Colorado Midland in N scale 2.0

[Dave V]

Three new home road cars joined the Midland this week.

On the left is a gondola car I built from a Fine N Scale resin kit. On the right is an Athearn 36 foot old-time boxcar. Both were painted and then lettered with custom decals I had made for me a few years back by Silver Crash Model Works just before they disappeared. There’s a new company called K4 Decals that now provides similar CMRy decals in N if you’re looking for some. These cars are actually duplicates of cars I already had, but I gave them different road numbers to represent different cars in the same car class.



And then an old MDC stock car became a Colorado Midland Palace Stock Car thanks to some K4 decals.

[TiogaTracks]

Glad to see you’re getting good use out of those sets from K4 Decals!  The guy running that business is always a pleasure to deal with, and my entire project would be many times harder without his decals.  Have you planned any new rolling stock projects because of newly available decals, or did you have everything before from other sources?

-Steven

[Dave V]

Glad to see you’re getting good use out of those sets from K4 Decals!  The guy running that business is always a pleasure to deal with, and my entire project would be many times harder without his decals.  Have you planned any new rolling stock projects because of newly available decals, or did you have everything before from other sources?

-Steven

Actually yes! He has decals for a CMRy gon that's very similar to a D&SL gondola that's available on Shapeways. It's on the to-do list!

I've also lettered a Denver, Laramie, and Northwestern box and a Midland Terminal/Cripple Creek Short Line box using K4 decals as well as a Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek District Railway gon. Wouldn't have dreamed of adding those obscure yet relevant roadnames to my CM roster without the decals.

[Dave V]

A look at the bridges on my Colorado Midland Railway:

The steel bridge is based on several real bridges on the Midland (such as Hop Gulch, Maroon Creek, etc.) and is kitbashed heavily from a Micro Engineering kit. I replaced all of the heavy beam sway braces with piano wire to better represent the steel cable sway braces to better represent the light construction of these Midland bridges. The truss bridge is based on a prototype on the Colorado & Southern Clear Creek line and is a kit from RSLaserkits.





These trestles are all scratchbuilt. I haven’t added the fire barrel platforms yet. The bent design comes from the Midland’s own plans, but I modified them by narrowing the angle of the outside posts to make the trestles appear taller and to reduce the mud sill footprint. Midland prototypes could be found on Hagerman Pass and at Dolomite in Trout Creek Pass (among others).



I vacillated over how to handle this overpass. Because I’m using Peco code 55 track (which is really embedded code 80 with a double web), I didn’t want to splice in such a short segment of true code 55 bridge track, especially since it’s in the middle of an 11” radius curve. So I copped out and made it a ballasted deck bridge. The main beans are the same thickness as the stringers used on my trestles, but to carry the extra load of the ballast, they’re wider and the bents have an extra post in the middle.

[chuck geiger]

Perfect!

[Dave V]

The layout, as seen from space (in 1905...?):

[nickelplate759]

Given the visible level of detail in that aerial shot, I'd expect it was taken from a balloon, as those were common enough in 1905.    The trickier part to explain might be the color photography.

However you got the shot, it's a really nice layout.

[Spades]

The layout, as seen from space (in 1905...?):

Color photography and aircraft were in their infancy.  Ballons and photo coloring were available.  Looking at the image I understand the flat earth thing.

[Chris333]

Sure they had balloons and color photos, but did they have N scale?

[nkalanaga]

A tethered balloon could do it fairly easily, with real color photography, even then.  You'd take several black and white photos, through color filters, then use the negatives to prepare plates to print the color photo.  The only hard part is making sure everything lines up, just like "stacking" photos today.  It wouldn't be a "color photo", on photo paper, but it would be a full-color picture.

Astronomers still do the same thing today, even with digital cameras.  Color digital cameras have lower resolution, as they have to have dedicated sensors for each color.  Monochrome can use every sensor for each image, plus the filters can be designed to pass only the wavelengths of interest.

[Dave V]

The Midland did very well at its public debut at the fall TECO/Pueblo Rail Fair. I got a lot of great feedback from show goers and organizers alike. It was a fan favorite. It was actually one of five N scale layouts at the show, so N scale was well represented.



A substantial number of viewers initially mistook the Midland as being Z scale. I explained that late-19th-Century equipment was much smaller than what they were used to seeing over on the T-Trak layout running 6-axle diesels and autoracks.

By and large, the layout behaved. I had two minor mechanical issues with rolling stock that I was able to fix on the spot. I'd call that a victory. The Midland is back in the basement, all setup and tested with all the trains...it survived unscathed!

[Hawghead]

Congrats Dave,
It's a great layout that deserves to be well received.

Scott

[wm3798]

It's just one of the best rendered model railroads in any scale.  I'm glad you continue to dabble in N.
Lee

[Dave V]

It's just one of the best rendered model railroads in any scale.  I'm glad you continue to dabble in N.
Lee

Thanks! In meany respects I'm happier with the colors and textures on the Midland than I am with its much larger cousin, the HOn3 RGS First District. It's definitely a better effort than the 1.0 version of the Midland. Version 1.0 was fraught with problems across the board, from shortcuts and scenic compromises to bad track and that long stub-ended branch that wasn't really suited for shows.

A double roundy-round worked for the PRR Juniata Division. In this case, they're just on separate levels! Also, a big shout-out to @DKS is due! He took my paper scribble and turned it into a trackplan I could build with a shopping list of Peco components. I couldn't have done it successfully without his help.

[ednadolski]

Any chance of seeing this at the upcoming Springs TECO?   Definitely worth the drive from BoCo 

https://consumershows.com/e/teco-colorado-model-train-show-4-february-2023


Ed