So the photo should give some things away, like this isn't American
It's been many a year since I last posted about the
rolls off the tongue oh so easily named Great Divide Railway & Mining Company, GDRMCo or GD for short. The GD has been a part of my life since I was 5 and in the 27 years since I've managed to build benchwork. That's it, benchwork and that was a decade ago now
This image is a good illustration to the journey the GD has taken in model form.
From the front to rear:
The N scale GDRMCo Iron Ore. A small fleet of 9x SD70Ms and 9x SD80MACs (total was 15x but only 9x were painted) made up the start of a heavily Pilbara inspired rendition of the concept. But there was always something that niggled at me, no marker lights and no lower horizontal handrail per Australian standards. So where to? HO!
The HO scale version retained the same livery and was to repeat the same roster with SD70MACs to replace the SD80MACs, a total of 1x SD70M and 2x SD70MACs wore the livery before that came to a grinding halt. Last I knew a gentleman in the US possesses all 3x after I sold them years back and I hope he's gained the enjoyment from them I was hoping to. If Brian Kuhn (flight2000) is still rumbling around these forums, thank you again for your work sir!
Between the SD70s and what I'm doing now I revamped the concept to meet a couple of desires:
-Reduce the scope of the railway to something manageable and by this I mean move on from the original 1200km long line that paralleled the real Great Northern Railway line of the Queensland Railway to a railway line about 100km long set a bit further north up the coast from the original port. Map below.
-Use Australian equipment. The biggest thing I remember growing up are the details on our locomotives and having to add these to US models seemed like a bigger challenge than just using what we already have here. Out with the SD70s and in with local build GT46C-ACe locomotives (Australian body SD70ACe) and that's the blue and white loco up the back.
So the map!
From roughly Coorumba to Mungalli is the steepest part of the roughly 1300m climb from port to the mine near Ravenshoe (Ravens-hoe). While a 3'6" narrow gauge railway has been considered for this a standard gauge railway isolated from the state railway isn't a huge issue, all the GD hauls is magnetite ore and everything it needs can be delivered to the port by ship. So, on to the track plan...
(I've not finished the scenery part of the design, so many trees to add....)
This plan is designed around the desire to model the mine to port cycle of ore operations with as much 'spaces between places' as the space will allow hence the 3x levels. Operationally trains will run cycles from the port up to the mine, load and return to port to unload. While this is quite simple in theory with a couple of trains in operation and only one siding between it should be somewhat interesting.
Mixed in amongst this is the twice daily fuel train to the mine consisting of 7x tankers, along with a daily supply train with boxcars and gons loaded with material needed for the mine. I work on diamond drill rigs and have visited many mine sites in my time, there's alot of 'crap' that shows up reguarly mainly parts to keep the machinery running, construction supplies for expansion projects, etc so this will be at most a 6x car train, at the least it'll be a couple cars tacked on to the fuel train for it to deliver.
Last but not least, the occasional MoW train shutting the whole place down to lay new ballast, replace ties or rail, or just have some blokes standing around leaning on shovels while one poor sod does all the work.
As far as the layout is concerned here's some details in that tried and true form:
Track: Peco Code 75 Concrete Sleeper
Turnouts: Peco Medium Radius
Minimum Radius: 660mm is the aim, 770mm or more where possible
Maximum Grade: 3%
Minimum layout height: 1100mm
(Sorry I've no idea about Imperial measurements!)
Era: The present, ala Utah Belt.
The aim is to start work on this layout and have atleast benchwork ready by years end but it'll be squeezed in while I'm on breaks from work (I work 4 weeks on/2 weeks off) so progress may be slow
