MP Arkansas Central Lines: a new N scale layout

[MichaelT]

Ok, short story is I dabbled in HO for a bit, tried to get motivated to build a short branchline and when it came down to it, I just couldn't keep myself motivated to continue to work on it. So with that experiment over with, I've reverted back to what got me into model railroading; N scale. After getting the HO track and roadbed torn up I packed up and shelved all the HO equipment for now (might go on the sales block sometime soon), and got in touch with track master David, who did some small revisions to the HO design he had made for me, and now the design is in N scale and has a lot of potential!

Here's the first draft for the upcoming build.



The Central Arkansas Lines is a ficticous portion of the Missouri Pacific Railroad in the late 1970's, early 1980's. The back story goes something like this:

To help save time and finances, and to help keep some crews closer to home and not have to spend as many crew overnights, management has decided to shorten a couple of their "local" schedules on a trial (beta) basis. This will make the Little Rock-St. Louis and Little Rock-OK City runs non stop and they'll be listed as regional trains. The Arkansas Central Line will run two short locals each day; one from the NLR/Argenta yard northeast 50 miles to Bald Knob, and then return. The second will run from the NLR/Argenta yard west 35 miles to Conway, and then return. the NLR/Conway local will be responsible for a few industries that are in the Argenta area, West Levy, Maumelle, Mayflower, the AP&L power plant, and the Conway industrial area. The NLR/Bald Knob local will handle industries in Jacksonville, Cabot, Beebe, Kensett/Searcy/ and Bald Knob. At Bald Knob there is a wye that turns east to Memphis, TN, so the Bald Knob local will sometimes drop cars bound for Memphis on the interchange track.

There is a rumour that there will also be a passenger local that will run from Conway to NLR/Argenta (train 21,22) then will go and run Bald Knob/Argenta (train 23,24) in the mornings, and then repeat in the afternoons for people who work in the metro Little Rock area, or are needing to get to Union Station in Little Rock to transfer to Amtrak. At this time that is only a rumour.

These two local runs will handle industries such as the Doniphan Lumber Co. in Kensett, International Paper in Conway, Tyson feed mills in Mayflower, Beebe, and West Levy, Cross Creek Lumber in Argenta (NLR), Lomanco aluminum products in Jacksonville, White Plains Bag Co. in Jacksonville, Wal Mart distribution in Searcy, Kimberly Clark in Conway, and a medical IV/plastics manufacturer in Maumelle.

The layout will be utilizing Atlas c55 track with Atlas turnouts. I was going to purchase Peco turnouts but have quite a few Atlas turnouts already on hand, so will add manual ground throws to them for now.

Locomotives for these locals will be a GP7, GP9, GP18, GP15, an MP15DC, an FA1/FB1, and 2 GP38-2's. the 18, FA1/FB1 are painted in the MP Eagle colors, the GP7/GP9 engines are unpainted at this time, and the rest are in the MP Jenks blue schemes.

Power will be DCC digitrax; I have the Super Chief setup currently. I'll have to get decoders for the F units, the GP18, GP7, and GP9 engines; the rest already have DCC decoders in them.

The design at this time shows a portion of the NLR/Argenta Jenks yard. the 1:1 yard here in NLR is huge, so no way to model it anywhere close, so just using a few tracks to show the idea. Out of the yard is the northeast line that runs NLR/Argenta to Bald Knob. The west line to Conway is yet to be designed and benchwork will be started on the yard in a few days. Benchwork is already in place for the Bald Knob run.

So, with all that said, I hope to get started soon. We're still painting and doing some small fix ups in our rent house, but should be able to start working on roadbed and trackage in the next few days.

As always, my HUGE thanks to David Smith for his design ideas and suggestions. He has been so patient with my waffling, and questions, and still cranks out cool looking designs! And as always too, anyone that has suggestions, tips, ideas, questions, etc. feel free to throw them here and we'll discuss them.

michael

[MichaelT]

So the HO track and roadbed has been pulled, the foam has been sanded where some cut spots were, and vacuumed off.

I've got a consult into David for his opinions, but thought I'd ask here too;

The design again:



1. The current benchwork at the bottom left of the design is against two walls, and the reach from the wall to the aisle is 45". That's quite a bit of reach for me, and remembering Lee's Murphy's Law for model railroading (something will go wrong in the spot that you cannot easily reach), I'm wondering if I should cut the bench work down and install another peninsula somewhere along the left wall for better access.

2. This one I hadn't mentioned to David, so this is a first. The "back story" for the MP local sub is interesting to me, but the room being a smaller room (10 x 11'ish) I'm wondering if I should instead focus on a shortline or a branchline theme? Jamming multiple towns, however small they may be, in a space (from the yard) approximately 240 linear inches (yes it's at least 24" wide and the loop turns are 45" and 48" respectively, but still it would seem to me like one town would be backed up to another, and that wouldn't seem optimal to me...unless I'm being too picky?

So, what do some of you gents think?

[MVW]

Hey Michael,

I like what you have cookin' there. And I always appreciate a good back story. But to answer your two questions:

1) 45" reach? You're talkin' crazy, man! (Unless you're like 7-foot-2, and even then it would be a big stretch.) I'm using 30" HCDs. I have access to both sides of the doors during construction, but will eventually have them up against a wall. And 30" is max, in my book. It would be difficult to do any delicate work at 30". So yes, I suggest exploring other options.

2) I'll eventually be using an 8:1 fast clock on my pike, which means I can figure a mile is just a bit more than 3 feet long. So if you have about 240 linear inches end-to-end, you could figure the equivalent of about 7 miles (or sightly more, if one is using a faster fast clock.) If you haven't read it, check out Bruce Chubb's old book "How to Operate Your Model Railroad" for an interesting chapter on time and distance. Plenty of other good stuff, too.

Could you gain 6-8 feet of additional mainline run by rotating your yard 180 degrees? You'd have to make that shelf 24-30" wide, so a train departing the yard would immediately hit a 180-degree turn and then run nearly the length of the wall before entering your loop about where it does now. And really, the whole shelf wouldn't have to be that wide, just the area for the turnaround loop.

Just a thought. I ain't claimin' it's a good one.

Jim

[MichaelT]

Thanks Jim,

Always interested in thoughts; good/bad or otherwise!

It was also brought up to cut in a access space from underneath to get to the tracks if need be against the wall. I'm with you the 45" is way too far, so before I start putting road bed down I'm going to re-think this and see what alternatives arise.