the old Indian word for "smells bad".😁  The small staging yard at the bottom of the track plan (which I don't think I included in the last version) was going to be Fandango/Ourway depending on whether you were going there from Rico or Ridgway.😂

To be honest I'm still not sure if I can justify calling the layout the RGS.  Rico is a pretty good representation of the prototype, the roundhouse and facilities at Ridgway are pretty damn close based on the map I have, other than the location of the yard tracks.  Placerville has most all of the pieces/parts and the stock pens are layed out pretty close to the prototype other than being south of the town rather than north.  Vance Jct. isn't completely out to lunch, it'll have the buildings and the coaling pocket and the track arrangement is pretty close other than being to straight.  The wye there isn't even close to prototypical but it's the only way I could get one in there.  Telluride isn't within a golf shot of the prototype.  It has the engine house, depot and the scales but I don't think there was a warehouse there (just put it in to add some more switching) and of course only one small mill to represent Pandora.

So some parts of the layout are a good representation of the RGS and others, not so much.  I'm trying to do justice to the RGS as best I can given the space I have available, I guess I'll have to be satisfied with it as MY version of the RGS.  What do you guys think?

Bryan,
The layout is a point to point Ridgway to Rico.  The track between Ridgway and the Rico wye will be a liftout/swing gate to allow continuous running.

Oh,. I have the benchwork for Rico done,. I'll post a picture when I get home.

Scott

[Dave V]

Dude...I had no problem calling my little 3' x 6'8" HCD layout The Pennsylvania Railroad and it wasn't nearly as close track-wise to the prototype as what you have here.  You want to call it the RGS?  Call it the RGS!  You want to use real RGS town names?  Do it!  Greg Condon has gotten a lot of mileage out of his RGS Lizard Head Division and in many cases not only are the track arrangements and structures different than the prototype, the towns are not even in the same order.  Yet NG&SL Gazette can't get enough of it!

I'd say as long as you build some key structures recognizable to an RGS fan at each scene, what you have there is more than close enough to look like the real Ridgway, Placerville, Vance, Telluride, and Rico.  "Riko" is essentially identical to the real Rico yard with no compression anyway.

Follow you heart.  That's as RGS as anything I've seen in HOn3 and more prototypical than a lot of layouts already in the mainstream.

[Hawghead]

Yeah, I'm just going with the Rio Grande Southern, The consequences be damned

As promised a couple of pics of the Rico bench work.  Sorry for the poor quality photos, my phone camera sucks.  I'm going to have to invest is a decent stand-alone digital camera.
I still have to finish the fascia board, I ran out of masonite.







I'm still considering doing a full valance over the whole thing to create a kind of shadow box effect.

Scott

[Dave V]

Otto Mears is smiling from heaven.  Grading has begun on another incarnation of his masterpiece, the San Juan Scenic Line. 

“The outstanding characteristic of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad was its complete and overwhelming improbability. Except for the evidence of photographic record, it would be possible to doubt it ever existed, and the doubt would be amply justified. Except in the extravagantly optimistic railroad thinking of the time and place, the Rio Grande Southern could never have come into being. In the biological sense of the word, it was a sport, valiant, lonely, tenacious beyond the call of duty or reason. Say its name with bugles in the lexicon of the Old West, for the Rio Grande Southern was a lost cause, an allegory of futility when it was first conceived and it ended its long, unquiet life contributing to the essence of the destruction that was Hiroshima.

“Perhaps in the Valhalla of railroads where the lights on the tangents are green forever, the Rio Grande Southern has achieved some tranquility and repose. They will be wholly out of character.

“Terrible tempered, like its builder Otto Mears, to the end the improbable Rio Grande Southern nevertheless confounded prophets of doom for decades and outlived many a more robust and promising contemporary. The Friar Lawrence of the narrow gauges, its entire life span a record of confusion and mistaken missions, it left its impress on the elemental Colorado earth and in the memory of two entire generations of the American West. In the roundhouse of eternity there are neither derailments nor creditors and its rest is untroubled in the surrounding night.”

“When, in years to come, men shall name the names of sparkling romance that are the lexicon of the Old West, the names that clutch at the heart and have entered the stream of the nation’s consciousness, the Alamo, Tombstone, Dodge City, the Staked Plains, Santa Fe Trail, South Pass, Union Pacific, Deadwood, Wells Fargo and Virginia City, they will be well advised to include in that valiant tally, the name of Otto Mears’s masterpiece, the lonely, desolate, and perhaps futile but still transcendently triumphant Rio Grande Southern Railroad."

-- Luscius Beebe, "Narrow Gauge in the Rockies" 1958